Palace to 'Garci' generals: It's up to you to clear your names

MANILA, Philippines - Malacañang said yesterday it would be up to the retired generals who were named in the Mayuga report and who could be summoned in the investigation into alleged cheating in the 2004 elections to clear their names.

Deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said there was no need for the Palace to order those in active military service to attend any probe because “whenever these kinds of investigations are conducted, or invitations (are) extended by the Lower House or the Senate, our officials arrive,” Valte said, emphasizing that this was in contrast to the previous administration where Executive Order 464 was issued to prevent officials from attending congressional inquiries without palace permission.

Retired Col. Jose Gamus, who was placed under house arrest while he was still in active service on alleged trumped up electioneering charges, said he is willing to testify if called by the Senate or any official body tasked to look into the reported poll fraud. “The President has no directive not to attend or not to participate,” Valte said over radio dzRB, referring to government officials who may be summoned to the investigations.

“We leave it to them whether they appear or not. If they want to clear their names, the right thing to do is to go and participate,” she said.

Earlier, presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said proper authorities would review the documents accompanying the report of retired Navy chief Vice Admiral Mateo Mayuga to determine if cheating occurred in the 2004 elections and if the military was involved in it.

“I think the evidence was not in the report itself. The evidence is found in the various documents that are part of the report… so anybody can see through the documents and come up with an analysis of the Mayuga report,” Lacierda said in a press briefing in Malacañang on Thursday.

He said the President had no plans to create another body that would review the evidence from the Mayuga report but had instructed the Department of National Defense to see “where the evidence (would) go” as far as election cheating and military involvement were concerned.

Lacierda added the report would be available to those who would request for it since it had been declassified.

The Mayuga report cleared military generals of any wrongdoings as far as the 2004 elections were concerned.

But the release of the Mayuga report is precisely one of the reasons why Bayan Muna lawmakers are pushing for a probe into the 2004 polls.

Reports quoted Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares as saying that Mayuga and the rest of the panel would be invited if the probe pushes through.

He said the “damning evidence” was against the Mayuga panel for allegedly covering up the faults of many military men during that time.

He reiterated the testimonies and pieces of evidence in the 2,000 plus pages of the report showed signs of cheating in the 2004 elections. Colmenares said the issue “is not what questions they asked but what they failed to ask” and that the panel failed to follow up or dig deeper into many issues.

He also noted that some of the military personnel and officers invited did not submit to an oath even if some witnesses gave their testimonies under oath.

Bayan Muna also called on the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and the Commission on Audit to investigate the P197-million election fund given to the Armed Forces of the Philippines during the 2004 elections as it was reportedly used for other purposes.

Poe won but lost  in Sulu, Tawi-Tawi

Gamus, who was then among the active officers investigated by the Mayuga military panel in connection with the reported cheating in the 2004 presidential elections committed by soldiers, said there are other officers who are still in the active service who can be summoned by the probe body.

He said he was on official leave and was in Sulu during the May 2004 elections. It was in Sulu where the late action star Fernando Poe Jr. handily won in the counting of votes in the precincts level but ended up losing in the provincial canvassing that was held inside an Army camp.

Gamus said the same thing happened in Tawi-Tawi and Basilan.

He said he tried to reveal everything he knows about the electoral fraud committed by soldiers in the island province but was not successful.

“Now that I am retired and no longer covered by military rules. I can talk freely,” Gamus said.

Several military officers who refused to take sides during the May 2004 presidential elections shared Gamus’ observation. These military officers tagged as “non-cooperative” by the so-called Arroyo generals have subsequently fallen out of grace during the entire incumbency of the Arroyo regime.

“From what I know, those officers who cooperated were amply rewarded financially,” Gamus said.

Senate committee on electoral reforms chair Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III said he is prepared to look into the alleged May 2004 and 2007 poll fraud and to examine the details of the Mayuga report on the military’s involvement in the election cheating.

He also expressed concern over what he called “high tech” election cheating if the loopholes in the past elections will not be corrected before the 2013 polls.

Pimentel also promised to file criminal and administrative charges against all persons who would be implicated in the cheating.

Namfrel: Clean voters’ list

Meanwhile, the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) has underscored the need for the Comelec to conduct a “new general registration” to effectively clear the voters’ lists. According to Namfrel secretary-general Eric Alvia, the current efforts of the Comelec to clean the voters’ list through the biometrics system are “inefficient and ineffective.”

Namfrel believes that it is not enough for the Comelec to just resume the registration because it would not be able to identify voters with double or multiple registrations or those who have already perished. “The latest registration program seeks to make a clean break from these unfavorable experience,” he said in a statement posted in Namfrel’s official website. Under the biometrics system of the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS), the Comelec gets the digital signature, photographs and fingerprints of voters. The fingerprints are then run through machines to cross out the voters with double or multiple registrations.

As a policy, if a voter changed his addresses, he has to apply for the transfer of his registration. But it has become a practice for many voters to register in a new polling precinct resulting to double registration. Alvia said it is better for Comelec to conduct a new general registration months before the 2013 midterm election, instead of just resuming registration. For the 2013 polls, qualified voters may sign up until October 2012. During this period, voters who have been delisted for failing to vote in two successive regular elections may also apply for the reactivation of their registrations.

Based on Comelec records as of July 11, there are 52,720,603 registered voters but only 34,938,758 of them have biometrics while 1,021,154 voters have been detected by AFIS to have double and multiple entries. – Jaime Laude, Sheila Crisostomo, Rhodina Villanueva, Perseus Echeminada