‘GMA-Noli poll win in Cebu affirmed’

The lawyer of President Arroyo and Vice President Noli de Castro said yesterday that their victory in the May 2004 elections has been affirmed by their lead by a huge margin of votes in Cebu.

Election lawyer Romulo Macalintal reiterated his previous declaration no cheating occurred in the province of Cebu even as he denied former senator Loren Legarda’s claim that 90 percent of the ballots from two major cities of the province were found to be spurious by the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), where her electoral protest against De Castro is being heard.

Macalintal said in his speech before the Rotary Club of Pasay City that "if a candidate would allow himself to be cheated by 90 percent, then he or she has no business to be in politics."

He added that "the results of the actual count of the ballots for Legarda and De Castro from the cities of Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu of the province of Cebu tallied with the results as reflected in the election returns and tally boards.

"There was no sign of any tampering of the results of the ballot count as well as the votes reflected on the returns and tally boards," Macalintal said.

"If it were true that 90 percent of the ballots are spurious, why did Legarda not object to or question the authenticity and due execution of the election returns and tally boards where the ballot counts were recorded and canvassed by the boards of canvassers? Ms. Legarda is now estopped from questioning the results of the election from these cities because of her failure to object to the returns," Macalintal added.

Official records show that, in the province of Cebu, Mrs. Arroyo garnered 965,630 votes against the 123,099 votes cast for the late opposition standard-bearer Fernando Poe Jr. — a difference of 842,531 votes.

In Cebu City, Macalintal said Mrs. Arroyo got 220,060 votes while Poe obtained 58,591 votes, or a difference of 161,469 votes.

"This gives President Arroyo a total vote lead of 1,004,000 from the province of Cebu and Cebu City, where the bulk of her 1,123,576 final vote lead over (Poe) came from," he added.

According to Macalintal, records show that in the province of Cebu De Castro got 886,910 votes against Legarda’s 198,372 votes or a difference of 688,538 votes.

In Cebu City, De Castro obtained 214,663 votes, while Legarda was credited with 90,499 votes, or a difference of 124,164 votes. This gave De Castro a total lead of 812,702 votes in the province of Cebu and Cebu City, which made up the bulk of his final vote lead of 881,722 votes. — Pia Lee-Brago