At dapat hindi lang yung issue ng automated voting machines ang isampa sa kanila, Joker Arroyo.
I believe the bigger reason kung bakit dapat matanggal sa pwesto at makasuhan ang mga taga-COMELEC ay dahil sa role ng mga officials na ito sa dayaan sa 2004 presidential elections. If you're only going to punish them because of the Mega Pacific issue, then you're pretty much giving this admin a free pass on GLORIAGATE.
Sa aking opinyon, kaya may dayaan sa nakaraang election is not so much because hindi na-implement ang automated counting machines, kung hindi dahil may mga election officials sa loob ng COMELEC na nag-double as "dagdag bawas" operators ni ate glo (and many of them are still there).
I feel na half-baked lang ang "reforms" na lalabas dito dahil ang focus ay nasa-Mega Pacific issue, at hindi mapaparusahan itong mga COMELEC officials na ito (including Garci and Barcelona) sa role nila sa election fraud scandal, dahil wala naman silang kinalaman sa Mega Pacific contract awarding.
More: PDI Editorial on the new legal principle created by Merceditas Gutierrez.
And from Ninez Cacho Olivares, who makes a few good points:
It does look like Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez is still taking orders from her patrons in Malacañang, given the report her office made on the automated voting machine scam submitted to the Supreme Court, after an extension or two.
She zeroed in on Commission on Elections commissioner Rex Borra, virtually laying all blame on him and the retired poll commissioners, but noticeably excluding the Comelec chief, Benjamin Abalos from the same scam.
For Borra, the Ombudsman recommended impeachment, since he is an impeachable officer, while the others are recommended to face charges of graft and corruption.
And if the Malacañang order is for Borra to be impeached, why, Gloria’s lapdogs in Congress can always come up with well over 79 endorsers and send the complaint to the Senate for trial — pronto.
After all, Gloria needs commissioners who will toe her line, and ensure that her cover-up of her fraud, along with the fact that more poll fraud is needed in 2007, to ensure that her congressional and senatorial bets win, if only for her to claim she is supported by the people.
Borra never got the ire of Malacañang until he testified in a Senate hearing on the wiretapping probe that touched on the 2004 poll fraud, where he was quoted as saying he wasn’t going to be a hypocrite and admitted that there was massive fraud.
Abalos, it will also be recalled, quickly came up with a spin on Borra’s remark, saying the commissioner never quite meant it that way. Strangely enough, Borra never corrected Abalos either, even when the Senate records show that Borra was accurately quoted by the media.
But why was Abalos excluded from the charges? Why didn’t the Ombudsman also recommend that the chairman be impeached by Congress?
This is not to say Borra should not be charged, or made to face impeachment, but why is Abalos, who, at the very least, should be charged by virtue of command responsibility, being protected by the Ombudsman, and evidently, Malacañang?
Borra has been in the Comelec long enough to know the ins and out of the agency, and having served under so many Comelec chairmen and commissioners, he certainly knows it is always the Comelec chief that has to give the final nod — especially at a time when everybody knew that he had a line to Gloria.
If Abalos is being protected — and well — it is almost certain that this has to do with the 2004 vote-rigging in favor of Gloria. Too many indications point to this.
The fact alone that the machines purchased by the Comelec were not vote-fraud free, as anybody — especially Malacañang — could link up with them was already suspicious in itself. The computers were ordinary ones, and extremely hackable, not to mention grossly overpriced.
UPDATE: Ito kaya ang dahilan kung bakit pinag-iinitan si Rex Borra ng administration?
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