FORMER Senate Minority Leader Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel yesterday said time is running out for Malacañang’s bid to postpone the August 8 election in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

“Malacañang’s position is not tenable. They are pushing hard for poll postponement and the appointment of OICs, but they have to follow legal processes,” Pimentel said.

“They need to first amend the ARMM Organic Law and subject it to a plebiscite. That is the process and the ARMM Organic Law was adopted only after it was subjected to a plebiscite. That would be difficult for them since they cannot hold a plebiscite before the election. There’s no time,” he explained in a radio interview.

Meanwhile, a datu from Maguindanao  who  won round one of his battle at the Supreme Court against those seeking to postpone the election in the ARMM, yesterday lambasted Senator Teofisto Guingona III for “working against the interest of Mindanaoans.”

Datu Michael Abas Kida of the town of Datu Odin Sinsuat lamented that Guingona “failed to show that he is a true son of Mindanao” by advising President Aquino during a meeting Tuesday that the Senate can still pass a bill resetting the ARMM elections to 2013.

“Senator TG is from Bukidnon yet he dared not tell the President that the overwhelming sentiment of Mindanaoans is for the ARMM election to proceed as scheduled this year. He is a big disappointment to us because he failed to champion the aspirations of Mindanaoans,” said Datu Kida.

Datu Kida said that the SC, in an en banc order last April 27, gave the proponents of ARMM poll postponement—both houses of Congress, the Comelec and the Office of the President—10 un-extendable days to reply to his complaint against postponement of the ARMM polls which the court found to be “sufficient in form and substance.”