Koko to file protest before Senate electoral tribunal

Genuine Opposition senatorial candidate Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III will file tomorrow his protest before the Senate Electoral Tribunal against the proclamation of Team Unity’s Juan Miguel Zubiri as the 12th winning senator in the last May elections.

Pimentel is particularly questioning the inclusion of votes from Maguindanao, which he claimed were manufactured to favor Zubiri.

Earlier, Pimentel’s father Aquilino Jr., who is the current Senate minority leader, said they would have to follow the rule of law and fight for his son’s rights accordingly.

But the minority leader said he would work with Zubiri in the Senate while the protest is being heard by the SET. He said they could push for the Mindanao agenda together, as they both hail from that region.

Aside from the Maguindanao votes, the younger Pimentel is also questioning the results of the special elections in some areas in the Visayas and Mindanao.

Yesterday, he denounced an alleged attempt of election officials and administration political operators to rig the senatorial outcome of the special election in Pantar, Lanao del Norte on July 23 to make it appear that he did not win over Zubiri.

Based on the election returns in the possession of the Pimentel camp and furnished by the Commission on Elections (Comelec), Aquilino III said he obtained 2,435 votes while Zubiri got 936 votes.

He expressed suspicion that another attempt was at work to manipulate the results of the Pantar special election, with the aim of depriving him of his rightful number of votes, similar to what happened in Maguindanao and several towns in other Mindanao provinces.

Zubiri had said he was ready to answer the protest of the Pimentel camp and would even step down if fraud in Maguindanao and other areas was proven.

– Aurea Calica