Witness: GMA ordered 12-0 win

MANILA, Philippines - Former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had directed former Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) governor Andal Ampatuan Sr. to ensure a 12-0 victory for pro-administration senatorial candidates in Maguindanao in 2007, according to a former consultant of Ampatuan.

Testifying before the Senate yesterday, Ahmad Mamucao said Ampatuan declared before the election in 2007 that a 12-0 must be in favor of Team Unity.

“By this, with the influence of Datu Andal Ampatuan, all his associates and followers worked hand-in-hand to achieve his orders, which is 12-0 result during the election of 2007,” he said.

Mamucao said he met with engineer Nori Unas, then provincial administrator of Maguindanao, at Century Park Hotel in Pasay City sometime in April 2007 or barely a month before elections.

He received a total of P50,000 on a staggered basis from Arroyo’s political officer, a certain Bong Serrano, and another P17,000 from Unas, he added.

Prior to the Senate hearing, Unas had been interrogated and made a witness by the Department of Justice-Commission on Elections (Comelec) panel investigating the election fraud issue.

The Senate committees on Blue Ribbon and on electoral reforms led by Senators Teofisto Guingona III and Aquilino Pimentel III conducted the second hearing yesterday on the issues of poll fraud in the 2004 and 2007 elections.

Guingona was unable to attend the hearing because he was on an official mission in Mindanao.

Malacañang meeting

Mamucao said about two days later, Unas brought him to Malacañang, where Arroyo met with Ampatuan in a function room with political leaders from Maguindanao.

“The President urged Governor Ampatuan to make the 12-0 in favor of the administration,” he said. Mamucao said afterwards, Unas gave him P17,000 as stipend for his trip back to Mindanao.

Mamucao said during the meeting with Arroyo, Ampatuan was assisted by executive officer Bong Serrano, who was then Arroyo’s political officer and a member of then pro-administration Lakas–NUCD.

Mamucao said being from Midsayap, Cotabato, Ricric Ochea was assigned to handle the guests in another room.

“Sinabi po ni Gloria na 12-0,” he said when Pimentel asked him to whom Arroyo had given the order.

Later he got a call from Serrano, who mentioned about the “special operations,” Mamucao said.

However, Mamucao told reporters after the hearing he did not get direct orders nor did he hear any order from Arroyo to actually cheat in the elections.

It was Ilocos Sur Gov. Luis “Chavit” Singson who was then leading in the elections in the area but then Rep. Juan Miguel Zubiri overtook him, Mamucao said.

Post-election operations

In June 2007, Serrano asked Mamucao to secure a ten-wheeler truck containing blank election returns, certificates of canvass and ballots at a compound in Maramag, Bukidnon, which is also used as a boxing gym.

Mamucao said throughout the long trip, he was assisted by two men, a certain Rudy and Alex, who had to buy seedlings of mangoes, lansones, durian and other fruit-bearing trees to be used as cover for the blank election forms.

Mamucao said the Zubiris reportedly owned the boxing gym, but former senator Zubiri has denied his alleged participation in the election cheating in 2007.

Mamucao said he did not hesitate doing the operations since he was then on the good side of Ampatuan. He decided to come out now to reveal the truth about the 2007 elections, especially after he helped in the presidential campaign of President Aquino, he added.

Mamucao said that he transported the paraphernalia to the residence of Unas in Cotabato, where they were met by acting provincial election officer Estelita Orbanse, whom he described to be “pretty,” wearing a red blouse and red lipstick.

Serrano congratulated him shortly after he called and informed him that his “mission has been accomplished,” he added.

Zubiri denies allegations

Zubiri rushed to the Senate after his name was implicated in the alleged post-election cheating operations. Mamucao mentioned that Zubiri’s campaign poster was even used as a landmark during the almost six-hour trip from Cotabato to Maramag, Bukidnon.

“I have no participation,” he said.

“I have no knowledge or tolerance of electoral fraud or cheating whether pre or post elections. It’s an utter lie.”

Zubiri said he has no cousin named Rudy or Alex, whom Mamucao claimed he met prior to the conduct of special operations in Maguindanao.

“After the elections, we were already broke,” he said.

“I don’t even have that money anymore,” he said.

Zubiri denied allegations that he spent P10 million for post-election operations.

Zubiri was not scheduled to appear before the hearing of the Blue Ribbon and electoral reform committees, but he proceeded to the Senate after hearing over the radio and television Mamucao mentioning his name.

As a courtesy to a former colleague, the committee on electoral reforms chaired by Pimentel allowed Zubiri to respond to the allegations shortly before the hearing adjourned.

Zubiri said that the allegations of Mamucao were complete lies and that he never participated in any electoral fraud in the past or present and would never tolerate this.

“Once again my detractors launched a demolition job against me, I would like to categorically say that all those statements are lies and are out to destroy all the goodwill that we have done for the people,” he said in a statement.

Zubiri said his home province of Bukidnon was never the subject of an election controversy and that the elections there have always been peaceful.

“First of all, I will never tolerate cheating and I resigned from my post precisely because I will never accept a win like that,” he said.

Zubiri admitted that his family owns the property in his hometown of Maramag where the boxes were supposedly picked up by Mamucao.

However, the property has long been opened to the public and was used for various purposes, including a boxing gym and now a taekwondo club, which is managed by town officials, he added.

P1-M payoff

A military intelligence officer had received close to P1 million in alleged payoff to remain silent on the “Hello, Garci” controversy, it was revealed at the Senate yesterday.

Testifying yesterday on the Senate probe into the “Hello, Garci” controversy in 2004 and the subsequent alleged election fraud in 2007, Col. Pedro Sumayo Jr. said he got nine bundles of one thousand peso bills, totaling to about P900,000, sometime October or early November this year.

Sumayo said it was Col. Emil Zosa who handed him the money during their meet-up at the compound of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP).

The remainder of the P1 million or about P100,000 was reportedly left with Zosa.

“Upon reaching my house, I opened the green plastic bag to check its contents and I was surprised to see nine bundles of one thousand peso bills,” he said.

“Up to now, the said bundles of money are still intact in its original packaging and unspent.”

Barely two months after Sumayo was assigned at the office of the deputy chief of staff of the Armed Forces last June, he was placed on floating status after an article linking him to the “Hello, Garci” alleged coverup appeared in Newsbreak on Aug. 24.

It was at this point that he sought help from Col. Zosa, a unit commander in ISAFP.

He later heard from Zosa about a month after a text message that he had a package at ISAFP.

When asked by Sen. Francis Escudero if he thinks the money was a kind of bribe to prevent him from testifying before the Senate, Sumayo said it could not have meant so.

He said he thinks it was really an effort to help him since he was placed on floating status due to his knowledge about the Garci tapes.

“I don’t think so because there was no news of the investigation then,” he said.

Sumayo turned over the money to lawyer Rudy Quimbo of the Blue Ribbon committee for safekeeping.

Sumayo also identified a prominent businessman who is a power broker in the military for his links to Arroyo’s half-brother and namesake of former President Diosdado Macapagal, known in the military and police circles as Buboy Macapagal.

Ruben Reyes had close links with military and the police, being a member of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) class of 1972 and has close friends in PMA Class 1983.

In his testimony, Sumayo said he got acquainted with Reyes sometime in the later part of 2004 when he was invited to a party at Reyes’s residence in Wack Wack in Mandaluyong.

It was his superior, Lt. Col. Allen Capuyan, then chief of the Operations and Intelligence Division of the ISAFP, who introduced him to Reyes.

Garci tapes destroyed

It was also during the hearing that Sumayo revealed that he had destroyed the original “Hello, Garci” tapes and the transcript of the call from a female caller beleived to be Arroyo and former election officer Virgilio Garcillano at the height of the canvassing of the 2004 elections.

“All the while, I thought it was destroyed but it seems not,” he said.

Sumayo said Capuyan had “ordered me to destroy and burn the said recording to which I complied” in mid-2004.

Capuyan’s order came after technical Sgt. Vidal Doble informed him about his discovery of the controversial conversation between Arroyo and Garcillano, he added. Sumayo said this was sometime in May or June 2004.

“When I played and listened to it, I eventually heard a voice similar to then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo talking to a person named Garci.”

It was only when the tapes were made public after the exposé of the late National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) deputy director Samuel Ong and Doble that Sumayo learned that Garci was in fact the former elections commissioner.

It was at this juncture that he reported the tapes to his superior Capuyan, who then asked him to destroy the evidence.

Sumayo also categorically denied that he ordered Doble or any other individual to tap the telephones of the personalities mentioned in the tape.

“I have no knowledge on how the number of the person referred to by the former President as Garci was programmed into our system that enabled it to intercept, and record all the calls made to it,” he said.

Doble was a whistleblower at the Senate probe on the “Hello, Garci” issue in the past Congresses.

‘Arroyo bashing’

The lawyer of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo believes pro-administration senators were again using the “tried and tested” campaign tactic of bashing his client to gain media mileage to aid their reelection in 2013.

Raul Lambino was commenting on the revival of the Senate investigation on the “Hello, Garci” controversy.

He said in the investigation, the proponent senators aim to achieve three objectives: further anger the public against Arroyo and thus strengthen the numerous charges against her and humiliate her, ingratiate themselves with President Aquino for various personal interests, and gain publicity for their reelection bid.

“This (investigation) is just another strategy by some politicians in the Senate, particularly those aspiring to be reelected in 2013, to again get media and public attention,” he said. “There is nothing that the nation will benefit from this investigation.”

“She is the most convenient target nowadays because she’s helpless and sick and not popular so they want to divert the people’s anger of their current economic problems to her.

“Now they also want to ingratiate themselves to the current powers-that-be for their various selfish agenda.”

‘Sumayo no James Bond’

To his former superiors, as well as former colleagues at the ISAFP, Sumayo is no James Bond but just like any other intelligence officer is a results-driven guy.

Former commander of the ISAFP’s Military Intelligence Group-21 (MIG-21), Sumayo, under whose watch the “Hello, Garci” wiretapping issue broke out, is a member of PMA Class of 1984.

After graduation Sumayo joined the Philippine Army (PA) and has been tasked to conduct various intelligence-driven missions, being assigned to various intelligence units.

“He is an intel man all along. Pero hindi naman sya si James Bond,” a senior intelligence officer said in describing Sumayo.

Oban: Surface and testify

Armed Forces chief Gen. Eduardo Oban Jr. urged yesterday soldiers who know something about the 2004 poll fraud to surface and to testify before investigating authorities.

“The truth will set you free. It would be good for us to know what really happened, if (the allegations of election cheating) are true or not,” he told reporters yesterday.

“If there is anyone implicated here, they should tell the truth to clear their names.”

Oban said the military would work closely with those probing the “Hello Garci” scandal.

“The Armed Forces is for the truth,” he said. “We will cooperate with the authorities in searching for the truth.”

Oban said this is the first time he heard about the claims of Sumayo.

 ‘100 M to rig polls’

A former regional director of the Commission on Elections in the Zamboanga Peninsula claimed that she was offered up to P100 million to rig the results of the mayoralty race in Zamboanga City in 2004 in

favor of businessman Lee Peng Wee.

Testifying before the Senate hearing on alleged electoral fraud in the 2004 and 2007 elections yesterday, lawyer Helen Flores claimed that she refused to cooperate with the plan to rig the

elections, which resulted in her being removed from her post.

Flores said she was approached shortly after the election by the close-in security of Garcillano, identified as Capt. Val Lopez, who asked for her help to make Lee win.

Canvassing was already taking place and Lopez met with her in private and asked for her help because Lee was losing in the mayoralty race in Zamboanga City.

Flores said after letting Lopez know that she was not willing to participate in an illegal operation, she was informed by Lopez that Lee was willing to spend anywhere from P50 million to P100 million.

“Captain Lopez, do you believe that I can do that? He said, ma’am, we can get the cooperation of your board of canvassers. I said, Captain Lopez, sorry, but I can’t do that. I will not do that,” she said in Filipino.

Tampering of votes could not have been possible without the participation of the military because of their presence in the region, Flores said.

Last Aug. 15, Flores was promoted to deputy executive director for administration of the Comelec. –With Paolo Romero, Alexis Romero, Jaime Laude