9 days after E-Day: End is near, but noise just beginning

The Commission on Elections said Wednesday it might proclaim on Friday the top nine senatorial candidates and the National Movement for Free Elections announced would wrap up its quick count on Sunday. Comelec and Namfrel’s improvement in the tallying of the votes was a welcome relief for most Filipinos who want would to see an end to the election frenzy. The counting may be nearing its end, but the noise whipped up by charges of poll fraud is just beginning. Zeroing in on zero vote The National Board of Canvassers on Wednesday deferred the canvassing of votes from Sulu due to erasures in the certificate of canvass, the same COC which showed that two Genuine Opposition senatorial candidates got zero when the votes from the town of Luuk were counted. The questioned COC had revealed opposition candidates Benigno Simeon Aquino III and Alan Peter Cayetano getting zero. At the same time, Commission on Elections chairman Benjamin Abalos summoned members of the Provincial Board of Canvassers in Sulu to appear before the board to authenticate the corrections they made on the COC. The decision came after lawyer Leila de Lima questioned Vidzfar Amil Julie, provincial election supervisor of Sulu, on the "noted unauthenticated superimpositions on figures" in the COC. She was referring to erasures made on the COC which did not bear any initials from the officials who made the erasures. The lawyer also said that it was highly improbable for Aquino and Alan Peter Cayetano to get zero while Joselito Pepito Cayetano, who was earlier disqualified by the Comelec, got 187 votes in the municipality. She also asked the board to allow them access to the statement of votes by precinct to check the votes for the two candidates. Abalos granted her request provided that she will file a formal petition for it within 24 hours. The COC from Sulu also has incomplete data on the number of registered voters who actually voted. Comelec data shows that Luuk has 23,357 voters. The number of voters in the municipality had increased by 35.95 percent for the 2007 elections. This meant an increase of 6,178 voters over the 2004 figures of 17,179. Int’l watchdogs had taste of 2Gs Foreigner observers can’t be faulted if they are spreading around that May 14 elections had been marred by massive vote buying and intimidation because some of them have even experienced such irregularities personally in Mindanao, particularly in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. Lawyer Nasser Marohomsalic, executive committee member of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting- Legal Network for Truthful Elections, made the claim Wednesday. He told reporters covering the quick count of the National Movement for Free Election (Namfrel) at La Salle Greenhills, San Juan, that one of the foreign observers from Indonesia, named Marini, was offered P300 to vote in Ditsaan-Ramain, Lanao del Sur. “Siguro akala Pinoy dahil kamukha natin Malay race yan, nilapitan siya tapos inalok ng P300 para bumoto (He was mistaken for a Filipino. He was offered P300 to vote for a certain candidate)," he said. Another observer, Musaraf, a Pakistani national, was allegedly threatened with harm when he took a video footage of a political watcher accompanying voters inside the polling precincts in Tamparan also in Lanao Sur. “Nagtanong siya kung allowed ba yun, ang sagot ng pinagtanungan niya, ‘gusto mo patayin kita' (He asked if that was allowed and the man answered-‘you want me to kill you?’)," Marohomsalic added. He said the administration candidates in Lanao del Sur outnumbered the opposition’s. - GMANews.TV