Ballot printing deferred anew

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2 more TROs issued vs Comelec rulings

SLAPPED with two more temporary restraining orders (TROs), the Commission on Elections (Comelec) will again defer the printing of official ballots to be used in the May national, local, and Bangsamoro parliamentary polls, Elections chairman George Garcia said yesterday.

Printing had been set to resume today but the Supreme Court yesterday issued two new TROs on the Comelec’s decision to disqualify former Legazpi city mayor Noel Ebriega Rosal, who is gunning for the gubernatorial post in Albay, and declare Francis Leo Antonio Marcos, who is running for senator, as a nuisance candidate.

In an interview in Laguna, Garcia said the Comelec cannot proceed with the ballot printing “since our Law Department and Information and Technology Department will have to redo the ballot faces, serialization, and our database.”

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Asked how long the deferment will last, the poll chief said they will apply the necessary changes immediately.

“We will need about two to three days to complete the entire process,” said Garcia. “Instead of tomorrow (Wednesday), we may do it on Saturday.”

He said the changes will no longer be as extensive as the first suspension of the ballot printing as they have already put in place an “ADD TO” feature in the Election Management System (EMS).

“We will no longer need to make changes in the EMS and redo the trusted build because we have the ‘ADD TO’ feature already,” he said.

2 MORE TROs

The SC en banc issued the new TROs following its en banc session yesterday.

“The SC issued a TRO preventing the Comelec from implementing the resolutions cancelling Noel Rosal’s certificate of candidacy,” a briefer issued by the High Court said.

It said that the magistrates ordered the Comelec to comment on Rosal’s petition challenging its resolution barring him from running in the local elections within a non-extendible period of five days after receipt of notice of the order.

Rosal, who is seeking Albay’s gubernatorial post, has been barred by the poll body from participating in the local race despite the pendency of his appeal of the Office of the Ombudsman decision that dismissed him from his post. The Ombudsman has imposed the accessory penalty of perpetual disqualification from holding public office when it sacked Rosal.

Rosal questioned the legality of the Comelec decision, saying that the Ombudsman ruling was not yet final since he has filed a motion of reconsideration.

A certain Josefino Valenzuela Dioquino sought Rosal’s disqualification.

The SC likewise enjoined the poll body from enforcing its decision to declare Marcos, who is also known as Norman Mangusin, as a nuisance candidate.

Marcos became a popular online personality at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic after he posted his “Mayaman Challenge” where he challenged wealthy people to help poor families affected by the pandemic lockdowns.

He was arrested by the National Bureau of Investigation in 2020 for violating the revised Optometry Law of 1985 after he allegedly distributed unauthorized eyeglasses in Baguio City.

In declaring Marcos as a nuisance bet, the Comelec held that he did not show a genuine intent to run for office, even though he was allowed to run in the 2022 elections, where he received 4,477,024 votes.

On Monday, the SC also issued an injunction against the Comelec, stopping the poll body from barring Mandaue City Mayor Jonas Cortes from gunning for a fresh term.

MORE TROs?

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Sought for comment on when the SC will keep issuing injunctions considering its impact on the timetable of the Comelec for the printing of ballots, the SC Public Information Office (PIO) noted that since October 9, 2024, it has received 25 petitions for prayers for TROs.

“The SC has acted on 10 cases plus two today, so we still have a few pending. (We) will just have to wait and see if the SC will issue a TRO,” it said.

“Let’s just see what the SC will do,” it added.

Garcia said that in the event that more TROs are issued by the SC, these will be treated on a case-to-case basis. “We will act accordingly,” he said.

BALLOT PRINTING TIMELINE

Despite the numerous delays in ballot printing, Garcia said the poll body is not revising its self-imposed deadline to complete the printing of the 73 million official ballots by April 14.

“We can’t promise that we can really complete printing the ballots by April 14. (But) our target date remains April 14. We won’t change it so that, on the part of the Comelec, we will still do everything necessary to attain that target date,” he said.

He said the Comelec cannot afford to go beyond April 20 to finish the ballot printing.

“We wouldn’t want to go beyond April 20 because it will be very difficult to deploy the election paraphernalia in far-flung areas,” the poll chief said.

To help the Comelec meet its deadline, Garcia said they plan to have a daily printing output of 1.5 million ballots once they resume operations.

This will be with the use of the four National Printing Office (NPO) printers and the two HP PageWide Advantage 2200 machines provided by Miru Systems.

“We are now making adjustments with the printers. Hopefully, once we resume, we will have 1.5 million ballots printed per day,” said Garcia.

NUISANCE CANDIDATES

In a related development, Garcia yesterday sought to penalize election aspirants who will be found to be as nuisance bets.

He said it is time to consider being a nuisance candidate as a criminal act instead of simply disallowing them from seeking public office.

“It is about time to impose criminal liability against them. Either imprisonment or at least fine should be imposed in order to teach them a lesson,” said Garcia.

“The provision on nuisance candidates in the Omnibus Election Code will have to be amended,” he said.

Under the Omnibus Election Code, the Comelec may “motu proprio or upon a verified petition of an interested party, refuse to give due course to or cancel a certificate of candidacy if it is shown that said certificate has been filed to put the election process in mockery or disrepute or to cause confusion among the voters by the similarity of the names of the registered candidates or by other circumstances or acts which clearly demonstrate that the candidate has no bona fide intention to run for the office”.

Garcia said he was referring to those who have repeatedly filed their COCs and have been declared as nuisance bets, or those who are allegedly being paid every election to cause confusion to voters, or those who have received payment to join electoral races.

“Many individuals do that every election, (they) are making a mockery of the electoral process,” he said.

He said the criminalization of such acts will not violate the Constitutional rights of freedom of expression or equal opportunity for public service.

“There will still be a proper determination if there is bad faith,” he said.

For the May 2025 polls, the Comelec has declared 117 senatorial aspirants as nuisance bets.

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