HER JOB, she says, can drive her to tears at times, but despite the difficulty in helping install a new batch of Atenean student leaders every year, she still finds it an immense learning experience.
This is how Margaux Tan (III BS CTM) describes her new appointment as the interim Ateneo Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chief Commissioner, as she takes over from the impeached ex-commissioner Jon Andre Vergara.
Tan first became involved with the poll body after her sister and her blockmate joined the commission. She soon felt that the organization was like family to her, and it made her stay until she became one of the commission’s high officers.
Although the familial sentiments were there, her work was far from easy. Being a commissioner demanded a lot of her time; in fact, she says that there were instances that she prioritized Comelec over anything else.
“[It’s] always a rainy day,” she says of a commissioner’s life. Even after school, her work goes on, especially during the election season. As commissioner, she needed a lot of patience to juggle her many tasks, as she entertains all the candidates’ queries and complaints, approves campaign materials, and makes resolutions and memos.
Plans for the future
“Pag ako naging Chief Commissioner, magreresign agad ako (If I become Chief Commissioner, I will resign immediately),” she recalls thinking before her appointment.
The thought of a bigger responsibility and more effort initially scared her, but then she was thrust into the highest position of power. She had wanted to fix the commission’s flaws, and this was her chance to do it. “Last year, Comelec’s relationship with the student body looked bad,” she says.
The new chief plans to make Comelec more approachable, improve information dissemination, and finish accrediting political parties. She also wants to revise the electoral code, something political candidates have long been clamoring for.
But more than these, Tan expresses a need to review the Comelec’s internal procedures. The relationship between members must be improved, she says, because if internal problems cannot be fixed, the solutions for external problems will also remain at a standstill.
