TWO new members of the Commission on Election (COMELEC) were appointed by President Benigno S. Aquino III on Thursday to fill in the vacant positions left by two of its commissioners last month.
Former ambassador Macabangkit Lanto and election lawyer Bernadette Sardillo will replace Rene Sarmiento and Armando Velasco who both retired as commissioners on February 2.
Lanto and Sardillo were chosen by the President out of the three nominees he interviewed recently. The President said he already signed their appointment papers and these will be sent to Congress for their official confirmation.
Besides serving as the country’s top diplomat in Egypt and some of the countries in the Middle East, Lanto held several portfolios in government including a stint at the Department of Justice as undersecretary.
“He has proven his worth, I believe, during times that he performed or tried to perform his function when the higher ups were preventing him from doing what should have been done,” President Aquino said of Lanto.
Sardillo, on the other hand, is an experienced election law practitioner who has “demonstrated her mettle in defending the rights of the citizenry” in several particular election contests, especially in the last electoral exercise, the President said. (PCOO)
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