Failure of polls in Bacolod sought

Opposition congressional bet Rep. Juan Orola Jr. has asked the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to declare a failure of elections in Bacolod City and to nullify the canvass of votes in 16 barangays in the area.

He said the credibility of the polls was questionable due to what he described as massive fraud, harassment and coercion committed by the administration-backed Lakas-NUCD.

In his petition, Orola also asked the Comelec to cancel or recall any proclamation that may be made for the post of member of the House of Representatives for the lone district of Bacolod City and to hold special elections in this Western Visayan city.

Orola claimed his political rivals, led by Monico Puentevella of the Lakas-NUCD, had engaged in vote-buying and selling, bribed voters, threatened and coerced election officials and destroyed and tampered election materials.

The Comelec, Orola said, should nullify the votes canvassed in Barangays 3, 6, 7, 16, 19 and 30 and in Alangilan, Banago, Bata, Estefania, Granada, Handumanan, Mandalagan, Mansilingan, Pta. Taytay and Villamonte where massive cheating had allegedly taken place.

Under Section 6 of the Omnibus Election Code, the Comelec is empowered to declare a failure of elections "in case of force majeure, violence, terrorism, fraud or other analogous causes."

PnM officials said they retrieved a tampered election return in Metro Manila showing that 103 votes for former national police chief Panfilo Lacson were changed to spell out "zero" in the finally tally; Loi Estrada’s 108 votes were written to read only 76; Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile’s votes were changed from 96 to 25 and Sen. Gregorio Honasan from 105 to 19.

On the other hand, votes for the administration’s consistent survey tailender Liwayway Chato were altered from 16 to 116 in the same doctored document, the PnM said.

PnM spokesman Boying Remulla also laughed off as "absurd" Malacañang’s claim that personalities identified with the opposition are now in Mindanao to disrupt the ballot-counting and launch cheating operations.

Former Presidential Legislative Liaison Office head Jose Jaime Policarpio, one of the opposition personalities identified by Malacañang as being seen going around Mindanao, categorically denied that he was sent to conduct fraud operations in the South.

Policarpio said it is Malacañang that should do a lot of explaining about the presence of former Armed Forces chief Gen. Lisandro Abadia, a close ally of former President Fidel Ramos, in Mindanao.

The PnM earlier said it had received reports that poll-fraud teams headed by Abadia have teamed up with Lakas-NUCD leaders in Zamboanga del Sur to discuss details of large-scale dagdag-bawas or vote-shaving operations in the area.

The PnM said reports reaching their camp also showed that the PPC poll-fraud groups will proceed to other key Mindanao areas, where PnM bets are leading by as high as 9-4 to 11-2, or even 13-0, in the early reports by the private media, to continue their dagdag-bawas operations.

Remulla claimed the Palace operatives have been dangling multimillion-peso infrastructure projects to local officials in Mindanao in exchange for a PPC victory in the vote-rich island, and arm-twisting governors, mayors and other local officials to tamper with the election tallies in their respective areas in a last-ditch effort to overturn the poll lead of the PnM bets.

"All of a sudden, here comes the PPC crying foul when it has long been making only vague accusations of cheating supposedly committed by the opposition. Malacañang and the PPC want the public to believe that it was the PPC that was cheated in the elections through the release of its long-delayed proof of the fraud allegedly committed by the opposition," he said.

"The Palace operatives released proof of this alleged cheating only after the PnM jolted them with clear evidence of massive fraud that benefited the PPC bets in vote-rich Mindanao and Metro Manila," Remulla added in a statement.

"Malacañang unwittingly spilled the beans when it admitted that Mrs. Arroyo herself had called up local officials to supposedly ask them not to cooperate with any attempt at cheating in the elections. Does Malacañang think that the public will fall for this canard when Mrs. Arroyo is known as the No. 1 campaigner of a 13-0 shutout by the PPC?" he stressed.

Remulla said that instead of engaging in squid tactics, Malacañang should just call off its poll-fraud operatives in Mindanao. He alleged that Abadia, backed up by two Air Force helicopter gunships, is engaged in wholesale cheating in a bid to prop up the chances of the PPC bets.

Earlier, Remulla claimed the Arroyo administration’s poll-fraud operations utilizing massive government resources are intended to pull down the rankings of frontrunning opposition bets Juan Ponce Enrile, Gregorio Honasan, Miriam Defensor-Santiago and Lacson, all of whom are facing what he claimed were fabricated charges of rebellion.

Remulla said 38 cases of bawas-bawas operations documented by PnM legal teams in Metro Manila alone show that votes were shaved off from the PnM senatorial bets.

He charged that the Arroyo administration attempted several times to derail the campaign of the opposition, first through the arrest and detention of former President Joseph Estrada and then through the issuance of warrantless arrest orders against Enrile, Honasan and Lacson.