Opposition Senator Leila de Lima on Monday said the petition filed by the camp of Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi’s Partido ng Demokratikong Pilipino-Laban (PDP-Laban) before the Commission on Elections (Comelec) “reeks of privilege.”

De Lima is referring to the petition filed by the PDP-Laban wing headed by President Duterte to re-open the filing of certificate of candidacy (COC) for the May 2022 elections which has already lapsed in November last year.

“The petition of the PDP Laban-Cusi Wing to open anew the period for filing COCs reeks of privilege,” De Lima said in her latest statement.

“The so-called dominant majority party, but without standard bearer candidates for president and vice president, is basically asking for the exclusive privilege to be exempted from the deadline for filing COCs, after all candidates serious enough to run for election in 2022 have dutifully filed their COCs within the deadline set by the Comelec,” the detained senator said.

“There should be no exemptions from this deadline, not even for the party of the President,” De Lima added.

De Lima said the petition clearly uses the pending petitions for the disqualification of former Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. as well as the appeals for accreditation of party list groups as an excuse.

As stated in the petition filed by Cusi’s camp, the Comelec should not print ballots for the 2022 May polls until these cases are resolved and thus, re-open the period for filing of the COCs again.

“Taken to the extreme, if COMELEC has to wait for all disqualification and accreditation cases to reach final judgment, no ballots will ever be printed on time for election day. This is because most of these cases usually remain unsettled beyond election day,” the lawmaker noted.

“Besides, the filing of new COCs will again generate another slew of petitions for disqualification. Is Cusi saying we should as well wait for all those cases to be resolved, ad infinitum?” she pointed out.

At the same time, De Lima echoed the belief that asking the Comelec to withhold the printing of ballots based on the final resolution of disqualification cases “hews dangerously close to a no election” scenario.

“Maybe this is what the Cusi Wing wants all along, for elections to be postponed indefinitely until they get their act together. The holding of constitutionally-mandated elections cannot be left to the inability of any political party to field standard bearers on time,” she pointed out.

De Lima warned that doing so would be subjecting the country’s democratic elections to the whims and caprices of incompetent party leadership.

“Cusi and the leadership of PDP-Laban have no one else to blame but themselves...The whole country and its democratic exercises should not bear to suffer the failings of this so-called party of the majority,” she stressed.