Tuesday, December 27, 2005

A Petition In Support of Senate Report No. 44

Fellow Filipinos,


Just a few weeks ago, the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee released Senate Report No. 44 recommending that all COMELEC Commissioners involved in the “COMELEC modernization scam”, should resign.

A group of us concerned Filipinos, who also happen to be IT practitioners and are very familiar with the facts of the case, decided to prepare a statement in support of the Senate Report. Our plan is to send this statement to the COMELEC, the Senate, Congress, the Ombudsman and the Solicitor-General, about the middle of January, 2006.

Before former Ombudsman Simeon Marcelo resigned, he mentioned that their office had already finished its report and that such will soon be submitted / elevated to the Sandiganbayan. This has not happened. We therefore need to exert pressure on their office to speed up the process.

The Office of the Solicitor-General, whose task it is to run after the money which was illegally disbursed, has not progressed much in that effort. We need to highlight this anomaly in order to recover the P1billion that had already been paid. Many say that in the Philippine context, this is an impossible task. But these things only become impossible tasks because we readily accept them to be such. In fact, it is apathy that makes these tasks so impossible.

If conspiracy between the COMELEC and the winning bidder could be proven, then recovery of the money could be achieved. We believe there is a paper trail that can prove such conspiracy.

Anyway, first things first: we have opened up a page in PetitionOnline with a copy of our statement of support for Senate Report No. 44. If you agree with the statement, then we encourage you to sign the petition with us. Just click on the following URL to access the petition page:

http://new.PetitionOnline.com/resignow/petition.html

Thank you very much. May we, even through incremental efforts and gains, finally achieve what we all aspire for --- clean, honest, orderly and peaceful elections. And ultimately, a better
Philippines for all Filipinos!

Gus Lagman

2 comments:

Ruby said...

count me in! ( i have signed the petition!!!)
cheers!

Leah Navarro said...

After forwarding your query to Mr. Lagman, goddess of the chase, I received this repky, which I forward: The ITFP was always in contact with the past Ombudsman, Mr.Marcelo, in this regard. It is now preparing to send the present Ombudsman a copy of the petition.

As for the resignation call being premature, I don't really think so. The courts already found Comelec in error, so shouldn't these Commissioners vacate their positions as a show of respect for the institution?