Sixto Brillantes Jr and the May 13 elections

He fought the fiercest, even dirtiest battles over election results. But as the May 13 elections near, Commission on Elections chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr now has to prove his critics wrong. After all, in 2011, 8 groups signed a  petition opposing Brillantes’ confirmation. They said the veteran election lawyer may have “accumulated favors to return, debts to settle, and accounts to collect.” For the past two years, however, his critics say Brillantes’ familiarity with the system proved to be an advantage. The Comelec’s past 3 leaders came from politics or the judiciary, not the election community. Former critics say Brillantes knows how to slay the monster in the election process. Under his term, the Comelec has made an unprecedented purge of the party-list system and the anomalous voters’ list in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. 

Read Brillantes’ profile on Rappler