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It was nearly 9 days ago, on Wednesday of last week, when Chairman Abalos announced to media that Comelec would declare a failure of election. Within a day, Abalos would retract that statement in the midst of growing controversy, if Comelec could even do such a thing as declare a failure of electon. Was this legal? Weren’t local officials already proclaimed? And if indeed local officials were proclaimed, that means Comelec no longer had any legal control of the fate of these ‘elected’ local officials.

Adding to the controversy was the argument that Comelec could not declare a partial failure of election. And so it was, earlier today, that Comelec announced that it would not declare a failure of election, but instead declared a Field Trip (more on this in just a few seconds, it’s a bit funny, promise)

But another growing controversy may loom. Because of the fact that Comelec has refused to set aside the Maguindanao Votes, despite not having any election documents. Lintang Bedol lost the limelight today, only because two other events overshadowed the Maguindanao proceedings, The Erap Trial and the Trillanes proclamation.

But how did Comelec come to this conclusion? By the minutes of proceedings from the Provincial documents. These documents showed that local officials were proclaimed and that the 22 municipalities were canvassed. These documents were signed by the Provincial Board of Canvassers, Lintang Bedol included.

They are presuming regularity of the elections despite not having the documents that were lost by Bedol, and despite having basically said that the Provincial COCs were not legitimate, and yet the Provincial Minutes of Proceedings are legitimate.

But, with that out of the way, the more controversial statement of the day, with regards to Maguindanao, for me personally, would be the announcement of Abalos that due to expenses, local officials were not able to appear before The Comelec, and that Comelec would have to go to them.

That’s right, Comelec will defer their decision on whether or not to set aside the Maguindanao Votes, in order to take a field trip to Maguindanao. From the Inquirer,

“So what will we do in Maguindanao? This is meant to look at the accountable forms that were mentioned during the hearing. This will then serve as the basis to reconstitute or reconvene the provincial board of canvassers for Senator,” he said.

Abalos stressed that if they find the accountable documents, there will be a canvassing. But if these accountable documents prove spurious or are not found, the Comelec, sitting as the National Board of Canvassers, can terminate the proceedings and set aside the canvassing of Maguindanao.

Opposition lawyers and Abalos argued for close to an hour on the need for the Comelec to visit Maguindanao after election officers failed to appear in Friday’s hearing.

Montagum also relayed that the election officers were in possession of “certain accountable election documents,” but they have asked the Comelec to retrieve them.

Upon hearing this, Abalos suggested that the Comelec’s Task Force Maguindanao, including himself, can fly to Maguindanao to inspect the documents before deciding whether to declare a failure of elections in the province.

Election commissioner Nicodemo Ferrer is in charge of the task force.

Abalos said that it might be too expensive for all 66 Maguindanao election officers — from the original 22 who have been served subpoenas — to come to Manila.

To this suggestion, the exasperated Abalos replied; “Comelec does not have enough funds to get them all [the election officers] here.”

That last statement, there is the controversy in my view. They cannot afford 66 Magundanao Election Officers to fly to Manila, but apparently they had the money to declare a failure of election, declare a special elections, prepare more election documents, require teachers and other election officials to set up elections as well as canvassing, and probably send some military battalions to guard the elections.

Apparently they could afford the much more expensive Special Elections, but cannot afford 66 plane tickets. (I told you it would be funny)

Abalos is grasping at anything these days. Logic aside, he’s almost believable.

The other question I have, and this may be important as well, what documents will they find?? If Bedol took the municipal documents and statement of votes, what other document are there left??

The only logical conclusion I can make is that they are trying to buy some time. To do what? Your guess is as good as mine.

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