Senate President Tito Sotto on Sunday said he instructed Senator Sonny Angara not to allow an alleged proposal to waive the requirements and safeguards in the procurement of the automated election system under the proposed 2021 budget.
“Cannot allow. I’m looking into it already!” Sotto tweeted on Sunday.
He was replying to a tweet by election lawyer Emil Marañon who alleged that “someone at the Senate” was trying to insert a provision in the 2021 spending bill to waive the election procurement safeguards.
“Someone at the Senate is now attempting to insert a provision in the GAA giving COMELC a carte blanche authority to waive/disregard all the requirements and safeguards in Section 12 of the Automated Election Law (RA 8436 as amended by RA 9369). THIS IS VERY DANGEROUS,” Marañon said.
“With this, COMELEC can now adopt an untested new system or it can waive all safeguards, mandatory tests, certifications, review by political parties and election watch dogs, among others. If this happen, the upcoming election can no longer be trusted,” he said.
Sotto said: “Easy to shoot down the proposal. Provisions of a general law cannot amend the provision of a special law. RA 8436 as amended by 9369 is a special law while GAA is a general law.”
Angara, chair of the Senate finance committee, confirmed he was instructed by Sotto “ not to allow” the alleged attempt.
“We are checking on that but the SPs directive is clear on that matter not to allow any such attempt,” he said.
The post Sotto: ‘Easy to shoot down’ proposal to waive Comelec procurement requirements first appeared on https://politics.com.ph.
Source: Latest Politics News Today (Politics.com.ph)
Hello, my name is Jack Sparrow. I'm a 50 year old self-employed Pirate from the Caribbean.
No comments:
Post a Comment