COMMISSIONER BORRA TOLD TO SPILL THE BEANS
ON POLL AUTOMATION SCANDAL

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Nene Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) today urged Commission on Elections Commissioner Resurreccion Borra to do a patriotic act by spilling the beans on what he knows about the P1.3 billion poll automation contract and other irregularities in the Commission on Elections.

Pimentel said Commissioner Borra should wake up and follow the dictates of his conscience by revealing the truth behind the poll automation scam after he was singled out as the principal culprit by the Office of the Ombudsman by recommending him for impeachment and making him a sacrificial lamb.

Commissioner Borra should realize that he is an expendable member of the Comelec. He does not have a strong political backer. He does not have political clout. That explains why he alone among the Comelec commissioners is being nailed down, he said.

The minority leader said it defies logic why only Borra is being blamed for the anomaly when six other Comelec commissioners, led by Chairman Benjamin Abalos, approved the contract for the purchase of 1,961 automated vote counting machines to MegaPacific.

In fact, he said Chairman Abalos bear the greatest responsibility for the deal as head of the agency.

Pimentel said there is a good reason to believe that Borra was made the fall guy after he incurred the ire of Malacañang when he candidly admitted during a Senate hearing that massive fraud had indeed taken place during the 2004 presidential election, particularly in Mindanao.

But Pimentel said if Borra will speak up and agree to become a state witness, not only will the poll automation scam be resolved but this will also pave the way for a total cleansing and revamp of the scandal-rocked Comelec.