Atty. Pamintuan (left) closely monitors the recount of votes of Angeles City at the Comelec office in Manila on Wednesday. (Inset) A double-shaded ballot. Photos by Joey Pavia
ANGELES CITY- “We have come to the end of a long journey.Today I am officially withdrawing my poll protest against incumbent mayor Edgardo Pamintuan before the Commission on Elections.”
Thus declared former Mayor Francis Nepomuceno to his supporters, effectively ending the electoral protest he filed against the man who defeated him.
This even as the Comelec confirmed yesterday that a “significant” number ballots cast for mayor in this city in last year’s May elections were apparently tampered with after the computerized polls, thus prompting revisors to shift to photo images of the ballots.
In an interview with Punto, Comelec Second Division chief Commissioner Lucenito Tagle said the tampering was found out during the revision or recount of mayoral votes as petitioned by former mayor Francis Nepomuceno who lost to Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan.
He said his is considering a separate probe on the reported tampering which is a criminal offense.
Nepomuceno unexpectedly announced on local radio station here yesterday his withdrawing his petition for recount and noted that his electoral complaint had, in the first place, questioned the reliability and integrity of the computerized elections in this city. He also said the cost of the recount was too much.
He was reported to have claimed that initial figures in the recount showed him the winner in the mayoral race. He cited recount results from 20 clustered precincts as of last May 18 purportedly showing him leading with 4,079 votes against the 1,922 votes for Pamintuan.
“It is time for me to go,” Nepomuceno said in his statement to his supporters on his withdrawing his recount petition.
Tagle cited discrepancies between the ballot images obtained from compact flash cards (CFCs) and the original ballots which were transported from the city hall here to the Comelec central office for the recount.
Tagle cited reports from members of his division’s committee on revision that ovals intended for mayoral vote on the ballots were shaded for more than one candidate for mayor, thus supposedly voiding the vote. Corresponding photo images of the ballots, however, showed no such over-voting.
Tagle admitted that the tampered ballots examined so far did not seem to affect votes for Nepomuceno whose official withdrawal of his petition for recount still had to reach Comelec as of late afternoon.
Despites difficulties posed by the tampered ballots, Tagle said he expected the recount to be finished by Monday at the latest, with the photo images being considered in the case of the suspicious original ballots.
Nepomuceno’s camp initially objected to accessing the CFC’s after contending in his electoral complaint alleging “automated cheating by mis-scanning, miscounting and misappreciation of the shaded ovals including pre programmed transmission of manufactured and doctored, distorted and pre determined election results” in this city.
But Tagle cited that the policy of the Comelec is to rely on “ballot images” contained in CFC’s in cases of manifest tampering of original ballots. He said his division’s committee on revision is prepared to print copies of the photo images from CFC’s for consideration in the recount in lieu of the apparently tampered ballots.
In the last mayoral polls, Pamintuan won over Nepomuceno by some 30,000 votes.
Pamintuan said the ballots could have been tampered with after the May elections last year, when the ballots remained in the safekeeping of the treasurer’s office at city for the duration of 46 more days that Nepomuceno occupied the mayoral post.
