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Commission on Elections (Comelec) chair Sixto Brillantes on Thursday said it was not surprising that former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo entered a not guilty plea to the electoral sabotage charges they filed against her, which he said remains to be an airtight case.

 

"We expected [that] she will plead not guilty. Dapat naman [not guilty plea hinain niya], kung umamin siya tuluy-tuloy na siya sa kulungan," Brillantes told GMA News Online in an interview.

 

Brillantes issued the statement hours after Mrs. Arroyo pleaded not guilty to electoral sabotage charges, where she is accused of allegedly ordering the rigging of the 2007 polls in favor of candidates running under the then administration party.

Brillantes, however, said he was confident that whatever defense the former president's camp cooks up, they would still win the case.

 

"Hindi naman kami nagfile ng mahinang case, ready na kami, we're prepared for the trial," he said.

 

Senator Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III, who had also accused Mrs. Arroyo of orchestrating the poll rigging, said he wished her "all the best of legal defense"

 

"Pero mahirap yung kaso niya kasi may eye witness," Pimentel said in a separate interview Thursday.

 

Brillantes was in the Senate for a hearing on the problems that haunted the 2010 elections.

 

In an interview with reporters, he said they are already in the process of implementing reforms for the 2013 midterm elections.

 

He said they will be coming out with a resolution revising the rules on party-list participation and another on the campaign expenditures of candidates.

 

Brillantes added that they might advance the period of filing of certificates of candidacy to Oct. 1, 2012.

 

But Brillantes said they have yet to resolve whether they will buy or lease the needed 40,000 voting machines from poll machine supplier Smartmatic, who supplied the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines during the 2010 elections.

 

He noted, however, that this will also depend on the budget that they will get from the government. But he said he was confident they have time to resolve all of these issues.

 

"We still have more than one year to prepare for the may 2013 elections," he said. — RSJ, GMA News