Pimentel now leads Zubiri in vote recount

**explorer** · January 13th, 2008 11:53 AM

Pimentel now leads Zubiri in vote recount

January 12, 2008
Updated 21:08:52 (Mla time)
Norman Bordadora Dona Pazzibugan
Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, Philippines -- So, is it hello, Koko, and goodbye, Migz? Not quite. Lawyer Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III said Saturday the recount of votes at the Senate Electoral Tribunal in connection with his election protest now has him leading by 12,000 votes over Senator Juan Miguel “Migz” Zubiri.

Pimentel made the statement after revisors from his camp and Zubiri’s found all 198 ballot boxes from Sultan Kudarat, town in Shariff Kabunsuan province empty.

Zubiri led Pimentel in the municipality by 31,000 votes.

“The recount of the votes in Sultan Kudarat shows the result to be zero-zero. There were no ballots to count,” said Pimentel, son and namesake of the Senate minority leader.

“In the national level he leads me by 18,000. Without his 31,000 votes from Sultan Kudarat, I now lead him by 12,000,” he added.

Zubiri and Pimentel contested the 12th slot in the 2006 senatorial race.

Zuburi edged out Pimentel in the latter part of the national canvass when votes from Mindanao started coming in.

According to Pimentel, the essence of a recount is to go back to the ballots. Without ballots to count, the scores will be zero for all candidates.

He said that even if Zubiri’s camp would decide to go to the next election document, which is the statement of votes for Sultan Kudarat, it would still be questionable.

“The statements of votes are typewritten -- [the] first time in the history of elections in the Philippines. It is highly irregular,” Pimentel said.

Pimentel said the empty ballot boxes from a town that Zubiri dominated would no longer be subject to an objection because there’s nothing to object to. There were no documents, no tally boards, no minutes of votes.

“Our objections from the other areas such as those where the ballots were clearly manufactured would only add to my lead if they are accepted by the tribunal,” Pimentel said.

Zubiri on Friday said he didn’t have anything to do with the empty ballot boxes. He said the conflict in Mindanao could have had something to do with the empty boxes.

“The boxes still had metal seals when they were opened by the revisors,” Pimentel said, expressing doubt that the election documents had been stolen.

Pimentel’s lawyer Leila de Lima said on Friday that the empty ballot boxes proved that no elections were held in the municipality and other places in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

Shariff Kabunsuan province is part of the ARMM.

“Or if there had been an election, the documents were taken out as they would not coincide with the votes as canvassed,” De Lima said.

Meanwhile, Zubiri’s camp said they would contest the exclusion of votes from Sultan Kudarat.

“It doesn’t mean that the results [from Sultan Kudarat] should be excluded. We can’t allow that, otherwise we will disenfranchise the voters. We will resort to other documents to find out the votes,” said Zubiri’s counsel, George Garcia.

He said the Supreme Court has ruled in the case of Lerias v. House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal that in cases when the contested ballots are missing, the parties could use other available election documents, such as the precinct election results (ERs) or the municipal statement of votes (SOVs).

But since the ERs were supposed to be inside the ballot boxes that turned out to be empty, Garcia said they would ask for the copies held by the Commission on Elections, the National Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) and the political parties.

“Regardless of what happened to Sultan Kudarat, we should proceed with the revision. Hindi totoo matatanggal na sa puwesto. Mahaba pa ito (It’s not true Zubiri would be ousted from office. We have a long way to go),” Garcia said in a phone interview.

He said they would also file a motion with the Senate Electoral Tribunal to investigate what happened to the Sultan Kudarat votes.

“We will not be benefited by the loss of these ballots. In fact we were prejudiced,” he said, pointing out that the official tally showed that Zubiri led Pimentel there by 33,000 votes.

While Pimentel focused his election protest on the ARMM results, Zubiri has also filed a counter-protest against Pimentel that included other provinces outside the ARMM.

Zubiri’s lawyer also said that before the discovery of the empty Sultan Kudarat ballot boxes, the parties had already opened ballot boxes from five municipalities in Maguindanao, another ARMM province, and had began the revision, or the vote recount.

“At least the presence of the ballots points to the fact that there was an election in Maguindanao,” Garcia said.

He added that while the investigation of the Sultan Kudarat ballot boxes was pending, they should move on to the other contested precincts and municipalities.

The vote revision began last January 8.

Garcia said after the ballot boxes from 20 percent of Pimentel’s contested precincts have been opened, the SET would hear arguments from both sides on whether to continue the recount.