Speak Out: Charge vs Sabio belated but a welcome dev’t

Thursday, February 9, 2012

THE Commission on Election (Comelec) resolution en banc ordering the filing of a charge against Atty. Gina Sabio, Comelec city head, for failure to safeguard the election paraphernalia that were found dumped at the city landfill is belated but a welcome development.

Atty. Sabio was the custodian and safekeeper of those election documents and properties, which included flashcards that contained election results, keys to ballot boxes, official ballots and other documents related to the voting. She was certainly liable for failing to safeguard them.

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She did not even conduct a thorough investigation as to how it happened and she even made it appear that those things were stolen from Comelec. They could not have been stolen if she faithfully complied with her duties.

But more than that, we believe she was an active participant in the election fraud that gave Vicente Emano a mere one percent lead over Rolando Uy.

The election computers suddenly went off at the precincts at midnight. Haphazardly and without checking the computers or asking the technicians to do something about it, she ordered the pulling out of the flashcards from the computers and have them hand-carried by just about anybody to the canvassing center at City Hall. They had the opportunity to switch the flashcards on the way to City Hall.

Remember, during the congressional investigations right after the election, Comelec Executive Director Tolentino surprisingly made an admission upon query by Senator Pimentel and Congressman Rodriguez, that he had ordered the distribution of about 21 blank contingency flashcards, without the knowledge of the Comelec Commissioners or even of Namfrel head Henrietta de Villa.

DOST Region X director Alfonso Alamban had squealed that in the morning of election day, his technicians were still "reconfiguring" the contingency flashcards, a task that was supposed to be done only at the central office of Smartmatic in Manila.

It was a computerized election, and so total election results should have been quick. But here in Cagayan de Oro, the canvassing at City Hall was finished at about 4:00 o'clock in the afternoon of the next day because they had to maneuver and reconfigure so Emano would come out the winner.
He did win questionably with a lead of just over one thousand votes against Uy, the closest election contest ever of Dongkoy Emano. He usually had a lead of 40 to 60 thousand over his opponents. But pre-election surveys had shown that the people of Cagayan de Oro were strongly against Emano. Even while the canvassing was going on, his public market administrator, Deng Gempesao, was doing an unusual task: dumping election paraphernalia (according to them sample ballots) at the landfill.

Emano had clearly stolen the election at midnight. He called on the devils always -- "mga panuway." And finally, the devils came on midnight of December 16 and killed thousands.

If Klarex Uy had won, he surely would have listened to the warning of the DENR and Pagasa. The residents in the danger areas would have been relocated or evacuated, and public warnings and disaster preparation would have been ready before the typhoon landed.

Emano and his puppet councilors should have buried themselves in the city landfill after the killer flood. They should all resign.