Cebu City canvass board members leave for Manila

CEBU CITY — The three members of the city’s board of canvassers are expected to leave for Manila today to vouch for the probity of the election results here.

Leaving with city election officer Simaco Labata, chairman of the city board of canvassers, are city prosecutor Cesar Tajanlangit and city schools division superintendent Leonilo Oliva.

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) would shoulder Labata’s travel and accommodation expenses as well as the P500,000 cash advance.

The city government, on the other hand, would take care of the expenses of Oliva and Tajanlangit, credited to the election reserve fund.

Labata said it is important that Tajanlangit be in Manila during the canvassing of the city’s certificates of canvass (COCs) because he has to identify his two "differing" signatures on the paper seal and on the envelope.

Among the documents he is bringing with him are the two statements of votes (SOVs) from the city’s north and south districts, and the city’s COC containing the results of the May 10 polls.

Labata said the Comelec readied his airplane ticket when the opposition Koalisyon ng Nagkakaisang Pilipino (KNP) claimed that Cebu was one of the areas where massive cheating took place during the May 10 elections.

In a letter, Cebu City South District Rep. Antonio Cuenco, a member of the 22-member national board of canvassers in Congress, urged all members of the city and provincial boards of canvassers to appear before the board anytime between June 14 and 30 when their respective COCs would be canvassed.

Cuenco’s letter was also signed and approved by the House panel in the national board of canvassers.

Prior to this, the Comelec en banc, through its overall coordinator, Commissioner Resurreccion Borra, issued a memorandum order dated June 3, citing an "imperative need" for the 21 chairmen of the provincial boards of canvassers and the three chairmen of the boards of canvassers of highly urbanized cities "to make themselves easily and immediately available to appear" before the national board of canvassers.

The board chairmen are tasked to explain concerns which the lawyers of the political parties or candidates or members of the joint congressional committee, may raise.

Those required to be in Manila include the chairmen of local government units "whose certificates of canvass, statements of votes or summaries of votes are lacking, have erasures, or with incorrect additions, or whatsoever inconsistencies."

Last June 5, Pio Joson, Comelec deputy executive director for operations, also issued a memorandum order to this effect.

And upon the directive of Comelec chairman Benjamin Abalos, Concepcion Cadiz, the poll body’s disbursing officer, was ordered to take care of the travel and accommodation expenses, including the initial P500,000 cash advances, of the board chairmen, who will be billeted at the Bayview Hotel in Manila.

Meanwhile, Cebu first district Rep. Jose "Dodong" Gullas said the KNP erred when it claimed there was massive and systematic cheating in the province, especially in the first district, in favor of President Arroyo.

"There was no cheating, especially in our first district," Gullas said.

Mrs. Arroyo won roughly 84 percent of the votes for president in the first district, which covers the area from Sibonga town to Talisay City.

Gullas insisted that Mrs. Arroyo won fair and square in his district, readily backing up his claim with three arguments.

First, Gullas said the KNP had no political machinery to begin with in his district.

"No single mayor or barangay captain out of 130 candidates in the district carried the name of FPJ. I can vouch for that," he said.

Second, Gullas said Mrs. Arroyo endeared herself to his constituents through her many projects in the district, which ranged from roads and highways to classrooms and water projects.

Lastly, Gullas said Mrs. Arroyo won the hearts of his constituents by merely being able to speak the vernacular.

"She can speak very fluent Visayan; any Cebuano would be touched. That other candidate can’t even speak straight enough English," he said.

KNP lawyers came to Cebu last Thursday, insisting that there was massive electoral fraud in various parts of the country, including this province. — Freeman News Service