“The Comelec should know what the Constitution prohibits.”
It was a complete betrayal of public trust when the Commission on Election signed an agreement with Rappler relegating its most delicate duty of safeguarding the votes to a foreign-operated agency known to specialize in defrauding the mandate of the people. To quote Rigoberto Tiglao, a columnist of the Manila Times: “the agreement gives the US-funded website anomalous authority during the elections such access to data on all the voters and where they could vote, and for the agents it appoints (as MovePH “volunteers”). Sources said the agreement wasn’t even discussed nor approved by the Comelec.”
The basic question is not really about the violation resulting from the signing of the agreement but the complete abnegation of duty entrusted to the Comelec by the Constitution. The duties of the Comelec are enumerated in Section 2, subsections 1 to 9, Article XI-C of the Constitution. Unfortunately, the now jailed senator coming to the defense of Rappler that was once branded by President Duterte as a front of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), instantly came to the rescue of Rappler to pre-empt any investigation to scrap the agreement by insisting that the Comelec is an independent body.
For the knowledge of Senator De Lima, everybody knows the Comelec is an independent constitutional body. But it does not detract that Rappler is a foreign-funded organization and has no license to operate business pursuant to its avowed claim as mass media and that its principal stockholder has been convicted by the regional trial court.
The fact that Rappler has been declared as operating without a license by the SEC but continues to violate the Constitution is more than enough to forewarn the Comelec of the illegality of the agreement it entered into. What Rappler is doing constitutes an open travesty and mockery of our constitution. In the case of its CEO named Maria Ressa, the claim of her supporters that her conviction is pending appeal is non sequitur. It does not give her the right to commit additional violation of the law. Rather, she should set herself as an example, being a Nobel Peace Prize awardee.
On top of it, she is not a natural born Filipino citizen but a dual citizen, indicating that the privilege is not due to patriotism or law of country. It was economic convenience that goaded her to her desire to be granted permission to locally work which she is not allowed to operate. Setting aside the anomalous and questionable agreement, it would seem that the peace prize awardee is a habitual delinquent, and acts as if she is above the law. The cases pending against her for which she was convicted are just pending in court. Only after the court after the court concluded her appeal either affirmation or acquitted can she erase the narrative that she is a convicted felon.
By concluding an agreement with the Comelec, ipso facto makes that agreement illegal. For that Ressa appears to be defiant of the prohibition she should be punished heavily for that.
The mere fact that the Comelec is declared by the Constitution to be an independent body, the supporters of electoral fraud consider the status of Rappler as an inviolable privilege. This has become the modus operandi of US-operated fronts to wreak havoc to an otherwise peaceful, free and honest election.
The current war now raging in Ukraine was started by the same front funded by the National Endowment for Democracy which is banned in most countries. NED was responsible for initiating the civil unrest until it developed into what Ukrainians called “orange” revolution to oust the duly elected president Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014.
After the coup, the neo-Nazis waged false accusation of a rigged to justify the oustes. They then proceeded to wage an intense anti-Russian campaign to eject the Russians living in the eastern portion of Ukraine. Of course there were other closely related issues liked the eastward movement of NATO, the open-ended policy of recruiting former members of the Warsaw Pact to join the alliance until Russia finally invade Ukraine, accusing it of unprovoked and unjustifiable attacked telling the world how they ousted the duly elected president.
Prominent American meddlers openly intervened to destroy an otherwise peaceful electoral process that today has metamorphose into a full-scale civil war. I guess, Ressa and her cohorts want to start a civil war in this country if their puppet fails to make it this coming election.
According to Ressa, Rappler will mobilize its own network of #FactsFirstPH initiative, which is a collaboration of 14 news groups and over 100 civil society organizations. It says, the top digital-only news organization will alert the Comelec on false and misleading election-related claims in social media. The poll body may also refer to Rappler’s election-related post for fact-checking purposes.
Ressa said she is thrilled to be working with the Comelec to ensure the integrity of the elections, saying it will be in three broad ways: voter engagement, access to critical information at the right time, and fact-checking. This is unprecedented for never before had a foreign organization been organized to oversee the election particularly that most poll survey indicate that BBM is leading. According to Tiglao, if the result shows that Bongbong Marcos and Saha Duterte-Carpio appear to be winning, their so-called fact-checkers could easily fabricate failure of election. The greatest danger is once their finding is made that cannot be reversed by appeal to the Comelec. In that the duty of the Comelec has completely been relegated to Rappler which is not even registered and authorized to hold an election in addition to being prohibited to operate as mass media.
One need only to review the articles written by the staff writers of Rappler. So far, this column has yet to come across an article favorable to BBM. This is symptomatic that this alien supported paper endorsing the “pinklawan” is a sleeping traitor operating in our midst. Many suspect Leni Robredo was invited when to witness the agreement and in cahoots with that bearded Comelec official. There is a picture showing Robrebo reverentially smiling before the American proconsul perhaps wanting to be assured a favorable counting of votes in her favor.
There are however important questions to this arrangement made by the Comelec. First, Ressa’s role as overall head of this agreement is questionable for the fact that she is an alien. Second, she being a private person cannot act as overall head with power to rule and make decisions to overrule the commissioners. Third, as head she will have access critical information at the right or any given time; and an army of fact-checkers serving as “volunteers” to supervise or supersede the findings of the Comelec which is odd much that the head of Rappler is a convicted criminal who would be exercising a degree of authority over the commissioners who are sworn and duly appointed to perform the duties and functions under the office.
Under the agreement, Rappler is mandated to perform election-related (counting result) for fact-checking purposes. This means that Rappler, through Ressa, will serve as the de facto appellate body to decide discrepancies in the result as decided by those anonymous fact-checkers. In the final analysis, the agreement will technically result in the privatization of the Comelec to a private corporation which is not even registered or much more authorized to undertake the counting of election results.