DRILON SHOOTS DOWN COMELEC’S MOVE TO POSTPONE MAY 2016 POLLS

        Senate President and re-electionist senatorial candidate Franklin M. Drilon this week said that he will block any attempt to postpone the  May 9, 2016 elections.

    “I strongly oppose the move to postpone the elections. I am strongly against the Commission on Elections’ move to hold off the election based on the Supreme Court decision on the printing of receipts,” Drilon said.

    “The Comelec cannot postpone on this ground based on existing law. There should not even be talks about postponement. I will block any attempt to postpone the election,” Drilon stressed.

   The four-time Senate President said there is no legal basis for the Comelec to do so.

    He explained that under the Omnibus Election Code, postponement may only be effected for “serious causes such as violence, terrorism, loss or destruction of election paraphernalia or records, force majeure, and other analogous causes of such nature that the holding of a free, orderly and honest election should become impossible in any political subdivision.”

  Instead of making speculative public pronouncements on the postponement of elections, Drilon advised the Comelec to find ways on how to comply with the Supreme Court ruling.

     “It is premature for the Comelec to make public pronouncements on the postponement of elections because there still is time,” Drilon said. 

    “I urge the Comelec to instead focus all their resources to follow the Supreme Court decision. We are in favor of observing the May 9 elections, as mandated by the Constitution,” he stressed.

    Drilon said that the Comelec is mandated by no less than the Constitution to conduct, without fail, clean, orderly and credible elections in the country.

     He concluded that the Comelec will violate the Constitution if it fails to execute its mandate./MP