PPC warns of opposition ‘trending’; Puwersa hits back for poll fraud yarn

The administration People Power Coalition (PPC) warned the public yesterday about an alleged sinister plot by the opposition Puwersa ng Masa (PnM) to conduct a "vast exit polling and trending" operation during the canvassing of votes.

PPC spokesman Conrado Limcaoco insisted PnM wants to show that its candidates are winning and would later blame the PPC for imagined electoral fraud when the PPC slate emerges victorious.

But PnM secretary general Ronaldo Puno dismissed as "black propaganda" the PPC’s claim that the PnM would commit fraudulent activities during the counting of votes.

"The opposition has neither the inclination, resources nor capability to mount such nefarious activities. Only losers engage in such pathetic pursuits," Puno said in a statement.

Limcaoco said the operation is conducted by Puno, who is a brother of PnM senatorial candidate Ricardo "Dong" Puno and has implemented similar operations since he was still with the Ministry of Local Governments during the Marcos regime.

He alleged that the trending operation is based at Club Filipino in Greenhills, San Juan and would tap a budget of P800 million which he got from former President Joseph Estrada and his cronies.

"The public should not believe their deceitful maneuvering just to win. We have legitimate pollsters — the Social Weather Stations and Pulse Asia — both credible independent survey groups that indicated PPC’s majority sweep of the elections," he said.

Limcaoco added that Puno had allegedly implemented similar operations in the 1992, 1995 and 1998 elections.

Since the start of the election campaign three months ago, both the SWS and Pulse Asia have been conducting tracking polls where the ruling coalition consistently held a commanding 8-5 lead over the opposition.

However, Puno dismissed the results of the SWS and Pulse Asia surveys as "statistically unreliable" and predicted that the opposition would win nine seats as against the six seats forecast in the surveys.

Puno said this was based on a "meticulously compiled and analyzed" internal PnM survey but refused to say who among their candidates would make the cut in the senatorial contest.

In a separate statement, PnM even accused the PPC of fabricating fake sample ballots purportedly from the El Shaddai Catholic charismatic organization.

The PPC allegedly intends to pass off such spurious sample ballots to make people believe that the El Shaddai leadership has retracted its commitment to support eight PnM candidates.

Meanwhile, PnM leader former Senate president and senatorial candidate Edgardo Angara appealed to the Arroyo administration yesterday to exercise "statesmanship" in the polls to assure credible elections.

"The Arroyo administration should confine its wild and impossible dream of shutting out the political opposition to rhetoric. Cheating the winning senatorial candidates of the opposition would plunge the country into political uncertainty," Angara said.

He said peaceful, orderly and fair elections "would be the first big step toward the healing process and bridging the great partisan divide."

Meanwhile, former Speaker Manny Villar appealed to Filipinos to unite in ensuring that today’s elections will be peaceful and truly reflective of the people’s will.

"Regardless of the outcome, we should make sure that the people’s voice will be heard through the ballot. I urged all Filipinos to do their share in seeing to it that this political exercise will be peaceful and orderly," Villar said.

Re-electionist Sen. Gregorio Honasan also warned against attempts to "carry out deceitful schemes designed to manipulate the outcome" of the elections.

Honasan, who recently came out of a brief period in hiding due to rebellion charges, said attempts to disrupt the orderly conduct of the election and rig its outcome shall be dealt with accordingly "by the Filipino masses and their protectors."