FORMER Maguindanao election supervisor Lintang Bedol, in an interview with ABS-CBN’s Anthony Taberna, said that investigation in the 2004 election fraud should look into the supposed ballot box-switching at the House of Representatives.
“Importante masyado iyun to find out whether or not nagkaroon nga tayo ng totoong presidente o hindi (It’s important to find out if we indeed have a duly elected president or not),” Bedol said.
He added, “Kasi doon, meron movement of ballot boxes. Sa tingin ko, baka switching yan. Pag switching yan, fake naman … ngayon kung mga peke ang dokumento e siguro may pekeng presidente … yan ang gusto kong patunayan (Ballot boxes were moved then. I think there was switching. If there was, the documents used to declare the president were fake and so we have a fake president. That’s what I want proved.”
VERA Files is reposting here the two-part special report on that subject that trustee Ellen Tordesillas wrote on July 28 and 29, 2008.
SAF commandos confirm 2004 poll fraud coverup
By ELLEN TORDESILLAS
WHEN Gloria Macapagal Arroyo delivers her eighth State of the Nation Address at the Batasang Pambansa session hall today, she will be standing close to where, three years ago, police commandos say they replaced genuine election returns (ERs) with fake ones in ballot boxes that were being readied for a recount of the 2004 presidential election.
The ER switching at the Batasan had been talked about and reported on since 2005, when Arroyo apologized to the nation for talking to an election official while the votes were being counted, in what has since been known as the “Hello, Garci” scandal. (Read More)
Complicity in poll fraud coverup taints SAF record
By ELLEN TORDESILLAS
IT WAS NO accident that it was the Special Action Force of the Philippine National Police that penetrated the Batasan Pambansa and stuffed the ballot boxes with fake election returns to make it look like Gloria Arroyo won the 2004 elections.
Established in 1983 initially to help combat insurgency and later to “destroy enemy forces that undermine the nation’s stability,” the police commandos are trained as a rapid deployment force and to “noiselessly operate in the shadows.” (Read More)