Group’s appeal for nonpartisanship ‘unnecessary’: Comelec

MANILA – An official of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said on Friday the appeal of the of Asian Institute of Management (AIM) Alumni for Leni is “unnecessary” as it tends to sow distrust in the integrity of the poll body.

“Casting aspersions on the Commission on Elections and its deputized agencies without sufficient basis is the last thing we need now, more so that we are already in the home stretch of the campaign. It betrays the honest and tireless efforts of our poll workers who have been sacrificing a lot just to ensure the success of the coming polls,” Comelec Commissioner Socorro Inting said in a statement read by Commissioner Aimee Ferolino during a press briefing.

“Worse, the Appeal for Non-Partisanship and for the Holding of Orderly, Peaceful and Credible Elections on May 9, 2022 subtly conditions the minds of Filipinos that the upcoming elections are not credible should Vice President Leni Robredo lose in the presidential race,” she said.

Inting also told the group that all Comelec officials are aware of their mandate to hold honest, credible May 9 polls.

“It is the constitutional mandate of the Comelec and all its deputized government agencies to ensure that elections are free, orderly, honest, peaceful, and credible,” she said.

“As Commissioner of our poll body, I am ever conscious of this mandate. My colleagues in the Commission En Banc are likewise cognizant of this constitutional directive,” she noted.

Inting reminded the group that it is the same Commission that proclaimed Robredo as Vice President in the 2016 polls.

“Lest AIM Alumni for Leni forgets, Leni Robredo was proclaimed as Vice President in the 2016 elections through a credible process, spearheaded by no less than your Commission on Elections,” she said.

The AIM Alumni for Leni asked the Comelec and its partner agencies and organizations to be non-partisan in the May polls.

“You are tasked to make voting safe, to ensure that voting is secret, and to protect the will of voters as expressed on the ballot,” the group said in a statement.

“When elections are credible, the results will be accepted, and the transition to the new government will be peaceful and orderly,” it said.