|
By Francis Earl A. Cueto, Reporter
Aquilino Pimentel 3RD, who is
hanging on to 12th place in the senatorial contest, on Monday warned
that the Commission on Elections could be presented with doctored
documents if it holds its inquiry in Maguindanao.
The Comelec en banc announced
last week there was no failure of election Maguindanao but that it
would fly to Maguindanao just the same to investigate allegations of
irregularities during the May elections.
Only the winner of the 12th
senatorial slot has not been proclaimed.
In a television interview,
Pimentel said the reported theft of certificates of canvass and
statements of votes in the office of Maguindanao election supervisor
Lintang Bedol should be reason enough for the poll body to doubt the
authenticity of the documents from the province.
“Bedol said the municipal COCs
were stolen. After several days he said the COCs were misplaced and
can still be located. Stolen is different from misplaced,”
Pimentel said.
He said the poll commissioners
“will surely find the documents, and given that 30 days had
passed, there are so many things that can be done to the
documents.”
Pimentel, who ran in the Genuine
Opposition ticket, said it would be the first time in history that
the Comelec en banc, sitting as National Board of Canvassers, would
personally collect election documents.
He urged the Comelec to consider
reports from the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV)
and other poll watchdogs of widespread cheating in the province.
Comelec Chairman Benjamin Abalos
Sr. said the trip to Maguindanao would be a fact-finding mission
that would investigate Bedol’s claims that the documents he failed
to present for national canvassing had been stolen.
Team Unity senatorial candidate
Juan Miguel Zubiri, who is trailing Pimentel in the standings,
said he welcomes Comelec’s plan to go to Maguindanao. “We
have been saying that there were elections held in Maguindanao,”
he said.
He said there are many ways of
locating the missing documents. He said the commissioners could get
copies provided the candidates, coalition parties and elections
officers.
Political parties and
representatives of candidates are given copies of COCs.
Zubiri said that based on the
copies provided to Team Unity, he got 195,000 out of the 212,000
votes cast during in Maguindanao. He said Pimentel received only
67,000 votes.
Pimentel leads Zubiri, 10,865,397
votes to 10,753,836, in the Comelec tabulation. If it is confirmed
that Zubiri garnered 195,000 votes in Maguindanao, he would overtake
Pimentel by at least 17,000 votes.
|
