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MANILA, Philippines - (UPDATE - 7:03 p.m.) Fake or highly questionable ballots and certificates of canvass gave strong evidence of "massive fraud" in the 2007 elections, and of how newly-proclaimed Senator, Aquilino 'Koko' Pimentel III was for four years unjustly denied a senate seat.
Lawyer Irene Guevarra, secretary of the Senate Electoral Tribunal, said the fake ballots and COCs were enough to prove there was massive fraud in 2007, although she declined to say who might have been behind the electoral fraud.
On Thursday, the SET made history as it proclaimed Pimentel the duly elected senator over Juan Miguel Zubiri, who had resigned as senator a week earlier.
It is the first time a new official had been proclaimed as a result of the SET findings. Despite the decision, Pimentel has less than a year and 10 months left in his term.
Based on the tribunal’s decision, Pimentel trounced Zubiri by 258, 266 votes after garnering 10,898,786 votes in the SET’s revised tally. Zubiri got 10,640,620 votes.
In the 2007 count, Zubiri took 11,004,099 votes and was proclaimed the 12th senator. Pimentel had 10,984, 807 votes, or a difference of 19,292.
Pimentel’s protest
Pimentel filed an electoral protest on July 30, 2007 and contested the election results from 2,658 precincts in 44 municipalities and seven provinces, namely: Maguindanao (1,078 precincts), Lanao del Norte (496), Shariff Kabunsuan (291), Basilan (134), Sultan Kudarat (282), Lanao del Sur (161), and Sulu (216).
Pimentel spent P1.7-million for his protest, Guevarra said (Zubiri paid P26-million for his counter-protest in August 2007).
More than four years after Pimentel’s protest, the SET ruled 254,222 ballots “spurious” and quickly rejected them. This made up 80.74 percent of all rejected ballots, the SET said in its Thursday decision.
The massive number of questionable ballots was already an "indication of cheating" according to Guevarra.
Fishy ballots
According to the SET, the spurious ballots lacked the security marks and features present in genuine ones. The questionable ballots were made from poor quality paper; had a different color; and were smaller than the original.
Although the spurious ballots had watermarks, these were “obviously produced with the use of penetrating ink, instead of being embedded in the ballot, (and) the watermarks were plainly visible at first glance,” the SET said in its findings.
The fake watermarks also did not bear the word “COMELEC”, the Commission on Elections. Also, the microprints were unreadable and the “coats of arms were blurred.”
The SET’s investigation also led them to believe that only one or two persons prepared the spurious ballots.
The tribunal found the “same style and stroke of handwriting” in a number of ballots.
“One person wrote the names of the candidates voted for national positions and another wrote the names of the candidates chosen for the local positions. In some instances, a third person writes the name of the voted party for the party list.”
But what was surprising to the SET was that even several genuine ballots possessed identical handwriting.
“Regrettably, the same manner of ballot preparation, i.e. groups or batches of ballots being accomplished by only one person, or one ballot being prepared by two or more persons, was also observed in genuine ballots,” the tribunal said.
The tribunal said this constituted a violation of Sec. 195 of the Omnibus Election Code of the Philippines, or the “Manner of preparing the ballot.” Under the law, only illiterate and disabled persons can be assisted in voting by relatives.
Luuk town, a fourth class municipality in Sulu province, had the most number of wasted ballots (those prepared by only one person), with 12,691.
Meanwhile, Kalinggalan Caluang town, also in Sulu, had the most number of wasted ballots that were prepared by two persons with 1,946.
Typewritten COCs and other booboos
Aside from the ballots, the SET also found something wrong with the Municipal Certificates of Canvass of Sultan Kudarat and Shariff Kabunsuan.
As pointed out by Pimentel in his electoral protest and noted by the SET, the MCOCs as well as accompanying documents were all typewritten, enough proof that these were “accomplished not in an actual open-to-the-public canvassing of election returns as required by law, but in a ‘closed-door office setting’ with a large typewriter on top of a table surrounded by a select group of election operators.”
Citing a Statistical Data Report, the SET said 99.43 percent of 39,325 registered voters in the merged precincts of Sultan Kudarat and Shariff Kabunsuan voted in 2007. All 198 merged precincts were contested by Pimentel.
When the SET opened the ballot boxes from Sultan Kudarat for the revision, only one had its contents still intact. The lone ballot box, with contents from precinct 64D/64E, had 18 ballots - 10 of which carried votes for Zubiri and one with votes for both him and Pimentel. The ballot was objected by Pimentel.
Upon examination, the tribunal rejected the contested ballots because some of them were obviously filled out by only one or two persons. Meanwhile, the rest of the uncontested ballots were found to be spurious.
The tribunal also confirmed Pimentel’s observation that the certified photocopies of election returns from the 198 precincts were altered. While the SET noted that there was an attempt to explain the corrections, these explanations were an “affront to one’s intelligence.”
The incident reports also seemed to have been accomplished “in pair or in group by the same person” as evidenced by similar handwriting styles and strokes found on the documents. Despite this, the SET opted to painstakingly distinguish lawful votes from unlawful ones instead of nullifying all votes in the municipality of Sultan Kudarat, which would have led to the “disenfranchisement of many innocent voters.”
After the rechecking, 362 votes were deducted by the SET from Pimentel while 21,879 were taken from Zubiri.
Similarly in Patikul town in Sulu, Pimentel was credited with 92 additional votes, while Zubiri was shaved off 1,049 votes by the SET.
In conclusion, the SET said that Pimentel had suffered from various election errors that favored Zubiri.
“It is clear that Pimentel indeed obtained 258, 166 more votes than Zubiri in the senatorial race,” the SET said in its decision. “The proclamation of Zubiri ... is hereby annulled and set aside, and a new one entered, declaring Pimentel as the duly elected senator of the Philippines.”
Legacy of 2007 SET findings
In his Thursday speech shortly after being proclaimed, a relieved Pimentel offered his services to the SET, whom he thanked for pursuing the truth in the 2007 polls.
"I would like to volunteer to seat in the SET to discover some loopholes," Pimentel said.
His statement was met with a unanimous, “Yes” from the SET members present at Pimentel's impromptu press conference at the Sofitel in Pasay City.
Pimentel also lauded the SET for its historic decision and hoped that other government institutions would fight for the truth and justice.
"Sana po itong nangyari ngayon (I hope what has happened here) will infect the other institutions delivering justice in this country. It can be done," Pimentel added.
Lawyer Irene Guevarra, secretary of the SET, said aside from benefitting from Pimentel’s expertise as a bar topnotcher, he would be a real asset because "he already knows (the faults in the electoral process) by experience."
Pimentel, who will take his oath Friday in Mati, Davao Oriental, where he received the second most votes in 2007, said he will focus on pushing for electoral reforms once he takes his seat.
"I've become an accidental expert in electoral reforms," Koko said. “I will ensure accountability. There have been many accused but none have been charged for cheating."
For Guevarra, the 2007 polls and the decision of the SET only proves one thing: “Truth and justice still prevail in this country, perhaps.”
