Stories tagged
‘miriam defensor-santiago’

PCIJ audit of election expense reports

All right to lie, cheat, bluff?
Election laws gray, untested

by Che de los Reyes and Karol Anne Ilagan

IT WAS 1992; Fidel V. Ramos had just been voted as president, and Joseph ‘Erap’ Estrada as vice president. Presidential bet Miriam Defensor Santiago was crying foul, saying she had been cheated. She would later file an electoral protest, but the Commission on Elections (Comelec) was apparently more interested in something else: conducting its first ever audit of the campaign contributions and expenses of candidates for president, vice president, and senators for the then recently concluded polls.

The Comelec, then headed by Christian Monsod, seemed serious, and even formed a committee to examine the books of account of candidates, political parties, donors, and media entities. Lawyer Josefina de la Cruz, who became part of that committee, also recalls that the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), Commission on Audit (COA), and the National Bureau of Investigation served as Comelec’s “counterparts” in the initiative.

Read more… | Posted Thursday, August 12th, 2010
Sidebar

Some networks comply, gov’t TV, radio do not

by Che de los Reyes and Karol Ilagan

According to Comelec Resolution No. 8758 or the “Rules and Regulations Implementing RA 9006, otherwise known as the Fair Election Practices Act in Relation to the May 10, 2010 Synchronized National and Local Elections, and Subsequent Elections,” all media entities, whether print or broadcast, are required to submit copies of their political advertising contracts within five days after these are signed. If a political ad is donated, a written acceptance by the candidate, political party, or party list group for which the donation is being made should be attached to the advertising contract.

Read more… | Posted Tuesday, March 16th, 2010
What went wrong with the Comelec?

The Comelec’s fall from grace

by Alecks P. Pabico

TO DESTROY an institution like the Commission on Elections (Comelec), you must first fill it up with handpicked commissioners with questionable credentials and even more dubious impartiality. Then, let them run the constitutional body as if they were ruling over personal fiefdoms. This would then reduce middle-level bureaucrats to mere vassals doing — or forced to do — their every bidding, including perhaps, as the taped conversations involving President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and Comelec Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano suggest, rigging the elections in their political benefactor’s favor.

Read more… | Posted Saturday, July 2nd, 2005