Why not Nene Pimentel?
| C.R.O.S.S.R.O.A.D.S |
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| Jonathan De la Cruz |
The early retirement of Comelec Chairman Jose Melo has stirred a hornet’s nest of sorts. Some sectors are speculating why Melo, who has four more years to serve after presiding over the country’s first automated elections last May, decided to abbreviate his stay by January 2011 when there are no especially difficult tasks ahead except for the scheduled ARMM elections next year. These sectors scoffed at Melo’s excuse that he wants to “spend more time with his grandchildren and play more golf” as an easy way out of a reported campaign by some close P-Noy partisans to ease him out to give way to their favored replacement. Reports are rife that some of them have actually seen Melo and in no uncertain terms “talked” him into issuing that resignation letter after insinuating that the latest barangay and SK elections fiasco was just the latest in a number of possible items which may be brought up in their year end assessment of the poll body’s operations. There were even suggestions that the J. V. Ongpin forum on the May elections featuring former Comelec Chairman Christian Monsod and others who have expressed concern over lingering problems at the poll body was just a preview of things to come. Of course, others believe that the amiable chairman deserves a break and this is as good a time as any for him to say goodbye. My only hope is that before he goes he gets to advice the nation on what to do with the balance of the budget allocated for last May’s election and the offer of Smartmatic, the poll body’s technology and solutions provider, the better to clear the air as some quarters are again hard at work trying to suggest that the impasse on these two concerns has something to do with the “division of spoils.” which is of course as ridiculous and wacky as many of those unsavory rumors about the Comelec and its employees immediately after the May elections which continue to linger up to now. But that is another story.
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Source: The Daily Tribune
URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20101129com4.html
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