Ex-chairman defends Comelec from former commissioner's criticisms

Former Commission on Elections (Comelec) chief Sixto Brillantes on Friday scored a former commissioner over his "continuing public statements" criticizing the poll body's preparations for the May 9 elections.

In a statement posted on Twitter, Brillantes, who led the poll body in the 2013 midterm elections, said former members of the Comelec "should not be too publicly conscious in criticizing deficiencies of the current Commission."

Comment on Former Commissioner Goyo Larrazabal's continuing public statements on some Comelec deficiencies: pic.twitter.com/kPyBYkNUNf

— Sixto Brillantes Jr. (@ChairBrillantes) April 29, 2016

"The better alternative is for former Comelec officials to meet with the incumbents and assist in solving problems and deficiencies instead of picturing oneself as seemingly knowledgeable of everything on election matter," he wrote.

He added: "Administering and managing a total electoral process specially an automated system is not as simple as they appear. Defects and deficiencies will always be encountered and non-compliance of some mandatory requirements of the law will not render the entire process null and void."

Former Comelec commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal, head of the steering committee in the 2010 polls, recently wrote several letters to the Comelec en banc over some election issues, including the voting receipt, mall voting, and lack of certification from the Technical Evaluation Committee.

Brillantes answered some of Larrazabal's contentions one by one. In gist, he said a mandatory requirement from law will not nullify the electoral process.

"If such a mandatory requirement imposed by law will nullify electoral processes, then the entire elections of 2010 should have been nullified and declared null and void because of Comelec's failure to comply with the mandatory requirement that interested groups should have been allowed to make a source code review," he wrote.

"No source code review by interested groups was conducted prior to the May 2010 elections and yet the said elections remain valid," Brillantes added.

GMA News Online sought Larrazabal for comment, but he declined to give any. —KBK, GMA News