Usurping Congress’ canvassing mandate FRONTLINE Ninez Cacho-Olivares 05/12/2010

Usurping Congress’ canvassing mandate

FRONTLINE Ninez Cacho-Olivares 05/12/2010 What the Commission on Elections (Comelec) commissioners are doing is all wrong, in the sense that they as a body, are not empowered by the Constitution to announce the results of the elections on the presidential and vice presidential level, since this rightly belongs to Congress, that is tasked to canvass the results of the top two political posts, automated or manual, taken from the provincial certificates of canvass. The task of the Comelec en banc, constituted as a national election canvasser, is to strictly announce and proclaim the senatorial winners.  While the commissioners may have received official partial results of the votes of all the candidates, since they all come in one ballot and one certificate of canvass, they have no mandate, and no right to come out with the partial results of the presidential and vice presidential elections. Yet that was what they had done, in the past 36 hours or so. As of writing time, what the Comelec commissioners have been putting out as partial official results of the 2010 polls for the president and vice president, along with the senators are merely transmitted results and these figures are not even taken from the official certificates of canvass, which have not as yet arrived.... MORE   Source:  The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100512com2.html

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