House official to Loren: No ballot box pilferage

A senior congressional leader assured former senator Loren Legarda yesterday that ballot boxes important to her electoral protest against Vice President Noli de Castro were not stolen while in the custody of the House of Representatives.

"Loren has nothing to worry (about)," said Majority Leader Prospero Nograles of Davao City.

"The House will do its duty to protect the ballot boxes as the 24-hour surveillance cameras were secured to secure them."

Nograles said the alleged theft of the ballot boxes should be investigated to clarify the opposition’s latest claim of fraud.

"I just wish, however, that we (would) stop this endless political fault-finding and vicious mudslinging and… go back to our real job of crafting legislation that is needed to help us survive as a nation," he said.

Security cameras make it "impossible" for theft to be committed within the House of Representatives, Nograles maintained.

Meanwhile, Sixto Brillantes, Legarda’s lawyer, warned yesterday that they would make a manifestation to the PET to cite the House or the Commission on Elections for contempt if the missing ballot boxes are not found.

His team would return to the House to look for the 150 or so missing ballot boxes used in the provinces of Lanao del Sur, Lanao del Norte and Surigao del Sur in last year’s elections, he added.

They expected the PET to retrieve about 200 ballot boxes from Congress last Monday, but only 53 were turned over to the Court, Brillantes said.

On the other hand, the Comelec volunteered yesterday to furnish the PET with copies of the election returns, which Legarda had reported to be missing.

"Our own (copies) of election returns are intact, and we are ready to produce them if the Presidential Electoral Tribunal orders us to do so," said Comelec Chairman Benjamin Abalos.

However, Abalos said if the ERs are indeed missing, it should be Congress that is made to explain how they were lost, not the poll body.

"Don’t ask us where they (ERs) are because they are now the responsibility of Congress, we already gave it to them," he said.

There are also copies of the ERs with the majority and minority political parties, and the National Movement for Free Elections, Abalos said.

Meanwhile, De Castro deplored yesterday as "utterly unfair" Legarda’s accusations that he benefited from the alleged unaccounted election returns.

"Loren cannot intelligently make a conclusion that the Vice President will benefit from the alleged unaccounted election returns because the Presidential Electoral Tribunal has yet to rule (on the procedure and) what other election documents can be used as basis for the recount," he said.

De Castro said the PET can adopt a procedure and allow other authentic copies to be used to determine the correct election result.

"Huwag naman niya husgahan ang PET na walang magagawa para maseguro na tama ang resulta ng bilangan (She should not judge the PET as being unable to do anything to ensure the correct results in the counting)," he said.

On the other hand, Carlo Vistan II, De Castro’s legal counsel, said Legarda has "turned a deaf ear" to their appeals that she should let PET do its job.

"Her media antics tend to destroy the credibility of PET if it does not decide in her favor," he said.

Vistan said Legarda is trying to condition the minds of the public so that if the PET decides against her, she can claim an injustice has been done.

Meanwhile, two pro-administration lawmakers challenged yesterday the opposition to prove allegations that ballot boxes under the custody of the House were tampered with and switched.

Representative Marcelino Libanan of Eastern Samar and Eduardo Veloso of Leyte said the minority’s "blatant lies" are a candidate for inclusion in "Ripley’s Believe it or Not."

Libanan said the opposition was trying to manufacture a scenario to muddle the election protest sought by Legarda.

"They are trying to justify her imminent defeat with charges of ballot tampering and switching," he said.

"Their allegations are an insult to the entire House as an institution which has a well-trained security group capable of securing the ballot boxes."

Veloso said the opposition is obviously still suffering from "impeachment hangover," hence its new tale.

"They are finding it hard to recover from their great loss," he said. "They better stop or else they are going to muddle the circumstances of Loren’s protest case which is their last hope." — Delon Porcalla, Mayen Jaymalin