A 'product of blatant fraud'

A petition for recall of Palawan Gov. Abraham Kahlil Mitra is pending in the Comelec.

It’s unfortunate that Mitra’s political stock in the province that his late father, House Speaker Ramon Mitra Jr., had labored monumentally to build up, is being challenged and sought to be obliterated. The young Mitra, 42, however, is optimistic that in the end, Comelec will decide justly on his case, after issuing a resolution certifying the sufficiency of the petition for recall, which petition he believes is nothing but politically-motivated, and which resolution was acted on swiftly by the Comelec without due process.

Governor Mitra served as congressman for the second district of Palawan for three terms. In May 2010, running for governor of Palawan, he faced off with the logging and business mogul Pepito Alvarez, intimidating with his vast and fabulous resources built up initially from decades of logging operations in Mindanao (where the recent flooding killed more than a thousand souls). The political forces ranged against Mitra were hell-bent on stopping his candidacy, throwing all sorts of obstacles, including a petition to disqualify him from running.

Baham’s charisma carried him to a comfortable victory. The petition for his recall — which his political opponent had every ill motive to promote — had been brewing for months, and after Mitra celebrated his first anniversary in office, it was filed with the Office of the Provincial Election Supervisor. It was initiated by a group called Kilusan Love Malampaya at the bidding of Caesar R. Ventura, a known Alvarez ally. The Commission on Elections en banc later issued a resolution — at the recommendation of the Office of the Deputy Executive Director for Operation — certifying the sufficiency of the petition for recall. The petition for recall, surprisingly, or not surprisingly, does not state on what specific grounds Mitra is being recalled other than presenting a huge number of votes asking for his recall, which, Mitra’s legal counsel claims, were fraudulently obtained.

The Commission’s resolution came surprisingly swift — in fact so swift it did not even bother to allow respondent Governor Mitra to exercise his right to a hearing. As pointed out by Atty. Raji Mendoza, Mitra’s counsel, the Palawan governor “thus failed to present evidence in his behalf that should have been considered in the resolution. This was all in violation of the respondent’s right to due process.”

Mendoza laid out the evidence, not the least of which is the finding that the number of signatures in the petition for recall was “even beyond the total number of registered voters” in certain areas, and thousands of other signatures had been fraudulently obtained. He asked for the dismissal of the petition in a Motion for Reconsideration filed with the Comelec. It can be argued that the government should refrain from spending precious resources and time on a petition that had been obtained through fraud and other foul and illegal means. The case against Mitra, his counsel emphasized, carry all these tell-tale marks.

“There is an ostensible improbability of the number of registered voters who signed as supporting petitioners. There is fraud, undue influence, machinations made apparent by the Petition itself that must be taken cognizance of by the Comelec,” Mendoza pointed out.

The most glaring examples are in Rizal town, where signatories in the barangays of Bunog, Campong Ulay, Culasian, Latud and Ransang exceeded by wide margins the number of voters registered in the May 2010 elections. Noting that it wasn’t a simple clerical error or an error in computation, Mendoza emphasized that the case strikes at the very heart of the petition for recall — its validity. Such a ruse can only result from a sore loser’s inordinate rush to a mechanism of removal of a public official, in order to overturn a valid election result — opening the process thus to abuse. That the petitioner produced an exaggerated number of supporting signatures made the petition a blatant product of fraud. In certain areas, the petitioner also appeared to have obtained almost all of the registered voters therein. The signatures obtained, however, were “even beyond the total number of registered voters.” This violated Republic Act 9244, which specifically provides that the petition for recall shall be supported by the registered voters of the local government unit in which the respondent was elected.

All of these point to an abuse of the recall process by the most obvious suspects, the political persons fighting Mitra. “Recall must be pursued by the people, not just by one disgruntled loser in the election or a small percentage of disenchanted electors,” Mendoza argued. “Otherwise its purpose as a direct remedy of the people shall be defeated by the ill motives of a few among them whose selfish resort to recall would destabilize the community and seriously disrupt the running government.” Mitra himself said he was duty-bound to oppose the petition not just because of its obvious infirmities, but more significantly, for the “people’s protection and welfare against malevolent aristocrats who abuse a well-entrenched right of suffrage to promote selfish motives.”

 The Comelec has the mandate to see to it that the process of recalling an elected official is never prostituted to self-interested ends.

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If you’d like to see the amazing paintings of a three-year-old girl, Arianna Ramos, go to LRI Gallery on 210 Nicanor Garcia (formerly Reposo), Bel-Air II, Makati, January 20-21. The framed abstract pieces in acrylic paint are delightful works as though they were made by adult visual artists. A professional painter says her works remind him of Mark Chagal. I think of Fred Liongoren’s landscapes, with their pastel and subdued colors. Another looks at zigzags and circles, polka dots and curliques and swirls of colors and is impressed by the dazzling combination of colors. 

It’s amazing how quickly — 20 minutes more or less — Arianna moves her brush up and down a paper canvas to produce a piece. She paints on the average four pieces a day, with the “guidance” of Jerome Mali, a full-time painter. Forty of her works will be sold at the LRI Gallery. Actually, says Jerome, he tells her what color combinations would be good, if she uses so much paint the paper canvas could get torn, and Arianna listens and follows what her mentor says, then goes on to do what she wants to do. She has no idea what she is painting; after a piece is finished, she says, it’s a fish, or the sun, or an ice cream cone. What she paints is where her hand goes; she does not copy a Christmas tree, or a jar, or a house. The viewer interprets what she sees.

All proceeds of sales will be donated to the pediatric ward of the Philippine General Hospital, through the Child Foundation, Inc. Dr. Carmelita Padilla, PGH pediatric ward head, will be on hand January 20 — the day before the January 21public exhibit — that is reserved for friends and relatives of Arianna’s parents, Atty. Rommel and Cat Ramos. Rommel runs the family security agency, and Cat, a management consultant, stays home these days to take care of the girls.

 The Ramos couple are giving their girls a sense of helping less fortunate children. Guests invited to Arianna’s first birthday party gave gifts of clothes, medicines and mineral water to a community in Taguig affected by typhoon Ondoy. On Arianna’s second birthday, a party was held for kids at the Bahay Pagibig orphanage in Barangay Orambo, Makati. This year, painting exhibit sales will go to indigents at the PGH children’s ward. At Alessa’s first birthday last year, medicines, syringes and medical equipment were given to the pediatric ward of the Taguig Hospital.

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