Abalos, Ampatuan plead not guilty to poll sabotage raps

MANILA, Philippines - Former Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman Benjamin Abalos and former Maguindanao Gov. Andal Ampatuan Sr. pleaded not guilty yesterday to charges of electoral sabotage in connection with alleged cheating in the May 2007 midterm election in Maguindanao and North Cotabato.

Abalos declined to enter a plea during his arraignment, prompting Judge Jesus Mupas of the Pasay City Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 112 to enter the not guilty plea, while his co-accused former North Cotabato election officer Yogi Martirizar also pleaded not guilty to the same charges.

The former Comelec chair and Martirizar were accused of tampering with election results in North Cotabato to insure a 12-0 win of senatorial candidates of the administration Team Unity of then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Abalos is also facing separate electoral sabotage charges before the sala of Judge Eugenio de la Cruz of Pasay RTC Branch 117 for alleged tampering of election documents in the province of South Cobatato.

De la Cruz automatically entered a not guilty plea on behalf of Abalos, who also declined to enter any plea during an earlier arraignment of the case. His co-accused lawyer Lilian Radam, former chairman of South Cotabato Board of Canvasser, pleaded not guilty.

Lawyer Brigido Dulay, legal counsel of Abalos, has filed a motion to fix bail even though electoral sabotage is a non-bailable offense. The court set the bail hearings for Abalos on April 16 and 23.

Ampatuan, a co-accused with Arroyo and former Maguindanao election officer Lintang Bedol, arrived at the Pasay RTC in a wheelchair and was escorted by heavily armed personnel of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP).

The arraignment was postponed twice after the former governor was hospitalized due to lung illness.

During the arraignment, lawyer Siegfried Fortun informed Judge Mupas that his client cannot understand Tagalog or Enqlish and requested Ampatuan’s 17-year-old son Miko Pendaton to translate the information into Maguindanao dialect.

The former governor shook his head several times when one of his sons read in the Maguindanaon dialect the information of the alleged poll fraud.

The information alleged that Arroyo ordered Ampatuan to insure a 12-0 victory for Team Unity senatorial candidates.

The lawyer of Ampatuan has also filed a motion to fix bail that would be deliberated upon together with the ongoing bail hearings of Arroyo and Bedol.

The bail hearings of Arroyo and Bedol will resume today at the sala of Judge Mupas.

So far the Comelec has already submitted more than 100 election-related documents and presented a witness to prove alleged conspiracy to tamper the Certificate of Canvass and votes in Maguindanao.

But the witness, lawyer Nelia Oreo, has denied that there was tampering of votes and cheating in the town of Pagalungan, Maguindanao in 2007 midterm election.

Oreo, former chairman of the Pagalungan board of canvassers, said as far as she could recall there was no tampering of votes when the special board of canvassers, which she headed, completed the canvassing of votes in the town.

Under cross-examination by the lawyer of Bedol, Oreo said that her role was only to complete the canvassing of votes in Pagalungan two months after the May 14 midterm polls.

Oreo was presented by the prosecutors in the bail hearings to prove that they have a strong case of electoral sabotage against Arroyo and Ampatuan, who allegedly conspired to give zero votes to then opposition senatorial candidates Benigno Aquino III, who is now President, and Senators Alan Peter Cayetano and Panfilo Lacson.

Oreo said in her testimony last Thursday that she did not find any tampering of votes from the 59 precincts in Pagalungan.

She explained that they completed the canvassing at the Comelec central office in Manila.

Oreo said when they conducted the canvassing, the winners of the senatorial race were already proclaimed and the results of their canvass were no longer included because it may no longer affect the outcome in the National Board of Canvassers.