CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – "At least presume that we are honest, unless proven otherwise."
Amid allegations that the second division of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) is biased in favor of former provincial board member Lilia Pineda, Commissioner Nicodemo Ferrer issued this appeal on the electoral protest affecting Gov. Eddie Panlilio.
Ferrer issued this appeal during his recent meeting with officials of the Pampanga Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPRCV) and the Social Action Center (SAC) of the Holy Rosary parish of Angeles City amid claims that the Comelec has been giving special treatment to the electoral protest filed by Pineda, known as a friend of Pres. Arroyo.
"Give us the benefit of the doubt," PPRCV and SAC also quoted him to have said. Ferrer noted during the meeting that the Comelec is frequently criticized by losing candidates and their supporters after each election.
Earlier, Panlilio’s lawyer Ernesto Francisco questioned the "haste" within which the Comelec has acted on Pineda’s complaint.
The protest of Pineda, who lost to Panlilio in the 2007 gubernatorial race by only 1,147 votes, led to the recount of votes for governor cast all over Pampanga. The recount was finished on Wednesday last week but the results have not yet been disclosed as the 21 committees who "revised" the ballots have 10 days within which to consolidate their report.
In an interview with Punto, Comelec lawyer Josllyn de Mesa said that the second division has yet to "appreciate" whether to consider as valid the aliases of both Gov. Eddie Panlilio and defeated gubernatorial candidate Lilia Pineda who had filed the electoral protest.
De Mesa said that the 21 committees which "revised" the gubernatorial votes did not yet consider the aliases "Nanay", "Baby", and "Nanay Baby" in favor of Pineda, as well as the aliases "Among" and "Ed" in favor of Panlilio.
The committees revised all ballots contained 4,683 ballot boxes gathered from all over this province. "Revision is different from recount," De Mesa explained.
She said that the 21 committees did not just recount the gubernatorial votes, but also took note of the protestations from representatives of both Panlilio and Pineda during the revision process for the later assessment of the Comelec’s second division.
"It’s up to the second division to consider or junk the aliases as valid," she said.
De Mesa, who said she was part of one of the 21 revision committees, said "there was no reversal" shown in the result of the vote recount of her committee which revised 223 ballot boxes. She declined to elaborate but added that the difference between the revised votes for Panlilio and Pineda was "very small."
She stressed, however, that she was referring to the results of the revision done only by her committee. The Comelec has so far not released any information on the results of the entire revision done by all the 21 committees, amid text messages circulating in this province claiming that Pineda had won.
Ferrer said he expected Pineda’s electoral protest to be finished before the 2010 elections amid prospects that it could reach the Supreme Court.
The PPCRV and SAC said Ferrer admitted that Pineda’s electoral protest was unprecedented in terms of how the Comelec acted on it, as he noted that the formation of 21 revision committees was the biggest ever so as to cope with time constraints.
He recalled that in similar cases in the past, only up to 12 committees were formed, partly also because of limited space at the Comelec office in Manila.
The revision of gubernatorial votes stemmed from the election protest filed on May 25, 2007 by Pineda on allegations of mis-appreciation and misreading of ballots, as well as fraud and irregularities she attributed to Panlilio’s camp.
Pineda was the candidate of the administration Kabalikat ng Mamamayang Pilipino (Kampi) while Panlilio, a former parish priest of Betis in Guagua town, ran as independent.
