Uninterrupted Power Supply on Election Day

By Herbert Vego

WHILE having coffee at Hotel del Rio, we stumbled upon the amiable regional director of the Commission on Elections (Comelec), Atty. Dennis L. Ausan. He was so busy typing on his laptop that we dared not disturb him.

But he stood up, approached our table and shook our hands.

“Why so busy, Sir?” I asked.

“I still have two years to go before retirement,” he said.

This early, however, he has already left behind a memento for present and future Comelec personnel. It’s his 500-page reference book Election Offenses, a Compendium, which exclusively deals with more than 300 election offenses. Vote buying, gun bans, and liquor bans are just a few of them. It also covers the procedure on how to file cases on election offenses and the penalties to be carried out.

“Our personnel should be provided with this book as there is a gap in the literary material insofar as elections are concerned,” he said.

The previous election books by other authors covered only the annotated Omnibus Election Code in 20 to 30 pages.

Ausan has gone around the region’s legislative districts to discuss administrative matters with the election officers.

He waxed enthusiastic, his office having prepared hard for election day on May 12. For instance, he had signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with President/CEO Roel Z. Castro of MORE Electric and Power Corporation.

The MOA binds MORE Power to ensure uninterrupted electricity in Iloilo City on election day.

Indeed, to quote Castro in a statement published by this paper yesterday, “We want to make sure that electricity — before, during, and after the election — is of unquestionable service.”

This means that the company’s linemen and other technical people will conduct thorough system checks, station technical teams at Comelec offices, and remain accessible at all times throughout the election period.

“We want everything to be within our control,” Castro said, “from the breaker all the way to the sub-transmission line.”

Under the MOA, MORE Power will also attach Comelec information leaflets to the monthly electricity bills of over 100,000 consumers in Iloilo City.

It’s the second time that the Comelec and MORE Power inked a similar MOA.

The first time was for the May 9, 2022 national and local elections.

-oOo-

BONG GO REALLY WINNING?

EVEN his fellow senatorial candidates at the PDP-Laban are not convinced about surveys showing only one of them, Christopher “Bong” Go, in the “magic 12” – and No. 1 at that – despite the criminal imputations against him.

Did money “talk” to the surveyors?

There are insinuations, however,  that he would be among the cohorts of former President Rodrigo Duterte who would face trial before the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague in September for crimes against humanity, having acted as the “paymaster” behind killer cops in the war on drugs.

Bong Go is identified with the group of Duterte’s common-law wife, Honeylet, who is not close to his children by his original wife, Elizabeth Zimmerman.

Elizabeth’s children – Vice President that is why Sara, Congressman Polong and Mayor Baste – are in no good terms with Bong Go. They detest his image as “bootlicker” of Papa Digong.

Digong had planned to anoint Go as his “successor” by running for the presidency in 2022, with Sara as running mate. But it did not materialize, allegedly because Sara would not agree, and so ended up with Ferdinand Marcos Jr. instead of Go.

There was a time when Baste called Go “traydor”.

Grapevine has it that it was Bong Go who called Duterte to come home while the latter was in Hong Kong.

It led to his arrest by the Philippine National Police in Manila.