Press Release
June 24, 2007

PIMENTEL WARNS OF ELECTORAL DISASTER
IF MAGUINDANAO VOTES ARE COUNTED

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino "Nene" Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) today called on the Commission on Elections to prevent another electoral catastrophe and to seize the opportunity to redeem its impaired reputation by deciding once and for all to exclude the senatorial votes from Mindanao for being tainted with fraud and being devoid of any semblance of truth and credibility.

Pimentel said it would be a travesty of law and justice if the Maguindanao votes are tallied by the Comelec, as national board of canvassers, in the face flagrant violations of election laws and rules, exposed by the vigilant media, which enabled fraud operators to fabricate election returns, municipal and provincial certificate of canvass and statement of vote to make it appear that Team Unity senatorial candidates scored a 12-0 victory while 19 mostly opposition candidates were credited with an unbelievable zero vote.

"The moves of the Comelec would further destabilize the nation," he said.

"In the face of the unlawful and perverted acts to manipulate the outcome of the senatorial election and trample upon the people's right of suffrage, no right-thinking election officials will allow the tabulation of the tainted votes from Maguindanao and agree to the administration's faulty reasoning that the exclusion will disenfranchise voters from the province," Pimentel said.

He said the argument that the exclusion of the Maguindanao votes will disenfranchise Maguindanao voters does not carry weight because the 13th placer in the senatorial race, TU's Juan Miguel Zubiri, can still bring his case to the Senate Electoral Tribunal.

In the light of the aforecited grave irregularities, Pimentel said it is appalling that Comelec Commissioner Nicodemo Ferrer has declared the COC from 22 municipalities of Maguindanao as authentic.

He said that more than a month after the May 14 election and during the disappearance of these documents for weeks, it's highly probable that they have been tampered with.

Pimentel noted that Ferrer's observation was in sharp contrast to the assertion of GO lawyer Leila de Lima that the municipal COCs presented to the Comelec's Task Force Maguindanao were newly manufactured as the signatures of election officials in the documents were in the same handwriting.

He said the conflicting statements and queer behavior of provincial election supervisor Lintang Bedol further lend credence to allegation that massive scam marred the Maguindanao elections. Bedol has disappeared for the second time, according to Comelec.

"Bedol's disappearance adds another mystery to the baffling Comelec ruling on the authenticity of the Maguindanao COCs, initially declared by him to have been missing but were subsequently reported by him as stolen. These are the COCs that Commissioner Ferrer has deceptively placed under lock and key as if by doing so, the COCs now have God?s own authenticity," Pimentel said.

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