Friday, August 06, 2004 Arroyo, Noli counter poll protests with suits By Benjamin B. Pulta
MANILA -- President Arroyo and Vice President Noli de Castro on Thursday filed counter-suits to the poll protests of defeated opposition candidates Fernando Poe Jr. and Loren Legarda before a special electoral court.
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.
In their suits filed before the Supreme Court convening as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, Arroyo and de Castro said the election in these 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 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 opposition candidates instead.
Makalintal also questioned the poll suit filed by former senator 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.
The SC required Arroyo and de Castro last July 27 to reply to the poll suits filed by Poe and Legarda.
In separate poll protests, 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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