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Pimentel to Comelec: Why no charges vs Abalos yet?

Friday, December 2, 2011
THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) has yet to file formal charges against its former chairman Benjamin Abalos, and Senator Aquilino Pimentel III wants to know why.
“The Comelec should explain to the people why Abalos remains scot-free and has not been formally charged despite testimonies of witnesses naming him as one of the masterminds of dagdag-bawas (vote shaving and padding) in the 2007 elections,” Pimentel said.
Pimentel, chairman of the Senate committee on electoral reforms and a victim of poll fraud in 2007, said Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes should “expedite” the filing of charges against Abalos, who witnesses said orchestrated cheating in the 2007 elections. “Abalos can deny as he has done so many times that he had anything to do with election fraud during his time, but witnesses are coming forward to say that he was, in fact, on top of the cheating operations,” he said.
Pimentel filed a complaint of electoral sabotage against Abalos, Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, lawyer Jose Miguel Arroyo, and others in October.
The Comelec already charged Representative Arroyo, former Maguindanao governor Andal Ampatuan Sr., and former Maguindanao election supervisor Lintang Bedol at a Pasay City court.
The Comelec has pushed back charging Abalos, saying the case against him has to be amended to include statements from two former provincial election supervisors.
Lilian Radam and Yogie Martirizar have come forward to say Abalos orchestrated cheating to give the Malacanang-backed Team Unity senatorial slate a 12-0 win in Cotabato.
“We are definitely filing (a case) against Chairman Abalos but we have to make certain amendments,” Brillantes said this week.
“Comelec should stop this ‘protect your own’ attitude otherwise the agency will be beyond reforming and saving,” Pimentel said.
The Senator is also chairman of the Select Oversight Committee on Suffrage. He promised electoral reforms when he took his oath of office this year after the Senate Electoral Tribunal declared him the winner in the 2007 elections. Juan Miguel Zubiri, who was proclaimed the winner for the 12th vacant Senate seat in 2007, resigned shortly before the SET ruling.
Pimentel presided over a hearing on alleged poll fraud on Tuesday even though the electoral sabotage case against Arroyo, Ampatuan, and Bedol is already in court.
He had said the hearings are in aid of legislation and is focused on looking for systemic weaknesses in the election system instead of on the filing of cases.
Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano, a member of both the electoral reforms and blue ribbon committees, said the probe will help provide a clearer picture of alleged fraud in 2004 and 2007.
“If agencies conducting investigations have sacred cows in their midst and if the Senate’s impartiality is also in question, at the very least the results of simultaneous investigations can be compared,” he said.
He added personalities tagged in the alleged fraud are given opportunities to air their side.
At the hearing earlier this week, Zubiri was allowed to give a statement denying allegations that he had anything to do with fraud in 2007.
Witness Ahmad Mamucao said he had been involved in a vote-switching operation in 2007 and that he picked up blank ballots and election returns from a compound in Bukidnon that may have belonged to Zubiri.
He also said he worked with a man who claimed to be Zubiri’s cousin. (Jonathan de Santos/Sunnex)

http://www.sunstar.com.ph/manila/local-news/2011/12/02/pimentel-comelec-why-no-charges-vs-abalos-yet-193723

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