Comelec to reshuffle personnel to prevent another ‘Hello Garci’

Some 50 election officers will be reshuffled to ensure that the results of the May 10 automated elections will not be rigged. A committee has been created to study the reshuffle of election field personnel, Commission on Elections (Comelec) Commissioner Rene Sarmiento told the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on Automated Polls Sunday. “We are also concerned [of the issues being raised against our personnel] because we want this election under our chairman to be a credible election," Sarmiento told the bicameral panel led by Sen. Francis Escudero and Makati Rep. Teodoro Locsin Jr. In an interview after the hearing, Comelec Chairman Jose Melo said among those to be reshuffled are personnel who have stayed in a certain area for more than four years. Expected to be affected by the movement are suspected protégé of former Comelec Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano, who is accused of manipulating the results of the 2004 elections to favor the Arroyo administration. A recording of his alleged conversation with a woman believed to be then presidential candidate Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo also surfaced. The controversy - dubbed as the "Hello, Garci" scandal - resulted to calls for President Arroyo’s resignation in 2005. Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. raised the issue on the continued stay of some election personnel in an area where they were accused of manipulating elections. “Some Garci [Garcillano’s nickname] boys are still in position of influence in various parts of the country holding official duties that will impact on the holding of elections in their respective areas. I would like to have an assurance from Comelec that it is not going to be so and we will take your word for it and I think it is about time that we all have trust for our officials in the government, that they are not in cahoots with this people who are trying to manipulate the elections," he told Comelec officials in the hearing. Pimentel said the credibility of the poll body does not only rely upon the actual results of the elections but in the perception that the people conducting the elections are acting above board and are people of integrity. “That is why it is important that those who have been tainted with anomalies in the past should be as far as possible, that they would have nothing to do with the elections," he said. Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal said the problem is there is no cases filed against the individuals accused of manipulating the elections. - KBK, GMANews.TV