MANILA — Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Nene Q. Pimentel,
Jr. (PDP-Laban) today voiced apprehension that former
Elections Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano may be
tapped again by the administration for special
operations to enable more Team Unity senatorial bets
to squeeze into the winning column.
Pimentel said Garcillano may even offer his services
now that he has conceded defeat in his congressional
candidacy in the 1st District of Bukidnon. The initial
count showed Garcillano (Independent) trailing behind
his two opponents, Maria Lourdes Acosta and Candido
Pancrudo.
Garcillanos concession of defeat in the Bukidnon
congressional race this early is not a sign of
sportsmanship but an offer of his availability to work
for Team Unity bets by means, fair or foul, of which
he has the expertise, he said.
Earlier, Pimentel denounced the failure of Commission
on Elections chairman Benjamin Abalos to relieve and
impose other sanctions on field election supervisors
and other poll officials involved in the
dagdag-bawas (vote padding and shaving) operations
in Mindanao during the 2004 presidential elections.
Many of them were even promoted to higher positions.
Calls for a full-dressed investigation of the alleged
role of these Comelec field officials in electoral
fraud went unheeded by the Comelec leadership.
This and other factors prompted the opposition to warn
that the machinery for electoral fraud at the
administrations disposal is still intact.
Meanwhile, Pimentel said the mechanism to rig the
results of the senatorial election in Mindanao to
favor TU candidates is now at work.
I have just received information that operators
identified with the Commission on Elections arrived in
Davao Tuesday. They are farming out to Davao and other
Mindanao provinces to cause delay in the canvass of
the votes to save TU bets from massacre.
-o0o-
