Printing of ballots delayed by another week - Melo

Pending disqualification cases have further delayed the printing of the ballots to be used in the the May 10 polls, the chief of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said Monday. In an interview with reporters, Comelec chairman Jose Melo said they decided to move the printing of the ballots to February 7 to give the poll body more time to settle the pending cases. "Dahil marami pang MRs [motion for reconsideration] na hindi pa nareresolve (Because there many motions for reconsideration that have yet to be resolved)," he said.

The printing of the ballots has already been delayed delayed by a week also supposedly because of the pending disqualification cases with the poll body. It was initially scheduled to begin on January 25, but was later on moved to 30, then to January 31. Earlier, Comelec Commissioner Rene Sarmiento said that he could not specifically indicate how many cases were actually pending with the poll body. But he said that aside from cases awaiting resolution from the divisions, there are also appealed cases - both national and local - awaiting reconsideration at the Comelec en banc. Included in the prominent disqualification cases pending before the Comelec are those against Senators Manuel Villar, Benigno “Noynoy" Aquino III, former Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro, and Manuel "Mar" Roxas II (filed by lawyer Elly Pamatong); against former Senators Franklin Drilon and Sergio Osmeña III (filed by lawyer lawyer Vladimir Alarique Cabigao); against Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago (filed by lawyer Nombraan Pangcoga); against actor Richard Gomez (filed by a Buenaventura Juntilla); and against Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL) bet Vetellano Acosta (by Aquino). No problem in delay? But Comelec spokesman James Jimenez noted that this "delay" is a good thing because it would lessen the time that the ballots would be left stationary. Jimenez said the original shipment date of ballots to various municipalities was scheduled on April 25. But if they had begun printing on January 31st, they would have finished printing by April 19. "That means that there would be several days that the ballots would be sitting there, really not moving," he said. "That's not something that we are comfortable with from the point of view of security." He added that the opportunity to go through the list of the official candidates is just an "added bonus." "We have more time to make sure that everything is taken cared of properly. We want to make sure that everyone who should be on the ballot is on that ballot," Jimenez said. Melo, however, said that candidates who fail to file a petition seeking a temporary restraining order from the Supreme Court will not be included anymore in the official list of candidates to be printed on the ballots. This, said Smartmatic Asia President Cesar Flores, is because that the Comelec "cannot wait any longer." "The printing of the facilities were actually built based on their previous timeline so we cannot afford any changes, we already received delays. Any other changes may imply more printers or additional costs which we haven't caldculated yet," Flores told reporters in an interview. He, however, assured that the ballots would be printed on time as long as there would be no more delays. Earlier, the poll body said that it will only print ballots based on the number of voters who registered from December to October 31. As of January 15, there are already a total number of 50,723,734 registered voters, 37,422 voting centers, and 76,340 clustered precincts. Jimenez said that there will be 1,671 unique ballot faces. - Kim Tan/ RSJ/KBK, GMANews.TV