MANILA, 4 April 2006 — A Commission on Election (Comelec) official yesterday admitted that poll cheating in the provinces is more the norm than the exception.

“Admittedly, there was cheating but it was not done by one individual or one party alone. It is endemic,” Commissioner Resurreccion Borra of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) told a Senate hearing on the wiretapping scandal that involves President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, former poll Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano and several military and police officials.

Sen. Rodolfo Biazon, chair of the Senate committee on defense and national security, asked where the incidence of massive cheating could happen.

“... from what we gathered in our past experiences in previous elections, the massive cheating for national elections appeared in the provincial certificate of canvass with the accompanying statement of votes,” Borra replied.

Borra, however, refused to consider the cheating surrounding the 2004 election to be massive.

“Based on the actual physical evidence, there was cheating although not massive cheating,” he said.

Herminigildo Estrella Jr., a management consultant for Senate Minority Floor Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr., testified earlier yesterday that there were discrepancies in the election returns that favored President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

Borra said the documents Estrella used as basis for his presentation must be examined first before it could be concluded that cheating in the last election was massive.

Borra said the rule of law required that the evidence be produced. He said the poll body must also know where the cheating happened.

“There were no massive evidences (sic) of fraud. That’s why there have been no questions on the Senate results,” he said.

Vote-Shaving

In his testimony, Estrella said the late actor Fernando Poe Jr., Arroyo’s closest rival in the presidential election, won by at least 489, 860 votes had dagdag-bawas (vote padding, shaving) not been enforced in several provinces.

Estrella said Arroyo’s lead of 1,063,772 votes over Poe was a “fabricated margin” that came from the “padded” votes for Arroyo in the provinces of Pampanga, Cebu, Iloilo, Bohol, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu, Tawi-tawi, Maguindanao, and Sultan Kudarat.

Estrella cited that the 951,695 registered voters in Pampanga, Cebu, Iloilo, and Bohol were “roughly the same number of votes that were added to GMA,” referring to the president.

He said without the padded votes for Arroyo from the six Mindanao provinces and the shaved votes for Poe from these same areas, the actors’ lead over Arroyo would have been 489,860 votes.

Estrella said this margin “did not even include the votes (that were allegedly) shaved from NCR (National Capital Region), Regions 1 to 5, and Regions 9 to 12.” Region 1 is Ilocos Region; Region 2, Cagayan Valley; Region 3, Central Luzon; and Region 5, Bicol; Region 9, Zamboanga; Region 10, Northern Mindanao; Region 11, Davao; and Region 12, Soccsksargen.

Also in his testimony earlier in the day, Estrella noted that the serial numbers were stamped on some and printed on others. He presented one set of ERs from Lapu-Lapu town in Cebu province.

Estrella also said that in a provincial certificate of canvass from Agusan del Norte province, gaps and misalignments were evident. The municipal or city certificates of canvass are summaries of the votes from the municipal or city statements of votes, which contain only the number of votes per candidate.

Estrella also pointed out that thumb marks on ERs from Floridablanca town, Pampanga province were “small round marks and did not look like thumb marks nor do they look human.” When asked whether he believed that there was cheating in the 2004 election, Estrella said there was.

Waste of Time

Meanwhile, Malacañang dismissed the Senate inquiry as “a waste of time.”

“It’s a pity because there are so many things they could devote their energies to rather than reviving this dead issue,” Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said when asked to comment.

Bunye said the Senate should instead work on the passage of the 2006 budget, the anti-terrorism bill, and the anti-smuggling measure.

Arroyo has been hounded by allegations that she cheated in the 2004 election following the disclosure of wiretapped tapes of her alleged conversation with an election official that reports later identified as Virgilio Garcillano.

Arroyo had apologized for her “lapse in judgment” in a televised speech nationwide but denied rigging the election.

Garcillano issued a similar denial before an investigation at the House of Representatives.

Following the exposé, Arroyo lived through massive street protests that demanded her resignation, weathered an impeachment bid at the House, and survived a coup in February allegedly by left- and right-wing conspirators and their civilian backers.

In response, the president declared a weeklong state of national emergency and jailed political opponents accused of allegedly being part of the plot to oust her. (With a report from Inquirer News Service)