Pangilinan: With better evidence, I wouldn't have just said 'noted'

Senator Francis Pangilinan on Friday admitted that he probably wouldn't have just said "noted" and would have even looked into the allegations of poll fraud in 2004 had the evidence being presented now been available to them back then. Pangilinan, along with then House Deputy Speaker Raul Gonzalez, in 2004 only answered "noted" to repeated requests from the opposition for the then National Board of Canvassers to look into alleged evidence of electoral fraud during the presidential polls. The senator, who sat on the National Board of Canvassers in 2004 as the Senate majority floor leader, said members of the NBC did not have the same information available now and that their decision not to look into the contested election returns (ER) were based on the facts that they knew at that time. "If all this information and witnesses now surfacing were available in 2004 then it is very possible that a different decision could have been arrived at but unfortunately this wasn't the case back then," he told GMA News Online in a text message on Friday. He likewise noted that the so-called "Hello Garci" – the taped conversation about alleged vote-rigging between a woman presumed to be former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and a man presumed to be former poll commissioner Virgilio Garcillano – only came out a year after the elections. But when asked whether he was planning to take any action regarding the matter, Pangilinan did not reply anymore. On Thursday, Senator Francis Escudero, who was one of those who requested for the canvassers to reopen contested ERs, presented a video documentary which claimed to show proof of alleged irregularities during the 2004 elections that supposedly benefited Arroyo. During the 2004 canvassing, Escudero belonged to the minority bloc of the House of Representatives. Based on the official tally by Congress sitting as the National Board of Canvassers, Mrs. Arroyo won the 2004 elections after garnering 12,905,808 votes over the late Fernando Poe Jr.'s 11,782,232 votes. The video, however, said that Garcillano manipulated the votes in Mindanao to give Mrs. Arroyo at least one million "fabricated" votes. Poe died on Dec. 14, 2004 but his widow, Susan Roces, pursued the electoral protest against Mrs. Arroyo. In March 2005, the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) dismissed the protest. On Wednesday, Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman Sixto Brillantes, speaking as Poe's lawyer, said that the late actor was the real winner in the 2004 elections. He likewise called on Garcillano to shed light on the issue. Escudero, who was also Poe's spokesman, had also filed Joint Resolution No. 11 which seeks the creation of a fact-finding commission that would supposedly bring closure to allegations of massive poll fraud which allegedly benefited Arroyo. — LBG, GMA News