A congressional staff arranges ballot boxes containing the Certificates of Canvass and Election Returns during the Joint Session of Congress Presidential and Vice Presidential Canvass at the House of Representatives in Quezon City on Friday. The canvassing of votes was completed Friday evening.(MNS photo)
MANILA (Mabuhay) — Commission on Elections’ (Comelec) senior Commissioner Christian Robert Lim has formally stepped down as head of the poll body’s campaign finance office.
In a letter filed Monday afternoon, Lim tendered his “irrevocable” resignation following the “policy shift” that allows candidates and political parties that failed to meet the June 8 deadline to still file their statements of contributions and expenditures (SOCEs).
Lim, in his capacity as CFO head, recommended that the en banc deny giving such extension, in particular the request filed by the Liberal Party and its standard-bearer Mar Roxas.
The poll body, however, ruled to grant the parties an extension until June 30 via split vote, 4-3. This allows filing without penalties.
“Given the Commission’s policy shift resulting from granting the request for extension without any sanctions on the erring candidates and parties—which I had expressly dissented from and is now incongruent with my own views on the matter—I believe that I am unsuitable to continue with my duties both as the concurrent head and Commissioner-in-Charge of the Campaign Finance Office,” Lim wrote in a memorandum to the en banc.
The commissioner thanked his staff at the CFO, as well as field officers, “for their tremendous efforts to enforce campaign finance laws.”
He also thanked candidates and parties “who have exerted their best efforts to comply” with the rules.
“While justice remains elusive, the fight for transparency and good governance continues,” he wrote.
In a chance interview before filing his resignation, Lim said the extension was “illegal” as it “is tantamount to an amendment of the laws.”
He added that the en banc decision brings all the work of the CFO “back to zero.” (MNS)