Comelec continues revision of ballots for vice governor

CEBU, Philippines - The camp of defeated vice gubernatorial candidate Glen Soco discovered “massive anomalies and irregularities during the 2010 national and local elections,” as the third day of the revision of ballots continue today before the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in Manila.

Atty. George Garcia, Soco's lawyer, told The Freeman yesterday that they discovered several ballot boxes do not contain election returns and minutes of the voting. They also found that there are ballots that do not contain the seat for vice governor.

"I have filed a manifestation for Comelec to deeply investigate and prosecute on this matter," Garcia said.

Garcia also said that the motion to intervene filed by Gigi Sanchez-Zaballero, the daughter of the late vice governor Gregorio Sanchez Jr., was denied by the Comelec Second Division yesterday as she does not have the legal personality to intervene.

Soco filed an election protest against Sanchez last May 20, 2010 on the ground of massive fraud and immense irregularities in the conduct of the election.

Sanchez died two months ago due to a lung cancer.

Garcia said they don’t want to speculate that they are already winning. Also, she stressed that the Comelec has not released any official figures showing that Sanchez is winning, contrary to claims that came out in the media.

Soco, in his 13-page petition, asked that he be declared as the winner and duly elected vice governor of Cebu.

In the petition filed last year, he had also asked for the annulment of Sanchez’s proclamation and to direct the latter to immediately vacate the position, to cease and desist from discharging the duties and functions of the office, as well as from collecting the compensation and other emoluments, and to peaceably turnover the position.

    Soco protested the results of votes cast for the position of vice governor in all the precincts in the entire province. He got 517,687 votes as opposed to Sanchez's 543,924 votes.

Cebu has a total of 10,923 established precincts which was clustered and reduced to 2,276 precincts to accommodate 1,703,829 voters.

 Soco further said that the total number of null and/or unaccounted vote, taken together, could materially affect the result of the elections. He said the 1,365,975 actual votes cast for the position of vice governor, as reflected in the statement of votes by city/municipality for the position of vice governor, do not tally with the total number of votes cast for him, Sanchez and other vice gubernatorial bets which is only 1,070,570. – (FREEMAN)