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Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Doubt on ballots in Cebu polls hangs
MANILA -- The Supreme Court (SC), sitting as the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET), granted the petition of former senator John H. Osmeña to withdraw his election protest against Sen. Rodolfo Biazon who won against him over the 12th slot in the 2004 senatorial race.
In a three-page resolution, the tribunal declared "closed and terminated" the electoral protest filed by Osmeña against Biazon and the counter-protest filed by Biazon against Osmeña.
The SET, chaired by Senior Associate Justice Reynato Puno, gave merit on Osmeña's petition stating that his protest will lead to nowhere because his main evidence "has already been tampered with and/or destroyed."
"Without, therefore, delving into the veracity of protestant's claims relative to the authenticity and/or validity of the revised ballots, upon which his alleged grounds for withdrawing the instant protest are based, the tribunal resolves to grant the withdrawal of protest filed by protestant," the SET said.
The tribunal cited that last March 13, Osmeña's legal counsel manifested during the reception of the parties' evidence that the former senator would no longer be presenting any evidence and that he would be filing the necessary pleading within 15 days.
"The decision to prosecute or not to prosecute one's cause is entirely within the prerogative of a party. There being no hindrance to protestant's full exercise of his right, we can do no less than to give effect thereto," the tribunal ruled.
The SET also ordered its secretary to return the ballot boxes, election documents, and paraphernalia to their places of origin and the funding for such undertaking will be charged to Osmeña's cash deposit. The SET secretary is also directed to return to the parties their remaining cash deposits, if there are any.
Concurring in the resolution were SET members, Associate Justice Consuelo Ynares-Santiago and Senators Juan Flavier, Manuel "Mar" Roxas III, Manuel Villar Jr., Pilar Juliana "Pia" Cayetano and Aquilino Pimentel Jr.
In granting Osmeña's petition to withdraw his electoral protest against Biazon, the SET said the final determination of the authenticity and/or validity of the contested ballots still lies with the tribunal and not on the mere say-so of the parties.
The SET said the characterization of the revised ballots pertaining to Cebu City "as written by one person, written by two persons, marked, tampered, or changed" is a mere allegation of Osmeña.
The tribunal said it is unfortunate that the tribunal has not been accorded the opportunity to examine and appreciate the revised ballots.
It said such examination of ballots should have been undertaken by the SET after the parties had submitted their evidence in support of their allegations last March.
Osmeña, in his petition to withdraw his electoral protest against Biazon, claimed that based on his own assessment of the ballots so far revised in his case pertaining to 667 electoral precincts of Cebu City, about 40,000 ballots in a pool of 100,000 ballots (or 40 percent) were "strongly believed to have been marked, tampered, changed, written by one person or written by two persons."
"During the initial phase of the recount of pilot precincts, the patter showed that the real ballots were no longer the ones inside the ballot boxes as these have been substituted with fake ballots which had already been fixed to conform to the official tally," Osmeña said.
He said the substitution of fake ballots which had already been fixed to conform to the official tally "is reflected in the number of ballots whose entries were noted to have been written by one person or written by two persons or marked." (ECV/Sunnex)
(June 7, 2006 issue)
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