Imee slams P14.2 billion Comelec budget for plebiscites

MANILA, Philippines —  Sen. Imee Marcos has flagged the P14.2-billion budget in the 2024 General Appropriations Act (GAA) allotted for the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to conduct plebiscites at a time when a people’s initiative for Charter change is underway.

In a Teleradyo Serbisyo interview yesterday, the senator and sister of President Marcos said that she only knew of Comelec’s request for funding to increase their personnel’s pay and to find better offices for field officers.

The executive’s proposed budget for the “conduct and (to) supervise elections, referenda, recall votes and plebiscites” was actually at around P2.2 billion, but this went up to P14.2 billion in the final version of the GAA after the budget went through the bicameral conference committee, Marcos said.

She warned that the budget is prone to abuse by the politicking of Charter change proponents, amid allegations that voters were bribed with P100 to sign the petition seeking to amend the charter and allow Congress to vote jointly instead of separately in a constituent assembly.

“That P14 billion could have been used for rice and gas subsidies, or for our problems in the health and medical sector. Why spend all the money and energy on power play?” said Marcos, chairperson of the Senate electoral reforms committee.

Marcos has filed a resolution seeking to investigate the alleged Charter change bribery involving P20 million from welfare funds for each congressional district that would be able to muster the numbers for people’s initiative.

Sixteen senators including Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri met on Wednesday to discuss the implications of allowing the House of Representatives to overwhelm the voting power of the Senate in any Charter change initiative, Marcos said. She said she was unable to attend because she was abroad.

Zubiri did not respond to reporters’ questions about the meeting.

“To all the voters, be warned. Let us not be ‘bobotante.’ Let us not allow our Constitution – the soul and heart of the nation – to be up for sale,” Marcos said.

A people’s initiative is one of the ways to amend the Constitution, where proponents must obtain signatures of three percent of the