Zubiri seeks clean polls, focuses on health care

MANILA, Philippines - United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) senatorial candidate Juan Miguel Zubiri is striving hard to win in the May polls. And he wants a clean election to start afresh in the Senate.

Zubiri’s victory in the 2007 senatorial elections was tainted by allegations of fraud. A candidate of the Arroyo administration’s Team Unity, he won the 12th and last slot over Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel lll by just 18,372 votes. Zubiri was credited with 11,001,730 votes against Pimentel’s 10,983,358.

To this day Pimentel claims that the former Bukidnon congressman was a beneficiary of rigged votes from Maguindanao.

Pimentel asked the Supreme Court to block the inclusion of Zubiri’s votes from Maguindanao in the senatorial canvass and stop his proclamation, but the high court junked the petitions.

Zubiri was proclaimed on July 14, 2007 as the 12th senator. Pimentel then filed an election protest with the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET).

While the protest was pending, Zubiri went on to do his job as a senator, becoming one of the youngest majority leaders of the Senate.

As a congressman and a senator, Zubiri pushed for measures that protect the environment and promote the use of renewable natural resources.

Zubiri authored or co-authored the Biofuels Act, Renewable Energy Act, Wildlife Conservation Act, Magna Carta for Private School Teachers, Rent Control Law, Armed Forces of the Philippines Rate Base Pay Increase, and a law strengthening the Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.

But in mid-2011, some members of the powerful Ampatuan family of Maguindanao confessed that former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo ordered them to pad the votes in the 2007 polls for certain Team Unity candidates, including Zubiri.

Hearing credible statements that his victory might have been tainted, Zubiri gave up his Senate seat on Aug. 3, 2011 without waiting for the SET to decide on Pimentel’s protest.

“No amount of power, position or wealth is worth sacrificing one’s honor and integrity,” Zubiri told his colleagues, maintaining that he did not cheat.

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile commended Zubiri for his act.

“Never had I thought that I would witness today a show of moral courage…Many people in this life possess physical courage, but rarely did I see a man stand up to what he believes in,” Enrile said.