The Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has named lawyer George Garcia as a new Commission on Elections (Comelec) commissioner.
Garcia said that he will fill one of the three vacant seats in the seven-member Comelec en banc.
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He is the first high-profile election lawyer to be named to the Comelec since Sixto Brillantes Jr., former lawyer of Fernando Poe Jr. and later Benigno Aquino III, was appointed elections chief by Aquino in 2011 and had represented Grace Poe during her disqualification saga in the 2016 presidential elections, as well as defeated 2016 vice presidential candidate Ferdinand Marcos Jr. during his electoral protest.
He will enter the commission at a time when there are at least four unresolved cases against Marcos Jr.’s 2022 bid, either at the en banc or division level while other members of the Comelec en banc are Socorro Inting, Marlon Casquejo, Aimee Ferolino, and Rey Bulay.
