The Commission on Elections has designated a new acting election officer for Bacolod City.
Comelec 6 Regional Director Wilfred Jay Balisado in a memorandum issued Monday, September 20, designated Sipalay City Election Officer Adrian Arellano acting Bacolod election officer effective Tuesday, September 21.
Arelano will remain at the Bacolod post until September 25 or until the return of Kathrina Trinio Caña as election officer of Bacolod City, Balisado said.
The designation of Negros Occidental Provincial Election Supervisor Ma. Fatima Aspan as concurrent election officer of Bacolod was recalled.
Mayor Evelio Leonardia on Sunday, September 19, called on Aspan to inhibit herself from serving as acting Bacolod poll officer.
Aspan, who was designated acting Bacolod election officer starting September 14 by Balisado, said she was just doing her job as ordered by the Comelec.
Aspan was assigned to the Bacolod post after a staff of the city Comelec office tested positive for COVID-19 that resulted in the rest of its employees having to go on isolation.
Caña said on Friday that she and 10 other Comelec Bacolod employees tested negative for COVID-19 and will return to work on September 27 as they have to complete their 14-day quarantine.
Leonardia, in his September 17 letter to Aspan, said “There is a very strong general impression that your presence at Bacolod Comelec until now, with the questionable massive influx there of transferee-registrants from out-of-town areas, especially from those previously served by Mr. (Alfredo Abelardo Bantug) Benitez as congressman, puts your integrity seriously in question”.
Benitez, who is running for mayor of Bacolod against Leonardia in the May 2022 polls, said Leonardia’s complaint shows that “his imagination is running wild, thinkers are doers.”*