Dear Chairman Melo,

You have been an associate justice of the Supreme Court, the country’s highest tribunal. Everyone bows down to the wisdom of the court.

This month, that same court which you once served and which we all are bound to respect ruled in a unanimous decision that invalidated a resolution of the Commission on Elections which you lead as chairman. The court said there is no reason why the commission should cut down, reduce and shorten the number of days alloted by law for new voter registration. The court said that the commission should encourage citizens turning 18 on Election Day to register in order to be able to vote, especially considering the role of elections and suffrage in the democracy we supposedly have.

In its decision, the court said that the commission should reopen the registration period until January 9, 2010.

It is thus a surprise that the commission stubbornly insists on not following the spirit and letter of both the law and the court decision. Instead of reopening the registration period until January 9, 2010 as ordered by the court, your commission dictated and imposed a different deadline which falls today, December 29, 2009.

By insisting on a December 29, 2009 deadline, the commission steals six days (January 4-9, 2010) from prospective new voters.

We have heard your reasons but they are flimsy. Of course you have plenty of things to do, but that does not allow you to violate the law and the orders of the court and thereby deprive qualified citizens their right to vote. From the very moment news broke that the court made an immediately-executory decision, the commission which you lead issued contemptuous statements, questioning the decision instead of following it as what is required under our system of laws. Later, the commission half-heartedly complied, did not launch a new publicity campaign to reinvite the tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, or millions, who previously were turned away and turned off by the inefficient registration centers across the country. Of late, we have heard the commission making noises about low turnout of new voters, as if your commission has done anything meaningful or profound to renew youth interest in the elections.

This is not a question of laziness of the prospective new members of the electorate, but the apparent disinterest of the commission in including as many of them in the process, of using all its power and prerogatives to encourage mass registration on a nationwide scale in an orderly and efficient process devoid of the chaos that marked the days leading to your invented deadline of October 31, 2009.

Actually, I am surprised that we have to plead to the commission on this issue when the law is so clear and after the court, the country’s highest tribunal,  which you once served, already ordered a new January 9, 2010 deadline for voters’ registration. I am surprised that we have to plead that the commission follow the law when abiding by them is supposedly elementary in our republic and our much-touted democracy.

Respectfully yours,
Tonyo Cruz
A voter and citizen of the Philippines