K-4 raps Cebu teacher for ‘vote-padding’

CEBU CITY — A legal counsel of the administration’s K-4 coalition and poll watchers of vice presidential bet Sen. Noli de Castro intend to take legal action against a teacher here for alleged vote-padding.

The K-4 camp complained about the alleged vote-padding by teacher Alma Arellano in favor of Sen. Loren Legarda, the Koalisyon ng Nagkakaisang Pilipino’s vice presidential candidate, during the final canvassing of Cebu’s election returns for national candidates last Monday afternoon.

Instead of obtaining only a total of 90,499 votes against De Castro’s 214,633, Legarda got an additional 20,000 votes, as indicated in the statement of votes.

But even before the city board of canvassers could transfer the figures to the certificate of canvass, K-4 legal counsel Elvin Cruz and his colleagues called the attention of city election officer Simaco Labata on the matter.

Cruz and De Castro’s poll watchers pointed out to Labata the dubious increase in Legarda’s tally to 110,499 considering that the election returns from only three out of the total 2,415 clustered polling precincts still had to be tabulated that day.

Labata and the city board of canvassers immediately rectified the error.

Emma Compra, of the city treasurer’s office, believes it was just an honest mistake on the part of Arellano who instead of tabulating the more than 47,000 votes Legarda got in the south district, tallied more than 67,000 in the district’s sub-total.

Dave Tumulak, K-4’s Cebu coordinator, said they have submitted a report on the matter to the K-4 headquarters in Manila. — Freeman News Service