CIDG returns Tabayoyong ERs

After several days of haggling over who should have custody over the 30,000 election returns seized in a raid, the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) finally turned the controversial election materials to former senator Loren Legarda yesterday.

Superintendent Wilben Mayor personally delivered the poll materials to Legarda at her office at Legaspi Village in Makati City, saying he was ordered to do so by Interior and Local Government Secretary Angelo Reyes.

Legarda later told a news conference that the returned election returns should be inventoried properly against the possibility that they may have been "tampered with."

The former senator had claimed the seized election returns form part of the evidence in her electoral protest against Vice President Noli de Castro filed before the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET).

The election returns were seized by the CIDG at the rented house of former National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) handwriting expert Segundo Tabayoyong in San Mateo, Rizal last Aug.17.

Following the seizure, opposition congressmen also called on the CIDG to surrender to them the election returns which they claimed were part of the evidence of electoral cheating committed by the administration in last year’s presidential election.

Legarda said at a news conference that she will have to ensure there was no tampering or switching of the election materials turned over to her.

"Just because the CIDG has turned over to us these items, it doesn’t mean that that’s already the end of the story," Legarda said in Filipino.

Legarda reiterated the raid was illegal and the seizure of the poll documents was also illegal.

"We have to determine first if there are items missing or if alterations were done on the documents while in the possession of the raiders," she said.

Legarda stressed the turnover is "conditional," until after every election return has been checked by Tabayoyong.

In the same news conference, Tabayoyong said it would take months to check all the election materials against possible tampering.

He claimed, though, that everything seemed to be in order during his initial inspection of the election returns.

But he later claimed a video camera and some videotapes had also been seized by the police from his residence, a claim that was denied by Mayor.

Tabayoyong stressed the missing videotapes are important since these will show his examination of the election documents.

The former NBI handwriting expert said he had gone into hiding following the CIDG raid on his residence fearing for his life.

Legarda said Tabayoyong will be among the witnesses she would present before the PET in her electoral protest against De Castro.

Legarda also said she will ask the Senate to investigate the San Mateo raid.

On the other hand, the PNP Firearms and Explosives Division (FED) reported yesterday that Tabayoyong was the owner of an unregistered firearm, a .38 caliber revolver, which was among the items seized by the police at his residence.

Mayor added the police could not file the charges against Tabayoyong for insufficiency of evidence. — With Cecille Suerte Felipe