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Friday, August 05, 2005
Poll officers: Zuce's claims a 'litany of lies'
By Lino dela Cruz
Iligan correspondent
MARAWI CITY -- Two Commission on Election (Comelec) executives on Thursday denied receiving money to fix the 2004 polls and dubbed the testimony of Michaelangelo Zuce at the Senate committee hearing as a "litany of lies".
Comelec-Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (Armm) Regional Director Ray Sumalipao said the list with the signatures of poll officers shown on television was the attendance sheet they signed when they attended a regional sports fest of the commission in Tubod, Lanao del Norte.
"Comelec election officers and supervisors are all lawyers and we are not that stupid to sign our names after receiving money for an anomalous act," Sumalipao said. Zuce said election officials were given money from jueteng proceeds to fix the presidential elections for President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
In a television interview, Cagayan de Oro City Mayor Vicente Emano said Zuce, whom he referred to as "Japanese sushi" or "kinilaw", is hardly in a position to make accusations against the Comelec officials since he is no Palace insider.
"Sushi or kinilaw kay hilaw man iyang gi-ingon (or raw fish because all his claims are raw). I've met him several times in the Palace but from what I've heard he is not in the Palace inner circle," he said.
Zuce, who was reported earlier as a relative of former Comelec commissioner Virgilio Garcillano, supposedly worked in "election operations" with some point persons of Arroyo in Mindanao.
Sumalipao said they also took advantage of their presence at the regional sports fest last year to hold an emergency meeting on the shift from automated to manual in the holding of the elections.
"It is definitely and absolutely not true, we have not gone to any place to meet President Arroyo before the 2004 presidential elections," Sumalipao added.
Comelec Region 10 assistant regional director Carlito Ravelo, in a radio interview in Cagayan de Oro City, also denied receiving money as Zuce claimed during the Senate committee hearing Thursday. (With Stephen Capillas)
(August 5, 2005 issue)
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