Padaca challenges Comelec ruling on 2007 victory

Ousted Isabela governor Grace Padaca on Monday filed a motion asking the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to reconsider its ruling proclaiming her political rival, Benjamin Dy, as the winner in the 2007 gubernatorial race. In a phone interview with GMANews.TV, Padaca’s lawyer Maria Donnah Guia Lenora-Camitan said they saw “discrepancy after discrepancy" in the controversial ruling of the Comelec’s Second Division. Both Camitan and Padaca were not present during the filing of the 800-page motion. Instead, they were represented by volunteers led by Padaca’s 23-year-old nephew Dioki Padaca.

Camitan said she could not muster the energy to come to the poll body office in Manila after having to go through the more than 12,000 pages of electoral protest materials in barely a week. The Comelec resolution indicated that Padaca, whose rise to power in the 2004 elections ended the three-decade reign of the Dy family in the province, actually lost to Dy by a margin of 1,051 votes. The Provincial Board of Canvassers of Isabela proclaimed Padaca as the governor of the province after receiving 237,128 votes versus Dy’s 220,121 votes – a winning margin of 17,007. But Dy, who alleged irregularities in the conduct of the voting, challenged the results in 13 Isabela municipalities, including Cordon, Echague, San Agustin, San Isidro, Delfin Albano, Tumauini, Ilagan, Luna, San Guillermo, Mallig, Quezon, Jones, and Ramon – which together involve 1,472 single and clustered precincts. Padaca, for her part, also contested the results in nine municipalities including Alicia, Angadanan, Aurora, Gamu, Ilagan, Luna, Reina Mercedes, San Guillermo, San Mariano, and Cauayan City – which consist of 1,287 single and clustered precincts. After appreciating the ballots, however, the Comelec said the true tally of votes should be 199,435 for Dy and 198,384 for Padaca. Irregularities? Camitan said the irregularities in the ruling start with the addition of the winning margin. “According to our computation, the total should be 823 without going into the details of the appreciation." She said that if the poll body were to look into the case “more closely," they would see that they had failed to include several of the precincts that were part of the protest proper. She added that even if the ballots of the towns Gamu (83 precincts) and Angadanan (57 precincts) were nowhere to be found, the poll body could have just relied on the election returns. Moreover, Camitan said 58 pages of the poll body resolution seem to belong to the electoral protest of Calbayog Mayor Mel Sarmiento against rival Rodolfo Tuazon. “That can’t just be a typographical error," she said. But Second Division presiding Commissioner Nicodemo Ferrer, who has received flak for his recent controversial decisions, just brushed off Padaca’s camp’s complaints as a typical behavior of losers. “I’m used to it, dito sa Pilipinas, may nanalo, may nadadaya, pero walang natatalo (in this country, losers always claim they are victims of cheating)," he told reporters in a separate interview. Ferrer has been accused of unseating Liberal Party local executives because of “political vendetta" allegedly orchestrated by the Arroyo administration. He has repeatedly denied the allegation. “I don’t even know the affiliations of these people," he said. On Thursday, a silent protest will be held outside the Comelec main office in support of Padaca. On the same day, the poll body will hear Dy’s motion for execution of the resolution. But Ferrer said the Comelec had appreciated the ballots to the best of its abilities. He explained that the bulk of Padaca’s initial lead of 17,007 against Dy was considered invalid after the ballots of the towns of Gamu and Angadanan went missing, while some ballots were seen to be written by the same persons. Ferrer said they weren’t sure if the municipal treasurer was responsible for the loss of the ballots, but added that they had instructed both camps to help find the missing poll materials. On the other hand, he said they just judged the ballots that seem to have been written by the same person at face value. Comelec Chairman Melo regarded the matter as “ballot stuffing," a usual electoral fraud tactic “that is not uncommon." - KBK, GMANews.TV