Calling it a “venue where the newly appointed Commissioners can prove their critics wrong,” the Commission on Elections said today that they welcome any investigation from the Commission on Appointments (CA).

“The COMELEC welcomes the CA’s scrutiny. We have high respect for the members of the CA body and we are confident that our newly appointed COMELEC Commissioners would be given the opportunity to clear their names of the unfounded allegations unduly leveled at them,” stated COMELEC spokesman and education and information chief James Jimenez.

A member of the House Contingent of the CA, Cebu Rep. Eduardo Gullas, said recently that the appointments body is set to scrutinize seven “controversial” presidential appointees including newly named COMELEC Commissioners Moslemen Macarambon, Leonardo Leonida and Lucenito Tagle.

Jimenez, while recognizing the vigilance of the media and the electorate on the appointments to the poll body, dismissed as baseless all the accusations directed at the three former Justices.

“Commissioners Macarambon, Leonida and Tagle are men of integrity and probity and it is unfair to malign them with unfounded accusations and baseless intrigues,” said Jimenez.

Commissioner Leonida has earlier denied reports that he has a pending administrative case before the Supreme Court. “This is a big, black lie,” Leonida said, claiming that no less than the Supreme Court has confirmed, in a clearance certificate dated June 23, 2008, that he had no pending administrative case to date. The clearance was issued by Vener Pimentel, officer in charge of the docket and clearance division, Office of the Court Administrator of the Supreme Court.

Commissioner Macarambon for his part has repeatedly denied rumors that he was a protégé of former elections Commissioner Virgilio Garciliano. He said he doesn’t even know Garciliano personally and that he only knew him based on what he read on the newspapers. ###