The head of the Commission on Elections Campaign Finance Office has expressed his intention to quit the post a day after the Comelec en banc extended the period for the filing of candidates and parties' Statements of Contributions and Expenses.
Commissioner Christian Robert Lim, the chief of the Comelec CFO, confirmed this with GMA News on Friday night."Hindi acceptable and policy shift," Lim said in a text message as regards his plan to resign as head of the finance office.
Lim will stay on as a senior commissioner in the poll body.A member of his staff said the office was informed of Lim's decision on Friday.As head of the said office, Lim wrote the CFO's recommendation to deny the Liberal Party and other parties' requests for an extension of the period within which to file the SOCEs after they missed the June 8 deadline.
The extension will benefit hundreds of winning candidates who failed to file their SOCEs individually last June 8, as well as elected officials from LP, Aksyon Demokratiko, and Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino, who would may be barred from assuming their posts because of their respective parties' failure to file.
This includes Vice President-elect Leni Robredo and five senators-elect who ran under the outgoing administration's ticket. In a tweet, Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said turnover preparations in the said office "are underway." On a vote of 4-3, the Comelec en banc ruled to extend the filing of SOCEs until June 30.
The decision went against the CFO's recommendation. In the CFO memo, Lim recommended that the en banc reject in particular the request filed by the LP and its standard-bearer Mar Roxas, in which they asked for a 14-day extension.
Lim said Republic Act 7166 clearly provided that the submission of SOCE should be made within 30 days after the elections. He said an amendment of the law was needed for the Comelec to extend the deadline.
He also said that the Omnibus Rules on Campaign Finance provided that the June 8 deadline was "final and non-extendible."
"The 'final and non-extendible' nature of the 08 June 2016 deadline has been emphasized in the second paragraph of Section 2, Rule 10 of the Omnibus Rules on Campaign Finance," Lim said in the memorandum.
He added that it would not be fair to other candidates, who submitted their SOCEs on time to extend the deadline for LP.
"To grant the request for extension would not only be unfair to other candidates and parties who complied within the prescribed period but also would be a reversal of the commission's own resolution on the matter," Lim said.
With this recommendation came his dissent on the matter.
Joining him in opposing the extension were Chairman Andres Bautista, who suggested that late filers face penalties instead; and Commissioner Luie Tito Guia. Commissioners Arthur Lim, Al Parreño, Rowena Guanzon, and Sheriff Abas voted in favor of the extension, citing the "absurdity of the result" should it not be allowed.
In a television interview earlier on Friday, Bautista noted that Lim was "very adamant" about following the deadline."In trainings, he did emphasize that the deadline would be non-extendible," he said.
Sought for comment, Guia told GMA News: "I hope it's not true.
Source: GMA NEWS
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