THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) and the Department of Justice will jointly conduct an investigation of electoral fraud allegedly committed during the 2004 and 2007 polls, it was learned on Wednesday.
Former Senate President Aquilino Pimentel Jr., meanwhile, asked the Justice department to also probe those allegedly involved in the poll cheating.

Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. and Justice Secretary Leila de Lima agreed to conduct the joint inquiry when they met at the Comelec’s headquarters in Intramuros, Manila, on Wednesday.

Brillantes said that a formal written agreement between the two government agencies was expected to be signed upon approval by the poll body en banc.

The panel that will conduct the joint investigation will be made up of officials from both agencies.
The controversy over the alleged poll fraud escalated in the last few weeks after suspended Gov.

Zaldy Ampatuan of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, former Maguindanao election supervisor Lintang Bedol and three other poll officers claimed that there was massive cheating during the 2004 and 2007 elections.

Also on Wednesday, Pimentel paid a visit to de Lima and asked her to prosecute those who
committed electoral fraud in the 2004 and 2007 polls.

The former Senate president’s son, lawyer Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel 3rd—a defeated candidate for senator in the 2007 elections—has alleged that he fell victim to electoral fraud, which supposedly benefited Juan Miguel Zubiri, who had placed 12th in those polls.

Koko has a pending case against Zubiri—a former representative of Bukidnon province—over the matter.

The elder Pimentel clarified that he has asked the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET) to proclaim his son as the 12th winning candidate in the 2007 race for the Senate.

The Pimentels have filed before the SET a motion that seeks the immediate proclamation of Koko as senator to replace Zubiri.

In their motion, they sought to consider the abandonment by Zubiri of his counter-election protest—which was also filed before the SET—when the senator ordered his revisors to stop attending the proceedings.

The elder Pimentel said that Zubiri seemed to be reluctant and not interested anymore in his counter-protest, which would result in the immediate resolution of the case.

He argued that that SET could now proclaim Koko as the 12th winning senator, more so that his son had garnered 257,000 votes more than those tallied by Zubiri.