Saturday, August 07, 2004 Fornier, Tecson seek intervention in electoral protests By Benjamin B. Pulta
* They earlier questioned citizenship of Poe but their suit was dismissed
SUPPORTERS of President Arroyo who earlier lost a bid before the Supreme Court (SC) to question the citizenship of defeated opposition presidential candidate Fernando Poe Jr. has filed intervention pleas Friday into the election protest of Poe and his running mate former Sen. Loren Legarda before the SC, which acts as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET).
In separate pleadings, Victorino Fornier, Ma. Jeanette C. Tecson and Felix B. Desiderio Jr. reiterated their earlier positions in motions for leave to intervene filed before the PET questioning Poe's qualifications to run in the elections.
"Poe's standing in the instant case depends on whether or not he can conclusively prove that he has the status of (being a) natural-born Filipino," the petitioners said in a portion of the plea.
Fornier, along with brother Andresito, in a suit before the Commission on the Election (Comelec) was the lawyer who presented tampered evidence to allegedly prove his claim against Poe before employees of the National Archives identified their boss, Ricardo Manapat as the brains behind the alleged manufacture of evidence against Poe.
The case against Manapat is now pending before the Ombudsman.
Echoig his earlier claims against Poe's nationality, Fornier said "inevitably, it is a condition sine qua non for one who protests the presidential election results and proclamation that he himself is qualified as a natural-born Filipino."
Tecson, Fornier and Desiderio asked the PET to turn down Poe's suit.
"When the results of such electoral exercise are questioned, a direct and immediate interest necessarily accrues in favor of every citizen to ensure that only those qualified to hold such office under the Constitution are proclaimed." Tecson said.
President Arroyo and Vice President Noli de Castro on Thursday filed counter-protests to the suits filed by Poe and Legarda.
Arroyo and de Castro, in separate petitions, questioned election results from 28,621 precincts in Nueva Ecija, Quezon, Rizal, Ilocos Norte, La Union, Northern Samar, Malabon City and Navotas.
Arroyo and de Castro said the election in those areas were "tainted with acts and omissions" intended to unfairly favor the opposition and prejudice the administration candidates.
Arroyo lawyer Romulo Makalintal said among the acts and omissions that resulted in the wrongful addition of votes for the Poe-Legarda slate in the aforementioned areas was vote-shaving or vote-padding wherein votes cast for Arroyo and de Castro were either not read for them or were counted in favor of Poe and Legarda instead.
Makalintal also questioned the suit filed by Legarda, which merely copied the suit filed Poe.
"Pro forma objections to the electoral process, much less grievances evidently borrowed, should never have been the bases of an election protest."
Arroyo's and de Castro's lawyers also said the election in the areas being questioned in their protests suffered from multiple and inaccurate counting and erroneous computation and tallying of votes in favor of Poe and Legarda.
On the other hand, Poe and Legarda contested the results of the canvassing by Congress of election returns from 118,339 precincts throughout the country.
They sought an investigation of ballots from 10,184 precincts in the province of Cebu, 6,671 precincts in Negros Occidental and 5,759 precincts in Iloilo.
Other provinces where the election returns were questioned were Lanao del Norte (2,346 precincts), Sulu (1,185 precincts) and Sultan Kudarat (1,710 precincts).
The opposition accused administration supporters of undertaking the cheating by reflecting correctly "precinct results in the election returns but erroneously transposing these through wholesale dagdag-bawas (vote padding-shaving) in subsequent election documents" used by Congress in canvassing the votes.
Likewise being questioned were the results reflected in the final canvass documents in overseas and local absentee voting and all their accompanying statement of votes by precincts in the foreign countries where the voting took place.
The suits filed by Poe and Legarda seek the "adjusting, correcting and/or otherwise rectifying the vote results in the provinces and municipalities where the re-canvass and examination and comparison of the election returns with the canvassed documents would so demand and require, so as to reflect the true and correct vote results in the said provinces and municipalities mentioned."
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