MANILA – Nominees of losing party-list groups should also be covered by the one-year ban on appointment in public office, an official of the Commission on Election (Comelec) said.
Comelec commissioner Rowena Guanzon appealed to Sen. Imee Marcos, who chairs the Senate committee on electoral reforms, to include the party-list bets in appointment ban.
Guanzon made the call after former communications assistant secretary Margaux “Mocha Uson’s return to government as deputy administrator of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA).
“I am appearing in the Committee of Sen. Imee; I propose (that the) ban should also cover Party-List nominees” Guanzon said in a tweet. “And party-list to put up bond. If nominee is DQ (disqualified), forfeit their bond.”
Guanzon also retweeted another social media post quoting her as saying: “They should not be a favored class because they are not a protected class.”
Meanwhile, Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez has earlier said that President Rodrigo Duterte’s appointment of Uson was not a violation since party-list representatives are not covered by the one-year appointment ban.
“She is not covered. Party-list nominees are not candidates per se and so, the rule does not apply to them,” Jimenez said.
Prior to her OWWA job, Uson joined the government as member of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board before being named as assistant secretary at the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO).
At PCOO, Uson drew flak for allegedly spreading disinformation online, posting a racy video on federalism and a video of her friend, blogger Drew Olivar, flailing his arms around pretending to do the sign language, on her Facebook page.
She has tendered her resignation on October last year as she had tried to secure a seat in the House of Representatives through party-list AA-Kasosyo. The group, however, lost in the May midterm elections./PN
