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19
Dec
Joey III asks Comelec to reverse decision on Lim
Businessman Joey de Venecia III yesterday urged the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to reconsider its decision to exclude Gen. Danny Lim, an adopted candidate of the Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino (PMP), from the list of qualified candidates for the Senate.
Lim is an adopted candidate of the Pwersa, the political party formed by former President Joseph Estrada to which de Venecia also belongs.
The son and namesake of former Speaker Jose de Venecia said the Comelec’s decision was unjust because Lim had the capacity to wage a national campaign, having been adopted by both the Pwersa and the Liberal Party.
“It taxes the imagination how the Comelec could have arrived at such a conclusion,” de Venecia said in a statement to media.
“The least that Comelec could have done, if it had doubts, was to request the PMP and the LP to affirm their inclusion of Gen. Lim in their respective slates,” de Venecia added.
The ZTE-national broadband network whistleblower is a senatorial candidate of the Pwersa. He earlier welcomed the inclusion of Gen. Lim in the party’s senate slate, referring to the military leader as “a man of principle and integrity.”
De Venecia said the Comelec should show its commitment to free, honest and meaningful elections by reversing its decision to disenfranchise Lim. Failure to do so would be considered “irresponsible behavior on the part of the Commission, to put it mildly,” he said.
“At stake here is the very credibility of the electoral process,” according to de Venecia.
Earlier, the IT businessman also aired his support for Ang Ladlad, the gay rights group seeking party-list representation in the House of Representatives.
The Comelec had disqualified Ang Ladlad for reasons that de Venecia said “bordered on the obscene.”
Gay Filipino men and women were clearly part of the minority who had every right to seek a voice in Congress.
The Filipino people, not a small group of homophobic Comelec commissioners, should decided if gays were entitled to party list representation, according to de Venecia.
De Venecia said the exclusion of Gen. Lim, the disqualification of Ang Ladlad, and the removal of Gov. Grace Padaca from office were “warning signals” that the Arroyo administration was moving behind the scenes to prevent an overwhelming election victory by the opposition in the May 2010 polls.
