EDITORIAL - Comelec and the poll sabotage yarn

One of the most preposterous stories to emerge in the run-up to the 2016 elections is the one peddled by, of all sources, the Comelec itself. In deliberations on the poll body's P16 billion election budget, the Comelec told congressmen that China may be out to sabotage the political exercise meant to elect a new Philippine president next year.

No Filipino probably loves China at the moment. China has been grabbing islands in the West Philippine Sea that clearly belong to the Philippines. But China trying to sabotage the 2016 elections? Why would China do so? And what for? The Comelec said it got the information from the military but admitted it has not been validated. So why did the Comelec go public with it? It was very reckless and irresponsible for the Comelec to do so, to say the least.

On the other hand, if the military was truly the source of the information, why would it go to the Comelec first? Common sense dictates it should have gone to the president, who is the commander-in-chief, considering that the matter contained in the information involved both national security and foreign policy. Just because the subject matter involved an election does not mean the Comelec gets the information first.

But why did the Comelec go public with the information in the first place? It disclosed to the Philippine Congress the alleged plan of China to sabotage the 2016 presidential election to justify a decision it made with its favored contractor Smartmatic to move the manufacturing site of optical mark reader machines from China to Taiwan.

Since the Philippine Congress has made it a cottage industry of sorts to investigate almost anything under the sun, perhaps it should do a little investigating about the issue. But it should waste no time about the sabotage allegation because any investigation involving China will only lead nowhere. Besides, it can only serve to exacerbate the already dire position the Philippines is in with respect to its relations with China.

What the Congress might want to investigate is why Comelec and Smartmatic decided to make the move from China to Taiwan. The rather special relations Comelec has with Smartmatic have been the subject of much speculation already that maybe it is time someone took a peek. Sabotaging the 2016 presidential election is a mighty serious and sensitive matter, with or without China in the picture.

The mere mention of poll sabotage ought to set off the same alarm that merely saying the word bomb inside an airport or an airplane can trigger. The Comelec may be an independent constitutional body, but sabotage in any of its many forms is still a criminal act for which even the Comelec must be made to shed some light, especially since it was in fact the one that pushed the button in the first place.