Comelec: the ‘Sword of Damocles’ against Makabayan Bloc

THE news that had sent shivers down the spine of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), is the decision, “with finality” of the Second Division of the Commission on Elections (Comelec), rejecting the claim of the Gabriela Party List (Gabriela) that the government, thru the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), has no “legal standing” to ask the poll body to remove it from the roster of partylist groups allowed to participate in the country’s congressional elections.

In a decision dated January 13, 2021, Second Division presiding commissioner, Socorro Inting denied the motion for reconsideration filed by Gabriela on Inting’s earlier ruling issued last November 24, 2020.

For the government, the so-called, ‘long wait’ is finally over, having filed the disqualification case against Gabriela just right after the 2019 elections. Considering however the notorious pace by which things happen in our bureaucracy, the process is quite “fast.”

And having hurdled the issue of legal standing, everyone now expects the Comelec to move much faster in resolving the main point raised by the task force before it:

That Gabriela should no longer enjoy the benefit of participating in our country’s electoral process because it has knowingly violated the country’s election laws and the Constitution by accepting money it solicited from abroad while remaining active in aiding the terrorist campaign of the CPP and the New People’ Army (NPA) against the government.

Moving forward, the Comelec’s decision is now the mythical ‘Sword of Damocles’ hanging over the head of Gabriela and the rest of the so-called ‘Makabayan Bloc’ in Congress.

For should the Comelec decides to finally oust Gabriela from the partylist roster, the same can be applied to the rest of the Makabayan Bloc, as all of them are “guilty” of the offenses alleged by the NTF-ELCAC against Gabriela.

But more than the threat of expulsion in Congress and the bloc’s further exclusion from the country’s electoral process looming ahead, the more telling implication of the process now going on in the Comelec is the irreparable damage this would inflict on the Makabayan Bloc as a “left-of-center” but totally legitimate member of the political opposition.

In other words, their well-manicured image as a group under perennial government persecution because of their “pro-poor” and “patriotic” principles would be totally unmasked as a sham, not worthy of sympathy and public support.

And with it, only the insane and the totally clueless among us would still be willing to allow themselves to be recruited by the Makabayan Bloc.

Here’s hoping that the Comelec, commissioner Inting most especially, would continue to maintain her sangfroid amidst the intense pressure we expected to be brought down her and the Comelec by “hakot crowd’ of the Makabayan Bloc.

Abangan!