Commission on Elections Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. has threatened to resign from his post if Malacañang, through the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), pushes the P5-billion cut in the Comelec budget.
“I do believe we might be forced to go to manual elections since the P8-billion budget is insufficient for an automated polls,” he said.
The DBM had initially trimmed the proposed P24-billion budget to P13 billion then further cut it to P8 billion.
“I will not administer a manual election. We will insist that they return to us the P5 billion,” he stressed.
But administration ally Sen. Franklin Drilon slammed Brillantes for his “alarmist” statements about the possibility of a no-election scenario in 2013 due to purported lack of funds.
“Absolutely, Brillantes’ warning has no basis and is uncalled for. I am totally disappointed,” the lawmaker said in a statement.
“The conduct of a clean, honest and orderly election is Comelec’s obligation under the Constitution, and failure to conduct the 2013 election is a culpable violation of the Constitution and betrayal of public trust,: Drilon said.
“To say that the Comelec is lacking in funding is completely not true,” he added.
Drion explained that there is no way the Comelec would run out of budget for the upcoming elections because the Congress has already provided the agency, in this year’s budget, with “sufficient” funding for the conduct of the automated national and local elections in 2013.
He stressed that of the P10.11 billion budget of the Comelec for 2012, P7 billion was allocated for the preparatory activities of the agency for the 2013 elections.
In particular, the amount should be used to purchase PCOS machines and other election materials.
But out of the P7 billion, only P1.8 billion was used for the purchase of the PCOS machines leaving a projected balance of P5.166 billion by the end of the year.
The Department of Budget and Management, on the other hand, determined a P13 billion budgetary requirement for the Comelec to conduct the elections, explained Drilon. Thus, it proposed a budget of P8.383 billion, plus the P5.11 billion savings will cover all Comelec expenses in 2013 – far from what appeared to be a bloated budget proposal of Comelec amounting P24.43 billion.
“If we combine the proposed 2013 budget and the savings from the purchase of PCOS amounting P5.166 billion, it will total P13.431 billion,” Drilon said.
“So, where is the fuss now given the facts that funds are obviously available? Definitely, I don’t see what the Comelec chief has seen for coming out with such alarming positions. Likewise, I don’t see any reason  the Comelec would fail to do its constitutional mandate given this amount made available for them,” he added.
Malacañang, for its part, maintained that the Comelec has enough resources to proceed with automated elections in 2013.
Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said the election-governing body can tap into its vast savings to augment its regular budget and hold the automated counting of election returns in next year’s mid-term elections.
“I think Comelec should look into their savings. I think they have substantial savings in their budget,” Lacierda said.
He added that during his discussion with Budget Secretary Abad on the issue recently, the Budget chief informed him that Comelec had ample savings.                  Fernan J. Angeles