The printing of the official ballots for the 2022 elections have started last Thursday, January 20, as ordered by the Commission on Elections, but election lawyer Romulo Macalintal has urged the commission to cease the printing operations, on Wednesday, January 26, 2022, as the official ballots excluded candidates who have secured temporary restraining orders (TROs) against their disqualification cases.
In an earlier statement, the lawyer said the COMELEC should secure a clearance from the Supreme Court to check the granted TROs against the candidates and party-lists who are excluded in the printing of the official ballots.
“Indeed, the COMELEC should have first advised the SC that it could no longer obey its restraining order before it started printing the ballots and should have asked for authority from the SC to proceed with the printing of the ballots despite the existence of said TROs on certain candidates,” Macalintal said.
“The COMELEC has all the time to seek such clarification from the SC and advise the court of its plan to start printing the ballots instead of just saying that ‘the ballots are ready to go, so we went ahead’ which practically ignored the restraining orders of the court,” he added.
Macalintal also recalled how the commission used to tout how they started the early printing of ballots (February to April 26) back in 2019.
“In a word, if COMELEC could brag that it started printing the May 2022 ballots ‘way earlier’ than the May 2019 polls, then there is no reason why the COMELEC could not get such clarification from the SC before it started printing the ballots for the May 2022 elections so as not to prejudice those parties protected by the SC’s TROs,” he said.
However, during the ‘Kapihan sa Manila Bay’ forum that also took place on the 26th, COMELEC spokesman James Jimenez defended that COMELEC pushed through with the printing of ballots even without the names of the concerned candidates, for they have already serialized the ballots even before the Supreme Court has given the TROs.
He also reiterated that they must start printing ballots as they want to avoid conflict in targeting to print about 65 million ballots.
“Basically, we might have to crash timelines. We might have to hurry things up. And when you hurry these things a lot of things get left by the wayside. The right process is (not) being left behind or you will need to make shortcuts to beat the deadline, and we want to avoid that,” the spokesman said.
He also clarified that this year’s election is a ‘little more complicated’ as it is a presidential election, and notes that they could reprint ballots, as long as the Supreme Court orders them to do so.
“We hope the Supreme Court will understand the urgency on this matter for us and that they are fully aware of the timetables we are operating under,” the spokesperson’s rebuttal on the election lawyer’s call.
“By last Sunday, everything for the preparations for the printing of the ballots had already been completed. And at that point, ballots were already serialized. There were already serial numbers attached to the ballots. The ballots were already fixed and ready to go. At that point it was either we went ahead or we didn’t,” he said.
“Considering that everything is ready to go, the Commission then decided upon consultation to just go ahead with the printing. How will the TROs affect? Well, we are facing the TROs. Every time a TRO is sent to us and we are asked to comment, we participate. We are part of the process to resolve these issues,” spokesperson Jimenez added.
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