Comelec spox: Advance announcement of decision in Bongbong motion may be part of mind conditioning, propaganda

Commission on Elections’ (Comelec) spokesperson James Jimenez on Friday said the advance announcement on the extension period given to former senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. to answer the petitions against his presidential bid might be part of "propaganda" to condition the public.

Jimenez made the remark as he maintained that the Comelec's Second Division only approved Marcos' motion for extension at around 2:50 p.m., hours after Marcos' spokesperson, Atty. Vic Rodriguez, said on national TV that the extension has already been granted.

"I verified that [Rodriguez’s] claim and found out that it is not true at least at that moment. I spoke to several people who would know, who are authoritative in this matter and they all assured  me that no such extension had been granted, and in fact it had not been granted until around 2:50 in the afternoon after, I gave my announcement," Jimenez said in an ANC interview.

"A lot of this is about conditioning the mind of the public, a lot of this is about propaganda, a lot of this is sending signals that 'We're doing fine and we're gonna win this case’ and that's a common enough legal strategy," he added.

The Comelec spokesperson said "he sincerely doubts" that Marcos' lawyers had the actual papers on the extension period to respond prior to his official announcement.

Jimenez also stated that Rodriguez "was talking out of his hat" when he made the remark on Thursday morning, adding that Marcos' spokesman might have "felt confident enough that the decision would come in their favor."

"I think in this case, this particular lawyer felt strongly enough that they were gonna get it and made an announcement along those lines. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they have any inside information," he said.

Rodriguez: We have source

GMA News Online has sought Rodriguez for his comment, but he has yet to respond as of posting time.

During a press conference on Thursday, Rodriguez said they have a source inside the Comelec and that there is nothing wrong with that.

"What's wrong with that? Hindi naman puwedeng kayo lagi ang nauuna sa balita [It's not always the media who can get the news first],” Rodriguez told the media when asked how they were able to get an advance information.

Asked if the Comelec commissioners are bound by confidentiality rules, Jimenez said these are not necessary.

"I don’t think that having confidentiality rules per se is necessary. I think it is simply ethical if you are running a judicial or a quasi-judicial authority that you, of course, not leak your decisions ahead of time. I think that simply ethical," he said.

But whether or not the staff had access to information on these cases is a different story, Jimenez added.

"Our government agencies [have] varying levels of porosity. Some are more porous than others. As far as Comelec is concerned, I don’t think that we have a major problem with that since this is happening only in this particular case. But again as I said unless I see proof otherwise, the simplest answer would be that he called it correctly” Jimenez said.

On the other hand, the petitioners seeking to cancel Marcos' COC will appeal the Comelec order granting extended period to Marcos to answer their petition on the argument that there is nothing to extend since the poll body issued the November 18 order for extension after the deadline lapsed last November 16.

"It (appeal) is being prepared and we will file it soonest. The period [to file answer] expired on November 16th.There was no Comelec order [to extend] before that. The November 18 Comelec order did not extend anything because there was nothing to extend," lawyer Theodore Te, a counsel for one of the petitioners, said in an ANC interview.

Likewise, Te said Rodriguez having early information on a ruling does not look good on the Comelec.

"It is, at the very least, suspicious and the Comelec must take action to find out if that was just a lucky guess or a confidence building measure," Te said.

"That is why we will be filing motion for reconsideration," he added. --KBK, GMA News