Noli hits Loren’s ‘forum shopping’

Vice President Noli De Castro yesterday got back at defeated vice presidential candidate Loren Legarda for allegedly "forum shopping" and using press releases to prove she had been cheated in the May 2004 elections.

De Castro finally broke his silence, abandoning his lawyers, in order to comment on the press releases reportedly issued by Legarda over the electoral protest case. The case is pending before the Supreme Court sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET).

De Castro answered a question sent through text to his co-host Cheryl Cosim during his weekly radio program "Para Sa’yo… Bayan" that he was deliberately delaying the PET proceedings to weaken Legarda’s protest.

"This case is now before the PET and I did not wish to meddle in it, but (Legarda) has been sending out press releases," he said in Filipino. "I wanted to answer these statements then but I left the matter up to my lawyers."

"I really don’t know anything when it comes to the elections," he said. "I do not know how to cheat. It hurts that I am accused of cheating because I had no ambitions of being vice president."

Up to yesterday, De Castro allowed his chief of staff, lawyer Jesse Andres, and election lawyers Romulo Macalintal and Armando Marcelo, who represent him in the electoral protest before the PET, to comment on issues raised by Legarda.

De Castro said he accepted President Arroyo’s invitation to be her running mate because he was assured that she would help him with regards to party machinery.

"I have no (political) party," he said. "I relied on President Arroyo’s machinery and I asked only for help during the elections, not to cheat."

He added that he does not want to conduct a running debate with Legarda "through press releases because, in the end, the PET will decide on this."

The PET has granted Legarda’s petition seeking another preliminary conference between Legarda’s lawyers and De Castro’s legal team.

In their comment, Legarda lawyers Sixto Brillantes and Jesus Casila said they wanted to "clarify and thresh out some unclear and disturbing recommendations and suggestions advanced by (De Castro)" to which Legarda objects.

Macalintal said Legarda is "desperate" in her bid to win the post of vice president and dared Legarda to repeat her allegations under oath and make available to the court her computation of votes she claimed were stolen by De Castro.

He dismissed Legarda’s latest presentation of allegedly tampered election returns before the media as props to bolster her attempt to show there was cheating in the last election.

"Miss Legarda appears too desperate in her bid to win the vice presidential post. She failed to realize that if the returns she showed the media are fake, these cannot be admitted as evidence by the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET)," Macalintal said.

He also said this is not the first time Legarda’s camp had resorted to trying her case by publicity, even after she decided to bring her case to the PET.