TRIBUNE EDITORIAL: WITNESSES VS PREVIOUS ADMIN ON PARADE
MANILA, SEPTEMBER 21, 2011 (TRIBUNE) So-called witnesses having a "tale" to tell against the previous administration have been surfacing in droves, while Justice Secretary Leila de Lima immediately gets all of them into the Witness Protection Program (WPP) and just as quickly presents them before the media.
But just how credible are they, considering the fact that they all face electoral sabotage cases and have been in hiding for the past five years or so?
De Lima the other day presented two witnesses, former election supervisors from Mindanao who surfaced to disclose their knowledge on how the results of the 2007 mid-term elections were said to have been rigged in favor of the senatorial bets of the Arroyo administration.
She presented lawyers Lilian Radam and Yogie Martirizar, both of whom face charges of electoral sabotage but who now claim that they were pressured into signing extra copies of certificates of canvass (CoCs) and statements of votes (SoVs) to manipulate the results of the 2007 elections.
The two, in sworn statements, claimed that they directly received instructions from former Commission on Elections Chairman Benjamin Abalos, acting on orders from Malacañang, to ensure a 12-0 sweep in their areas of jurisdiction — North and South Cotabato — for the administration's Team Unity senatorial bets.
They not only implicated Abalos, but also Comelec Region XII acting director Michael Abas, Col. Ben Basiao of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (Isafp), Basiao's deputy, a certain Maj. Joey Leaban, deceased, who issued the list of senatorial candidates with the corresponding proposed number of votes they are supposed to receive in South Cotabato.
Martirizar said a certain Capt. Peter Reyes from the Isafp monitored her movements to make sure that the "12-0" plan was followed in North Cotabato.
These affidavits all look good on paper, except that even before the 2007 polls and as early as the 2004 polls, these two former election officers, not unlike Lintang Bedol and his Maguindanao clique, already were known to be election operators.
Besides which, it is also known that some candidates themselves, whether local or national, do engage their services to rig individual votes in their favor and pay the going price.
Yet all too suddenly, they, in their affidavits, make themselves appear as though they were never fraud operators and were merely coerced into committing electoral fraud because they were under the gun.
Martirizar was quoted in reports as saying that after the elections, she was told that if the 12-0 sweep could not be delivered, she should deliver at least an 8-4 result in favor of the Team Unity candidates.
That's a lot of bull. In 2007, almost everybody knew that the 12-0 spiel of Malacañang was an impossibility, given the fact that the polls were utilized by the electorate in general to show their protest against the Arroyo administration. The votes cast were protest votes.
To be clear: This is not to state that there was no electoral fraud, but to state that these former election officers in charge of North and South Cotabato are trying to portray themselves as innocent parties in the electoral fraud and linking anybody and everybody allied or identified with the previous administration to get themselves immunity, the claimed government protection and to escape prosecution on charges of electoral sabotage.
And for years, they were fugitives but easily surfaced as "witnesses." So what is their aim, if not to have those charges dropped, in exchange for their "testimonies?"
But getting all these cheats and other undesirables — including businessmen who seek immunity to escape charges of tax evasion and other criminal acts, to testify — merely shows just how desperate Noynoy and his aides are, in trying and convicting the officials of the previous Arroyo government.
If their testimonies are solid and enough to make a strong case against the former Arroyo government officials, then why make them appear before the media instead of charging them in court?
But this seems to be the fad these days under the Noynoy administration, conduct trial and conviction by publicity against his foes--again to hide his failures.
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Chief News Editor: Sol Jose Vanzi
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