By Carmela Fonbuena abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak With the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) elections out of the way, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) chair Jose Melo said the polling body is now "totally focused" on the automation of the coming 2010 presidential elections. Less than two years away, Melo said "we have to keep moving. If we rest, we will lose the momentum from the successful ARMM automated elections. We were able to proclaim the winner in two days. If we can do it faster in 2010 and proclaim the president in one day, it will be better," he told abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak. Melo issued at least three orders during Wednesday’s Comelec en banc to prepare for the 2010 elections. One, he asked for the preparation of elections calendar for 2010. "I asked them to do it as soon as possible. There are a lot of things to be done. We still have to bid [the automation project] and decide," Melo said. Two, he assigned poll commissioner Leonard...

Written by Carmela Fonbuena Thursday, 03 July 2008 www.newsbreak.com.ph Newly-appointed Commission on Elections (Comelec) Commissioner Leonardo Leonida has a tainted record in the judiciary, where he served in the last two decades. In a unanimous decision by the Supreme Court in 2006, he was admonished for violating four rules in the Code of Judicial Conduct. He and another appointee, newly-retired Court of Appeals (CA) Justice Lucenito Tagle, took their oaths this morning before Comelec Chairman Jose Melo. Prior to his appointment to the Comelec, Leonida was a Malabon regional trial court judge. Leonida was appointed to serve the unfinished term of the late Comelec Commissioner Romeo Brawner, which ends in 2011. Tagle, on the other hand, was appointed to a full seven-year term. One position remains vacant in the seven-man poll body. SC’s Admonition When he was presiding judge of the regional trial court, branch 27, Sta. Cruz, Laguna, Leonida was found to have compromised the inte...