By Nikka Garriga
MAKATI CITY, METRO MANILA— With less than a year left before next year's midterm national elections, Supreme Court Administrator Midas Marquez is hoping majority of Filipinos still have faith in the electoral process.
Marquez, along with former Supreme Court Senior Justice Josue Bellosillo and House of Representative Hearing Commissioner Emmanuel LJ Mapili, are the authors of the book titled “Effective Litigation and Adjudication of Election Contests”.
“We may not be an elected official but as members of the legal profession, it is our duty to safeguard the constitution including the right to suffrage . . . Let us not lose hope in the process,” Marquez said.
The book, recently launched at the Centro Escolar University (CEU), aims to serve as a guide to the proper implementation of Philippine election laws.
Charges of fraud and cheating have characterized the past elections in the country often citing irregularities in the manual counting of votes. An electoral contest is then filed to challenge a declared result of an election or the manner by which the process was administered.
“We hope that this can be of great assistance to all legal practitioners and anybody who desire to secure the sanctity of our elections,” says Bellosillo.
Royalties to be derived from the book will also be donated to the scholarship program of CEU’s School of Law and Jurisprudence where Bellosillo serves as dean.
The retired Justice is also the author of other law volumes such as “Effective Pre-Trial Technique” and co-author of the “Omnibus Election Code with Rules of Procedure & Jurisprudence in Election Law” and the “Basics of Philippine Medical Jurisprudence & Ethics”, among others.
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