Aquino to push for postponement of ARMM polls

To stop the alleged “buy and sell" of votes in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), President Benigno Aquino III will push for the postponement of the elections there and synchronizing it with the national and local elections in 2013. At a press briefing in Malacañang, presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said the postponement of the ARMM polls, originally scheduled in August this year, will be one of the 17 priority bills President Aquino will present to lawmakers at the end of this month. Aquino is set to convene the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) on February 28. “We need to synchronize because as we know, [the] ARMM has been a region where there is such a thing as command votes. It has been manipulated a number of times in the past elections, that is something that we need to address," Lacierda said. He said the Aquino administration wants to prevent the abuses that happened in the past ARMM elections. “We all know what happened during the ARMM elections where even those who are dead were voting. We want to cleanse everything. We want to prevent a system were the ARMM is the region where one will run to if he wants to win," he said. “This is something that has been going on for the longest time. So we want to make sure that ARMM elections will also be a place where one can vote and his vote can be counted and not a place where losing politicians will just use as a point where one can buy votes," Lacierda added. He said the government would save money with the synchronization. Under the bill drafted by Malacañang, the next regular elections for the regional governor, vice governor, members of the regional legislative assembly of the ARMM shall be held on the second Monday of May 2013. They will have a three- year term. It also stated that the incumbent elective officials of the ARMM shall hold office only until Sep. 30, 2011 when the President appoints officers-in-charge, who will be in post until the next officials are elected. The appointed officials, however, shall be ineligible to run in the next regular elections. Lacierda said the ineligibility provision is included to discourage people who have political ambitions from wanting to be appointed as OIC. “Part of it is the idea of putting in professional and competent people. There’s been a defect in the ARMM system of governance and those that’s going to be appointed will be tasked to improve the system, put in place a system that will be efficient," he said. He said the appointed officials will be part of the transition team. “The whole idea is to come up with a better system of governance in ARMM. Secretary Lou Antonino of the Mindanao Development Authority as well as (presidential peace adviser) Secretary Ging Deles would play a major part in helping flesh out this," he said. Lacierda admitted that some of the stakeholders in ARMM oppose the poll postponement and synchronization. “We have to convince a lot of the people in ARMM of the benefit of having to postpone the ARMM elections," he said. He noted that President Aquino ordered Antonino to conduct roundtable discussions to explain the government’s side on the matter. “It’s a matter of convincing the stakeholders and in fact I was speaking to Secretary Lou Antonino this morning and the response in the dialogues the President required have largely positive been," he said. He said the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which the government is having peace talks with, will be informed of the planned postponement. “We will inform the MILF peace panel. It is something that is separate (from the peace talks). We do not need to get the consent of MILF but it is something that we will inform the MILF," Lacierda said. - KBK/RSJ, GMA News