Elections Commissioner Rowena Guanzon’s threat to reveal the senator supposedly involved in delaying the poll body’s decision on the disqualification petitions against presidential candidate Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. fizzled out on Monday, as the day passed without her naming names.
This was after fellow Commissioner Aimee Ferolino lashed out at Guanzon for accusing her of holding hostage the Commission on Elections resolution on Marcos, who is leading most surveys ahead of the May 9 national elections.
Meanwhile, Malacanang expressed confidence that the Comelec could settle its internal issues after poll Guanzon dared Ferolino to join her in resigning from their posts due to the perceived delay in the resolution of the Marcos case.
Palace acting spokesman and Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles said Malacanang is leaving it to the Comelec “to resolve their own issues.”
“Among the seven highest officials of Comelec, we are confident that they can address whatever internal issues they may have, and we are confident they can resolve it… using their own internal protocols,” Nograles said.
On her Twitter account, Guanzon maintained her position that Ferolino should have finished writing the ponencia (majority decision) of the Comelec First Division, to which they both belong, within a fortnight after hearing the disqualification case.
“Unlike the (Comelec) Chair, it is my duty ad Presiding Commissioner that this DQ case is resolved within 15 days as specified in our Rules. Madaming satsat wala pa ring sinulat (Lots of chatter, but nothing has been written),” Guanzon, who is retiring on February 3 (Thursday), tweeted last night.
In a memorandum responding to Guanzon’s demand for an explanation on the alleged delay, Ferolino said she is “judiciously scrutinizing all the attached evidence” in determining whether Marcos should be disqualified or allowed to run as president in the May elections.
“With all due respect, there is nothing to explain because I do not submit to your pronouncement that there is delay in the release of my ponencia (majority ruling) on the Marcos cases,” Ferolino wrote.
She asked Guanzon to “stop conditioning the minds of people that there is delay because there’s none” and that the January 17 “deadline” cited by Guanzon was not the collective decision of the First Division.
Guanzon is racing against time to make her vote to disqualify Marcos count. If the First Division promulgates its decision after her retirement on Thursday, her vote would not be counted.
Ferolino did not say when her draft ponencia would be ready. The other member of the First Division is Commissioner Marlon Casquejo.
Guanzon challenged Ferolino to release the resolution or resign if she could not release it before Guanzon retires on Feb. 3.
Ferolino said she was tasked to write a draft ruling on three separate disqualification petitions consolidated into one, and that she was only designated for the job on Jan. 10.
She claimed that Guanzon demanded that she and her staff work “24 hours” or “walang tulugan” (pull an all-nighter) to draft the ponencia.
Guanzon’s actions “are destroying the credibility” of the Comelec, said Ferolino, who was appointed as commissioner in December.
“I am asking you to spare the Commission from all these controversies because you are destroying the credibility of the agency,” she said.
In an apparent response to Guanzon’s claim of “political interference” and “suhol” remark, Ferolino said a vote in favor or against Marcos will not “benefit [her] in any way.”
The petitions against Marcos were based on his 1995 conviction for tax evasion.
The Comelec on Monday also released Guanzon’s separate opinion on the disqualification cases against Marcos Jr., where she voted to disqualify the candidate for “moral turpitude” for failing to pay his income taxes in 1980s.
Marcos served as vice governor of Ilocos Norte from 1981 to 1985, the year when he purportedly failed to file his income tax return.
The Marcos camp, however, said moral turpitude could not serve as grounds for disqualifying the former senator.
In a statement on Monday, Victor Rodriguez said the filing of a fraudulent return with the intent to evade taxes was considered as a crime involving moral turpitude as it entails willfulness and fraudulent intent on the part of the individual.
The same, however, cannot be said for failure to file a return, where the mere omission already constitutes a violation but is not a crime
involving moral turpitude, he said.
“I vote to grant the petitions for disqualification filed against respondent Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos, Jr. In view of the foregoing facts, I vote to declare respondent Ferdinand Marcos Jr disqualified from running for the position of President of the Philippines,” Guanzon said in her 24-page separate opinion.
In her opinion, Guanzon said committing a crime of moral turpitude is grounds for disqualification under the Omnibus Election Code.
Marcos’s non-filing of his income tax returns for the years 1982 to 1985 constitutes moral turpitude, she said.
“For decades, the government was deprived of the taxes which [the] respondent failed to pay. In a very real sense, [the] respondent’s failure to file his ITRs, which in turn led to the belated discovery of [a] deficiency taxes, had a deleterious effect on the public interest,” Guanzon wrote.
Guanzon also noted that Marcos was a public official at the time, having served in the provincial government of Ilocos Norte. She said he must have had staff at the time to handle matters for him, yet he still failed to comply “with what everyone else complies with.”
“Instead of setting a good example for his constituents to emulate, [the] respondent acted as if the law did not apply to him,” the commissioner said.
“Taken altogether,” she added, “all of these circumstances reveal that the respondent’s failure to file his tax returns for almost half a decade is reflective of a serious defect in one’s moral fiber.”
In her tweet, Guanzon said, “Let us resign together since the integrity of the Comelec is now in question.”
Guanzon also said she will inform Comelec Chairman Sheriff Abas first to give him a chance to exert a “last-ditch effort” to resolve the
problem among themselves.
“I am calling on Chairman Abas to resolve this problem because it is already affecting the integrity of the entire Commission on Elections,” she said.