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Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Palace says resignation won't affect poll fraud probe
MANILA -- Malacañang is confident that the resignation of election commissioner Rene Sarmiento as head of Task Force Maguindanao would not derail the investigation of the agency into the alleged electoral fraud in Maguindanao.
Chief presidential legal counsel Sergio Apostol said Commission on Elections (Comelec) Commissioner Nicodemo Ferrer was immediately tapped to replace Sarmiento and he is competent enough to do the job.
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Apostol said with Ferrer, aside from being a former Sandiganbayan justice, has a clean and credible reputation and is known for not succumbing to influence.
He dismissed rumors that Ferrer's being associated with Speaker Jose De Venecia Jr. may affect the outcome of the investigation, which stemmed from allegations of fraud in parts of Maguindanao after Team Unity (TU) candidates managed a 12-0 sweep in the province.
He also shrugged off allegations that Sarmiento quit the task force following pressure from Malacañang.
Apostol said Sarmiento resigned for health reasons following the physical strain that he suffered during the conduct of the elections, including the special elections in Lanao del Sur that he supervised.
Cabinet Secretary Ricardo Saludo said Malacañang wished Sarmiento would recover from the strain of the past weeks soon.
Saludo said Comelec replaced Sarmiento with Ferrer to ensure that the investigation would go on.
Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, in radio station dzMM interview, said charges of cheating is normal during the election but he is just wondering why the opposition is making such a big issue out of Maguindanao when they are actually leading the senatorial race.
He said the important thing is there are legal ways to handle these complaints and it would be better to just leave the investigation to the Comelec.
Ermita added that Comelec officials are competent enough to fulfill their mandate.
Team Unity (TU) filed counter-complaints against the opposition, and said it is confident that its evidence would prove that opposition candidates resorted to vote padding and vote shaving even in their bailiwicks.
TU campaign manager Reli German said that in the complaint they filed with Comelec they asked for a recall and recount of votes in several places including parts of Pasay, Las Piñas, Valenzuela, Parañaque, Makati, Marikina, Pasig, General Santos, Zamboanga, Malabon, Cavite, Rizal, Davao, and Ilocos Norte.
At the Senate, Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III expressed regret over the resignation of Sarmiento as Task Force Maguindanao head.
Pimentel suspected that Sarmiento was compelled to resign "due to intense pressure from certain powerful forces that are making it difficult to conduct a honest-to-goodness probe of the rampant anomalies in the Maguindanao elections that gave Team Unity a 12-0 victory in the senatorial derby in the province."
"Sarmiento's resignation as head of Task Force Maguindanao proves the blatancy of the cheating perpetuated by the administration at the expense of clean and honest elections," he said.
With about six million votes still to be counted, the administration continues to hope and expect that the present senatorial rankings would still change, particularly for those in the 10th to 16th slots.
German said there was a delay in the transmission of election returns that resulted in the prolonged counting.
He said because of the delay in the count, the opposition took advantage by conditioning the minds of the public that most of its bets won based on the initial results and any inclusion of TU candidates is a result of cheating.
He said with the remaining millions of votes to be counted and the TU's filing of electoral fraud charges against GO, which would include recalling and recounting of previously canvassed votes, they expect changes in the rankings. (JMR/CPB/Sunnex)
For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star Bacolod. (May 30, 2007 issue)
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