Juan Andres Bautista
finally resigned on Wednesday as chairman of the Commission on Elections
(Comelec), “with deep sadness” and “with much prayer and discernment.”
Let it not be said,
however, that the nation owed him a favor for his decision to step down, which
was, in fact, long overdue because of his many sins of commission and omission.
That Bautista’s intended
departure was not supposed to take effect until the end of the year probably
compelled the House of Representatives to impeach him just hours after he
announced his resignation. This act by the lower chamber reversed last month’s
unceremonious decision by the House justice committee to drop the impeachment
case filed against the Comelec chief by a group of complainants led by former
congressman Jacinto Paras. The initial dismissal of the impeachment complaint
was likely a deal to allow Bautista to exit gracefully. *
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| Juan Andres Bautista finally resigned on Wednesday as chairman of the Commission on Elections (Comelec), but it did not deter the House of Representatives in impeaching him( photo credit to Interaksyon) |
Technically, Bautista
will still face trial at the Senate impeachment court after the congressional
break, unless he amends his resignation and makes it effective immediately.
The political pressure
on Bautista is undeniable, but Bautista’s offenses include neglect of duty that
resulted in the hacking of voters’ personal information, allowing automated
election machine provider Smartmatic to tinker with the script of the
“transparency” server that broadcast the 2016 election results, and hiding
nearly P1 billion in ill-gotten wealth as alleged by his estranged wife,
Patricia Paz.
Bautista should have
resigned as early as January, when the National Privacy Commission released a
damaging report recommending criminal charges against him and other Comelec
officials for the massive hacking of voters’ data now infamously known as
“Comeleaks.”
His negligence led to
the leak of the personal data of millions of Filipinos – enough to break into
bank accounts and credit cards, among others – to the dark corners of the Web.
In other countries, a
public official would have resigned posthaste. But this is the Philippines,
where public officials surround themselves with prayer brigades rather than
take command responsibility.
Not even an
honest-to-goodness apology was heard from Bautista. His flimsy defense was that
the Comelec was an agency of lawyers, not information technology practitioners.
Yet as a lawyer, he
should have known that under the Data Privacy Act, “all sensitive personal
information maintained by the government, its agencies and instrumentalities
shall be secured, as far as practical, with the use of the most appropriate
standards recognized by the information and communications technology industry,
and as recommended by the commission. The head of each government agency or
instrumentality shall be responsible for complying with the security
requirements mentioned herein…” *
So it took a personal
embarrassment – Patricia’s very public washing of their dirty linen – for the
Comelec chairman to finally announce his resignation.
Bautista now has a tough
choice to make – to resign immediately and face the likelihood of criminal
charges being filed against him, or stay until the end of the year and go
through an impeachment trial.
Whatever his decision,
he will go down in history – as Kabayan party-list Rep. Harry Roque said – as
the first Comelec chairman to be impeached.
The Manila Times
Editorial Oct, 12, 2017 (Too
late a move to exit gracefully)
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