SENATOR Leila de Lima on Friday urged the Commission on Elections to immediately throw out the petition filed by the supposedly dominant PDP-Laban party to reopen the filing of Certificate of Candidacy for all elective positions in this year’s elections.

De Lima, a former election lawyer, wondered why the Comelec allowed the petition of the PDP-Laban Cusi Wing to subsist instead of outrightly dismissing it for its outlandish nature and irregularity.

“There is no precedent for a petition of this kind, simply because the finalization of the list of candidates has always been imbued with urgency for the Comelec to still entertain any petition of such kind that would effectively delay an already tight election schedule,” she said.

“Comelec’s preparation for the elections always operated on the basis of clockwork implementation, leaving no room for delays, much less a deliberate scheme to set the schedule back to October four months before election day,” she added.

The senator reiterated that Cusi’s petition is an obvious attempt to push for a no-election scenario this year.

“Unless Comelec throws it out at once, instead of blatantly wasting time until their retirement, there are ample grounds to speculate that the scheme is indeed being pushed in order to bring about a no-election scenario. This is because by February 2, all Comelec commissioners will be Duterte appointees,” she explained.

“Duterte is also expected to replace the three outgoing commissioners with loyal appointees. By that time, it won’t be difficult for the Cusi petition to breeze through the Comelec, especially if the new Comelec chairperson and commissioners will be coming from the party leadership of the PDP-Laban Cusi Wing itself,” she added.

De Lima said there are talks that the Cusi Wing’s secretary general, Melvin Matibag, is being groomed as the next Comelec chairperson.

“If that happens, as they say, ‘tapos na ang boksing’ or, more appropriately, tapos na ang eleksiyon,” she said.