Comelec not keen on consolidating poll sabotage cases

MANILA, Philippines - Three electoral sabotage cases on the 2007 midterm elections will not be consolidated for easy prosecution, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said yesterday.

Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes said the poll body might opt for the cases to be tried separately.

“The cases have totally different sets of accused, witnesses and evidence,” he said.

“It may drag on more if they will be consolidated … We’ll file all the cases, have (them) raffled and then we’ll see (what happens next).”

Two weeks ago, the Comelec filed an electoral sabotage case against former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, former Maguindanao governor Andal Ampatuan Sr. and provincial election supervisor Lintang Bedol.

Next week, the poll body may file similar cases concerning the cheating in the provinces of South and North Cotabato.

Brillantes said Arroyo might not be included in two cases, which are anchored primarily on the testimonies of former provincial election supervisors Lilian Radam and Yogi Martirizar of South and North Cotabato.

Radam and Martirizar went into hiding after the Comelec initiated an investigation against them for allegedly fabricating election results in the two provinces in 2007.

But last September, the two surfaced and offered to serve as witnesses of the joint panel of the Comelec and Department of Justice probing the electoral fraud.

Among those who might be named respondents in the South and North Cotabato cases are former election chairman Benjamin Abalos and Capt. Peter Reyes.

The witnesses in the case concerning Maguindanao, on the other hand, include former Maguindanao provincial administrator Norie Unas, 15 election officers of the Comelec in the province and some military men.

Brillantes said the Maguindanao case is not limited to Arroyo, Ampatuan and Bedol.

He said the Comelec could amend the complaint to include more respondents.

“There are other individuals who are ‘for further investigation’,” he said.

“We are reviewing (the roles that they played in rigging the 2007 polls).”

Oban told to ferret out truth

Armed Forces chief Gen. Eduardo Oban Jr. was urged yesterday to do more to ferret out the truth concerning the controversial “Hello, Garci” tape recording.

Rep. Sherwin Tugna of the Citizens Battle Against Corruption said Oban should present in congressional investigations the officers and enlisted men who eavesdropped on the supposed telephone conversations of Arroyo and former elections commissioner Virgilio Garcillano.

“He needs to do more,” he said. “He should pro-actively seek out these officers and men, present them in congressional inquiries and order them to tell the truth.”

Tugna said Oban should also order certain generals and other officers linked to the “Hello, Garci” scandal to come clean.

“He holds the mantle of responsibility for the AFP and his actions would determine what the institution would be in the future,” he said.

“President Aquino, believing in his capability as a good leader of men and women in the Armed Forces, entrusted him to take charge of an organization that requires wide-ranging reforms.”

Tugna said Oban has a golden opportunity to put closure to the alleged participation of some military officers in election fraud and thereby strengthen his organization.

Tugna made the appeal a few days after Col. Pedro Sumayo’s Senate testimony that his superior officer in the AFP intelligence service, Col. Allen Capuyan, had ordered him to burn the “Hello, Garci” tapes.

The two officers are still in the active service.

Former AFP intelligence agent Vidal Doble, who claimed he was among several soldiers ordered to wiretap Garcillano, said Sumayo did not tell the entire truth in his Senate testimony.

Sumayo protected someone in Malacañang who ordered the wiretapping, he added.

In the “Garci” recording, a female caller, whose voice sounds like that of Arroyo, talks to a man she calls “Garci” about vote rigging in the 2004 presidential elections. –With Jess Diaz