Comelec to file more electoral sabotage cases vs GMA

MANILA, Philippines - The Commission on Elections (Comelec) may file more electoral sabotage cases next week against former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and others who were implicated in the 2007 midterm polls fraud.

Arroyo was arrested last Friday at the St. Luke’s Hospital in Taguig after the Pasay Regional Trial Court issued a warrant for her arrest.

Former Maguindanao governor Andal Ampatuan Sr. and provincial election supervisor Lintang Bedol were also issued arrest warrants in connection with 2007 election fraud.

The cases to be filed next week will involve the electoral fraud in South Cotabato and North Cotabato.

“The Comelec will probably be filing more cases next week as we continue to flesh out the complete story behind allegations surrounding the 2007 elections,” said Comelec spokesman James Jimenez.

The case was based on the recommendation of the joint panel of the Comelec and the Department of Justice (DOJ) that is investigating the electoral fraud.

Expected to be included in the charge sheet are former Comelec chairman Benjamin Abalos and military Capt. Peter Reyes, among others, who were not included in the Maguindanao case.

Among the panel’s witnesses in the new case are Lilian Suan-Radam and Yogi Martirizar, former provincial election supervisors of Comelec for South Cotabato and North Cotabato, respectively.

Radam and Martirizar went into hiding after they were investigated by the Comelec for tampered election results in the two provinces in 2007.

The Comelec had filed electoral sabotage charges against Radam before the Pasay City court while the case against Martirizar is still pending with the poll body.

After four years of hiding, both accused surfaced last September and offered to become witnesses.

As this developed, poll watchdog Institute for Political and Electoral Reforms (IPER) yesterday backed the joint panel over accusations of undue haste in suing Arroyo just to prevent her from leaving the country.

IPER executive director Ramon Casiple said the panel was just fulfilling its promise to the people to file charges by November against those involved in the manipulation of the 2007 elections.

He claimed it was also part of the “campaign promises” of President Aquino to bring to court those who rigged the polls.

“I think that (filing of the cases) should have been done much earlier. It took them a while before they were able to do that. I don’t think it was done in haste,” Casiple added.

He said Arroyo was “in panic” to go abroad because she knew the timeline of the panel in investigating poll fraud.

He added that Arroyo’s illness is not life threatening and there has been assurance by Filipino doctors that the procedures she wanted done abroad can be done locally, but she wanted to leave because she knows that the cases will be stalled if she is not around.

Casiple added that the government should not soften in its efforts to penalize those who rigged the elections if it really wanted the country’s polls to be clean, honest and orderly. 

Mike: Case won’t hold in court

However, former first gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo said charges filed against his wife will not prosper due to flimsy and fabricated evidence.

He said the case against his wife was based only on the testimony of Norie Unas, a former official of Maguindanao and a suspect in the 2009 massacre of journalists and other civilians in the province.

“They have been saying all things about my wife, like that she’s corrupt, but none of the cases and allegations have evidence to back them up, none at all. This case of electoral sabotage is even more questionable since she was not involved at all in the elections, she was not a candidate,” Arroyo said, referring to the 2007 senatorial elections during which the alleged crime was committed.

He said if such crime was committed, the 12 administration senatorial candidates should have all won, but the opposition bets dominated the elections.

Lawyer Ferdinand Topacio, Arroyo’s legal counsel, said he found incredible Unas’ claim that he heard the former president ordering Ampatuan Sr. to ensure a “12-0” outcome, which would mean Mrs. Arroyo would have shouted for him to hear her.

He also said Ampatuan executed an affidavit denying Unas’ claims but the document was disregarded by the Comelec-DOJ panel.

“What they (Aquino administration) did is to put in the DOJ in the investigation because the Comelec is supposed to be an independent body, but not anymore. They formed it so that they have control and fabricate and put in flimsy evidence because there is really no case,” Mike Arroyo said. – With Paolo Romero