PIMENTEL SEES NO NEED FOR SUCCESSION BILL

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) today said he sees no need for Congress to enact a new succession law supposedly to prevent a leadership vacuum that may arise in case of failure of the 2010 elections.

Pimentel said he does not believe that there will be a failure of elections just because this will be the first time that the country will have a fully automated, nationwide polls.

He also expressed the belief that an amendment to the Constitution, and not an ordinary legislation, can modify the order of presidential succession prescribed under the Charter.

"It is possible that there may be a failure of election in certain areas - a few municipalities or cities. But this will not prevent the Commission on Elections from determining and proclaiming the winning presidential and vice presidential candidates as early as possible," the veteran lawmaker said.

Pimentel said the nation should be relieved over the assurance of Director Fernando Rafanan, director of the Comelec law department, that a failure of the automated elections is impossible to happen.

Rafanan, who chaired the Comelec's special bids and awards committee for the automation project, said that in case the electronic voting machines break down in certain areas, they can be replaced from the reserve machines. Smartmatic International was contracted to manufacture and deliver 82,500 voting machines - far in excess than the number necessary --as part of the P7.2 billion automation contract.

Pimentel expressed confidence that the automated system will live up to its promise of speeding up the counting and tabulation process and eliminating fraud that had been the bane of manual elections in the past years.

"On the whole, we have every reason to believe that the automated elections will be much more credible than the manual system. But if the losers have complaints against the winning presidential candidate, they can always file a protest," Pimentel said.

He also pointed out that the Constitution clearly provides the order of succession in case of vacancy in the presidency. The Vice President is first in the order of succession followed by the president of the Senate and the speaker of the House of Representatives.

Noting that one proposal is for the l2 non-reelectionist senators to elect from among themselves a new Senate president, Pimentel said this will not conform with the constitutional rule that the Senate cannot function and elect it president unless there is a quorum of at least l3 senators or one half plus one the chamber's 24 members.

He said that since the elections will be held on May ll, 2010, there will be enough time for the Comelec to resolve any problem and proclaim the winning presidential and vice presidential candidates before the term of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo expires on June 30, 2010.

Pimentel said Congress, through its oversight functions, should see to it that safeguards for orderly, fraud-free and credible elections are fully implemented by Comelec and Smartmatic instead of bothering itself with the enactment of a law to designate an interim or caretaker president which may be in anticipation of an illusionary scenario and therefore just be a waste of precious time.