The people are not yet through with Andy Bautista

THE elected representatives of the people, or at least the 26 members of the justice committee of the House of Representatives, including majority leader Rudy Fariñas and its chair, Rep. Rey Umali, have decided to dismiss against Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman Andy Bautista on the grounds that it was

The fatal flaw ranged from a that it appeared to have been submitted to the House and not to the justice committee, to the have no personal knowledge of what they alleged.

The junking of the petition was simply based on a technicality, and not on the substance of the allegations.

And yet we already heard Andy Bautista proclaiming that the dismissal is the beginning of his exoneration.

It behooves one to ask by what could claim that a dismissal based lead to a celebration of his innocence of the charges.

Bautista should be reminded that while he may have the presumption of innocence on his side, this is simply because the people’s representatives have denied the complainants the chance to prove his guilt.

But we, the people, are not yet done with him.

The people have an enormous interest in Andy Bautista’s case, and it has nothing to do with his marital problems but with the allegations made about his possible wealth which he did not declare in his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN). Also of interest is his alleged taking of commissions legal service provided to Smartmatic, which was the provider for the automated election system,

At the very heart of these allegations is the fact that they could cast a cloud of doubt over the integrity of our election system, one that Andy Bautista presides over.

In fact, if it is true that the electoral process was compromised by his acts, then such would have been a blatant attack on our democratic institutions, and would have violated the political rights of the people.

Article 21 of the Universal Dec- laration of Human Rights (UDHR) explicitly states that “the will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret ballot or by equivalent free voting procedures.” This is reiterated in letter b or Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

Hence, Andy Bautista’s case is of utmost importance to our democracy, for its integrity hangs in the balance based on his guilt or innocence. Such would have been clearly established had the House justice committee allowed substance to take precedence over mere technicality.

While one can be skeptical of the remaining remedy in the hands of the House, where one third of