Palace turning poll body into a puppet – Mike Arroyo's lawyer

“Malacañang is destroying the independence of the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) and turning it into a ‘puppet…’ by creating a joint panel of the Department of Justice and the COMELEC to investigate and try alleged anomalies in the 2004 and 2007 polls," the legal counsel of former First Gentleman Jose Miguel "Mike" Arroyo said in a press statement released on Monday. Arroyo lawyer Ferdinand Topacio says that an Aug. 15 executive order, “the so-called Joint Order No. 001-2011, fuses the COMELEC, a constitutionally-independent body, with the DOJ, which is a political agent of the Executive Branch." “This is legally impermissible. Whoever conceived of that joint order must have been smoking a joint," Topacio said. “[COMELEC] chairman Brillantes should have opposed this latest assault on the integrity and independence of the COMELEC," the lawyer said. “[But] he meekly stood by and delivered the COMELEC to the Executive Branch like a lamb being led to slaughter. This is a less than brilliant stand on his part." In October, one of Arroyo’s previous lawyers had called on the poll body chairman to inhibit himself from the poll fraud probe on the ground that Brillantes was the lawyer of the late Fernando Poe Jr., who was the opponent of Arroyo’s wife, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, in the 2007 presidential elections. 'Something that goes beyond scary' Topacio also lamented that “the pronouncements of Presidential Spokesman Edwin Lacierda that the filing of charges against the Arroyos ‘is an order from President Aquino and that government officials are supposed to carry it out,’ is something that goes beyond scary, because it turns the COMELEC into a puppet of Malacañang." “The President, as early as July, has already imposed a deadline for the end of the year for the Arroyo Spouses to be charged," noted Arroyo’s counsel. “The fact that they refused to close the investigation against the former First Gentleman, notwithstanding the finding of sheer lack of evidence against him, shows clearly where this inquisition is going: they will try to produce evidence against the First Gentleman by hook or by crook, even if they have to fabricate the evidence," concluded Topacio. — MRT/VS, GMA News