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By Efren L. Danao, Senior Reporter
Senator Richard Gordon said Saturday that the
nation should focus on electoral reforms before discussing potential
contenders for the presidency in 2010.
Senate Majority Leader Francis Pangilinan, on
the other hand, said that focus should be on who would be appointed
to the Commission on Elections (Comelec).
Meanwhile, Sen. Loren Legarda said that talks
about 2010 are premature and serve as distraction to the solution of
pressing problems like the spiraling oil prices and poverty.
Gordon, chairman of the Senate Committee on
Electoral Reforms, said that the country should concentrate on
electoral reforms to avoid electoral fraud in the upcoming August 8
elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and eventually
in the presidential elections in May 2010.
“If the country has to change, [the electoral
system] has to be reformed. This will be a good test if Filipinos
have already acquired the moral backbone. If not, we will be like
Haiti or Kenya or Pakistan, if we ever allow a convicted highest
official to govern again,” he said.
He added that these reforms should start with
President Gloria Arroyo showing transparency in the selection of the
next chairman and commissioners of the Comelec.
“If there is transparency, people will have
less doubt about the appointees and in the Comelec,” added Gordon,
who has been pushing for automated elections to eliminate fraud
since 2000.
Three vacancies in the Comelec are to be filled
up in February with the resignation of Chairman Benjamin Abalos, and
the retirement of Commissioners Resureccion Borra and Florentino
Tuason on February 2.
Pangilinan echoed Gordon’s sentiments on the
significance of the Comelec appointments.
“Political parties and their leaders must
focus on ensuring that the Comelec appointees to be appointed in a
few weeks’ time are men and women with integrity and capacity.
Without an independent and [corruption]-free Comelec, all this talk
about 2010 is a waste of time,” he said.
He noted that the search committee had reported
that 56 names were being considered for the Comelec positions.
“We urge the search committee to make public
the list of these nominees and to invite the public to submit
position papers for or against these nominees. The list should be
made public before it is culled or shortlisted,” he said.
Meanwhile, Legarda said that while there is
nothing wrong for political parties to “sound off” and prepare
for 2010, they may prove to be more of a distraction to the nation
already beset with pressing problems like poverty and the spiraling
prices of oil products.
She said that the political landscape could
still change before the 2010 elections, but the pressing problems
are already here and now.
“Based on my experience in the past three
elections, line-ups are usually formed just months ahead of the
election so, the pronouncements we are hearing at present may be
just to test the waters,” Legarda added.
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