MAY 4 (Eagle News) — Malacanang on Monday announced the appointment of Atty. J. Andres D. Bautista as the new chairman of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) who said that he would ensure that the country would have clean and peaceful elections next year.
In a statement, Deputy Presidential Spokesperson Abigail Valte said the appointment papers of Bautista and two others were signed by President Benigno S. Aquino III on April 28.
Bautista, who chairs the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), will take over the post vacated by Sixto Brillantes, Jr., who retired last February.
Rowena Amelia V. Guanzon and Sheriff M. Abas were also named as Comelec commissioners, replacing Lucenito Tagle and Elias R. Yusoph, respectively.
All three will serve until February 2, 2022.
The new set of officials said they would do their best to ensure that whatever system of elections would be used next year would work well.
The Supreme Court last month voided an agreement between the Comelec and Smartmatic-TIM for the P300 million diagnostics and repair of the 80,000 precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines to be used supposedly for the 2016 elections.
The new Comelec chair, Bautista, 51, finished his law degree at the Ateneo de Manila University in 1990 as class valedictorian and earned a Master of Law degree from Harvard Law School in the US in 1993.
Born in Quezon City, Bautista was a former dean of the Far Eastern University’s Institute of Law. He was a candidate for Supreme Court chief justice in 2012.
Bautista served as president and chief executive officer of Shangri-La Properties from 2006 to 2010, prior to his appointment as PCGG chairman. (Eagle News Service, with PND report)