By JOSEPH HOLANDES UBALDE
Interaksyon.com
FAKE or highly questionable ballots and certificates of canvass were some of the strongest pieces of evidence that showed newly proclaimed Senator, Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III, was nearly robbed of his seat in the Senate.
Lawyer Irene Guevarra, secretary of the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET), said these were enough to prove there was massive cheating in the 2007 midterm elections. While admitting the existence poll fraud, Guevarra did not want to point fingers as to who might have been behind the electoral fraud.
On Thursday, the SET made history as it proclaimed Pimentel as the duly elected senator over Juan Miguel Zubiri, who had already resigned as senator a week earlier. It is the first time that a new official had been proclaimed as a result of the SET findings. Despite their decision, Pimentel has less than a year and 10 months to finish his term.
Based on the tribunal’s decision, Pimentel edged out Zubiri by 258, 266 votes after garnering 10,898,786 votes in the SET’s revised tally. Zubiri, meanwhile, was in a tight race with 10,640,620 votes.
In the result of the May 2007 elections, Zubiri won with 11,004,099 votes as the 12th senatorial winner over Pimentel who only had 10,984, 807. This result shows that Zubiri and Pimentel had a 19,292 difference in votes.
Pimentel’s protest
Pimentel filed an electoral protest on July 30, 2007 and contested the election results from 2,658 precincts in 44 municipalities and seven provinces namely: Maguindanao (1,078 precincts), Lanao del Norte (496), Shariff Kabunsuan (291), Basilan (134), Sultan Kudarat (282), Lanao del Sur (161), and Sulu (216).
Pimentel had spent P1.7-million for his protest, Guevarra said. Zubiri paid P26-million for his counter-protest in August 2007.
More than four years after Pimentel’s protest, the SET found out that 254,222 ballots were “spurious” and quickly rejected them. This equivalent to 80.74 percent of all rejected ballots, the SET said in its Thursday decision.
The massive number of questionable ballots was already an “indication of cheating” according to Guevarra.
Fishy electoral ballots
According to the SET, the spurious ballots lacked the security marks and features present in genuine ones. The questionable ballots were made from poor quality paper; possessed a different color; and measured less in size than the original.
Although a watermark was present in the spurious ballots, these were “obviously produced with the use of penetrating ink, instead of being embedded in the ballot, (and) the watermarks were plainly visible at first glance” the SET said in its findings.
The fake watermarks also did not bear the word “COMELEC”, which refers to the Commission on Elections. Also, the microprints were unreadable and the “coats of arms were blurred.”
The SET’s investigation also led them to believe that only one or two persons prepared the spurious ballots.
The tribunal found the “same style and stroke of handwriting” in a number of ballots. “One person wrote the names of the candidates voted for national positions and another wrote the names ofthe candidates chosen for the local positions. In some instances, a third person writes the name of the voted party for the party list.”
But what was surprising to the SET was that even several genuine ballots possessed identical handwriting.
“Regrettably, the same manner of ballot preparation, i.e. groups or batches of ballots being accomplished by only one person, or one ballot being prepared by two or more persons, was also observed in genuine ballots,” the tribunal said.
The tribunal noted that a violation of Sec. 195 of the Omnibus Election Code of the Philippines or the “Manner of preparing the ballot” was committed by such acts. Under the law, only illiterate and disabled persons can be assisted in voting by his/her relative.
Luuk town, a fourth class municipality in Sulu province, incurred the most number of wasted ballots (that were prepared by one person) with a total of 12,691. Meanwhile, Kalinggalan Caluang town, also in Sulu, had the most number of wasted ballots that were prepared by two persons with 1,946.
Typewritten COCs and other booboos
Aside from the ballots, the SET also found something wrong with the Municipal Certificates of Canvass (MCOCs) of Sultan Kudarat and Shariff Kabunsuan.
As pointed out by Pimentel in his electoral protest that was noted by the SET, the MCOCs as well as its accompanying documents were all typewritten, which was enough proof for the senator that these were “accomplished not in an actual open-to-the-public canvassing of election returns as required by law, but in a ‘closed-door office setting’ with a large typewriter on top of a table surrounded by a select group of election operators.”
Citing a Statistical Data Report, the SET said that 99.43 percent of 39,325 registered voters in the merged precincts of Sultan Kudarat and Shariff Kabunsuan voted in 2007. All 198 merged precincts were contested by Pimentel.
When the SET opened the ballot boxes from Sultan Kudarat for the revision proceedings, only one had its contents still intact. The lone ballot box, with contents from precinct 64D/64E, had 18 ballots — 10 of which carried votes for Zubiri and one had votes for both him and Pimentel. The ballot was objected by Pimentel.
Upon examination, the tribunal rejected the contested ballots because some of them were obviously handwritten by only one or two persons. Meanwhile, the rest of the uncontested ballots were found to be spurious.
The tribunal also confirmed Pimentel’s observation that the certified photocopies of election returns (ERs) from the 198 precincts were altered. While the SET noted that there was an attempt to explain the corrections, these explanations were an “affront to one’s intelligence.”
The incident reports also seemed to have been accomplished “in pair or in group by the same person” as evidenced by similar handwriting styles and strokes found on the documents. Despite this, the SET opted to painstakingly distinguished the lawful votes from the unlawful ones instead of the nullification of all votes in the municipality of Sultan Kudarat that would lead to the “disenfranchisement of many innocent voters.”
After the rechecking, 362 votes were deducted by the SET from Pimentel while 21,879 were taken from Zubiri.
Similarly in Patikul town in Sulu, Pimentel was credited with 92 additional votes, while Zubiri was shaved off 1,049 votes by the SET.
In conclusion, the SET said Pimentel had suffered from various election errors that favored Zubiri.
“It is clear that Pimentel indeed obtained 258, 166 more votes than Zubiri in the senatorial race,” the SET said in its decision. “The proclamation of Zubiri…is hereby annulled and set aside, and a new one entered, declaring Pimentel as the duly elected senator of the Philippines.”
Legacy of 2007 SET findings
In his Thursday speech shortly after being proclaimed, a relieved Pimentel offered his services to the SET, whom he thanked for pursuing the truth in the 2007 polls.
“I would like to volunteer to seat in the SET to discover some loopholes,” Pimentel said.
His statement was met with a unanimous ‘Yes’ from the SET members present during Pimentel’s impromptu press conference at the Sofitel in Pasay City.
Pimentel also lauded the SET for its historic decision and hoped that other government institutions would fight for the truth and justice.
“Sana po itong nangyari ngayon will infect the other insttutions delivering justice in this country. It can be done,” Pimentel added.
Lawyer Irene Guevarra, secretary of the SET, said that Pimentel is very welcome to be part of the SET and follow in the footsteps of his father former Senator Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel Jr. Aside from benefitting from his expertise as a bar topnotcher, Guevarra said she knows Pimentel would be a real asset to the tribunal.
“He already knows (the faults in the electoral process) by experience,” Guevarra said.
Koko said he is raring to start his job as legislator, and he will soon as he has taken his oath in Mati, Davao Oriental on Friday. Koko, who is originally from Cagayan de Oro, promised to take his oath in the province after receiving the second highest votes there in 2007.
He said he will concentrate on pushing for electoral forms once in the Senate.
“I’ve become an accidental expert in electoral reforms,” Koko said, referring to his nearly four-year battle in decrying the massive poll cheating that caused him to lose the coveted seat in 2007.
“I will ensure accountability. There have been many accused but none have been charged for cheating,” he added.
For Guevarra, the 2007 polls and the decision of the SET only proves one thing: “Truth and justice still prevail in this country perhaps.”
