VOL. XXX NO. 135 3 Sections 32 Pages P18 MONDAY : JUNE 27, 2016 www.thestandard.com.ph editorial@thestandard.com.ph
Duterte: Sorry to families of users
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POLL CHIEF AWOL Comelec work left hanging, commissioners say By Sara Susanne D. Fabunan
COMMISSION on Elections Chairman Andres Bautista left for Japan Thursday without authority from the en banc, leaving the six other commissioners with unsigned procurement documents and resolutions piled up, a poll official said Sunday.
File photo shows Commission on Elections Chairman Andres Bautista before the May 9 elections. His fellow commissioners have issued a memo decrying his alleged ‘failure of leadership.’ Bautista flew to Japan Thursday without authority from the Comelec en banc, leaving nobody in charge.
Lower income taxes likely
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Comelec Commissioner Rowena Guanzon said Bautista did not follow the standard procedure for taking a vacation leave, which calls for the appointment of an acting chairman by the en banc while he is away. “Chairman Bautista did not have en banc authority to travel abroad and thus the en banc was not able to designate an acting chair,” Guanzon said in a text message. Guanzon expressed frustration that the Comelec could not start preparing for the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections in October because Bautista was not around. “There are documents still not signed, including notices of awards to suppliers of election materials, thus payments are delayed,” she said. She said the en banc wanted to appoint Commissioner Christian Robert Lim as acting chairman, but Lim refused because Bautista had not brought up the need for a temporary turnover of tasks. Earlier, all six commissioners issued a memo that decried Bautista’s “failure of leadership” and took him to task for the delayed payment of teachers who served as board of election inspectors, and the costs incurred in his failed mall voting project. Bautista played down the memo, which raised 15 “grave concerns,” and said he was able to talk to some of the commissioners Next page about these issues.
Tiamzons among 21 Reds eyed for release By John Paolo Bencito SOME 21 jailed communist leaders, all of them facing criminal charges for murder and other violent crimes, are likely to be released and get safe conduct passes as consultants in peace talks between the Duterte administration and the Communist Party of the PhilippinesNational Democratic Front (CPP-NDF),
a member of the incoming government peace panel said Sunday. A list obtained by The Standard shows that the 21 include Benito and Wilma Tiamzon, chairman and secretary-general, respectively, of the CCP, who were arrested on murder charges in Cebu in March 2014, and Adelberto Silva who replaced the Tiamzons as the head of the CPP. Silva, too, was arrested for outstand-
ing arrest warrants for murder. Over the weekend, President-elect Rodrigo Duterte confirmed that he and CPP founder Jose Ma. Sison are in talks to formally declare a ceasefire between the government and the rebel group’s armed wing, the New People’s Army, as the incoming leader seeks to put an end to the longest-running communist secessionist Next page movement in the region.