Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Daanbantayan mayor wants experts to check ballots
THREE months after the elections, political groups in Daanbantayan town in northern Cebu are still locked in a battle for the town’s two top posts.
Mayor Sun Shimura and his mother Vice Mayor Ma. Luisa Loot said the ballots must be examined by experts both from the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and from the government’s printing office.
The two are facing an election protest filed by their rivals, defeated mayoral candidate Augusto Corro and his running mate, Jose de Leon.
Shimura was proclaimed with a margin of some 2,000 votes, while Loot, more than 3,000 votes.
In their additional arguments before the Regional Trial Court in Bogo town, Loot and her son doubt whether the ballots made available for their camp to photocopy are genuine.
“These ballots were clearly different from those which were subjected to revision,” the two stated in a supplement to their joint objection before the court.
“This clearly is a post revision operation which apparently replaced the original ballots,” they further said.
Supplement
Attached to a supplement to their joint objection before the court are affidavits from their revisors, Katherine Caoile and Octavio Cañete.
Cañete, in his affidavit, said he was “alarmed” last Friday, Aug. 24, when they were photocopying the ballots taken from the ballot box.
“When four envelopes containing the ballots from four different precincts were retrieved from separate ballot boxes, for photocopying, I noticed that the signatures on the envelopes, which were supposed to be my signatures as one of the revisors, were no longer mine. In other words, these four envelopes were no longer the very same envelopes which I had signed (and sealed),” said Cañete.
In another affidavit, Katherine Caoile also said the signatures in two envelopes were not hers.
She said the original ballots subject to revision were clearly written by different persons, while the ones made available to them for photocopy were “clearly written by one and the same person.” (JPM)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (August 29, 2007 issue)
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