VP bet: Stop ignoring me

MANILA, Philippines - Ang Kapatiran Party vice presidential candidate Dominador Chipeco Jr. is hurting and wants to know why he was left out of a televised debate last week despite his party’s having sent a letter to express his intention to join the debate.

“The Kapatiran party wants to know the reason, was it just an oversight or is there some reason behind (the snub),” he told The STAR.

Chipeco said instead of participating in the debate he was left in the audience and he just witnessed the mudslinging of his rivals over personal issues.

He said a few days before the debate, their coordinator had called up ABS-CBN to ask why their candidate was not included in the list of participants and they were assured that he would be invited.

Chipeco said just like his rivals he could have articulated his view on issues but he was never given the chance.

Chipeco said if the giant television network continues to ignore them, they would be forced to seek the intervention of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) regarding the incident.

“There is a law that provides equal treatment of candidates and we must abide by that law,” he said.

A different Lacson

A senatorial candidate of the Liberal Party (LP) is having a hard time on the campaign trail because he has the same family name as fugitive Sen. Panfilo Lacson, who is facing double murder charges.

“It’s more of the negative, or maybe it’s 50/50,” said lawyer Alex Lacson, the LP bet who often has to clarify to voters that he is not involved in the murders of publicist Salvador “Bubby” Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito in 2000.

“I don’t have an accurate assessment (of its implications on my candidacy) because in Visayas and Mindanao, he (Sen. Lacson) is highly regarded there. But here in the national capital region, there are always fears and suspicions,” he said.

The LP bet disclosed that Lacson is a distant relative, both of them having roots in Negros Occidental, but they have never met.

“I have already researched it, our great great grandfather is Rosendo Lacson, who had 74 children,” Lacson revealed.

He expressed fears of a “pre-programmed” election result in favor of a friendly contender in the May 10 presidential polls, in light of the country’s first-ever automated polls.

“We have to ensure that there will be no pre-programmed vote count. This is one of the fears we have been raising despite assurances that it’s impossible to tamper the PCOS machines, or even the source code,” warned Lacson.

“We have this fear because there is no transparency in the counting. We don’t really know what will happen. The voting and counting, and even transmission, is not transparent,” he pointed out.

Lacson said there is a need to create an “independent commission” that will individually check the reliability of the 82,200 PCOS machines, especially because the machines used in the testing are not the ones that will be used come election time.

Transmission of the data on the election outcome is also another concern.

“I think it is the concern of everyone to keep this elections clean. We have to keep engaging our government. That’s the only way we can perfect our system,” he stressed.

He said pre-programmed poll results could be done on the national and local levels.

An independent body that would conduct a thorough review of the integrity of the PCOS machines should be assured that no electronic fraud will happen on May 10, both in the national and local levels.

“It’s a pity that these PCOS machines have not been independently reviewed to assure their integrity,” he added, suggesting that IT experts and political parties examine each and every PCOS machine. With Delon Porcalla