Malonzo faces poll raps

Incumbent Caloocan City Mayor Rey Malonzo, the city treasurer and several unidentified others were formally charged before the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in Intramuros, Manila yesterday for allegedly conspiring and deliberately causing voters to refrain from casting their ballots in the May 14 and 15 polls and obstructing the election process.

In two separate complaint-affidavits, Pablo Casimina, general campaign manager of mayoral bet Rep. Luis "Baby" Asistio, charged Malonzo, city treasurer Lourdes Jose, one Magdalena Teodisio, election officer Romeo Gonzales (District 1), Maxilyn Emnaca-Morales and Malonzo’s common-law-wife, Gwendolyn "Gigi" Emnarca.

Teodisio is the mapping division chief while Emnaca-Morales, sister of Gigi, is the chief of the miscellaneous department under the City Treasurer’s Office.

Casimina, in his complaints, claimed that Malonzo, Jose and Teodisio and several others, have "criminally conspired and actually acted to deliberately delay the distribution of election paraphernalia" to the members of the Board of Election Inspectors (BEIs) in the first and second districts "with the malicious intention of disenfranchising voters en masse."

He said the venue for the distribution of ballot boxes and other election paraphernalia intended for District 2 was the "very small and cramped" Trade Fair Center across the City Hall instead of the spacious gymnasium where it was previously held.

Caloocan City’s District 1 has 783 shared or clustered precincts while District 2 has 1,071 clustered precincts.

Asistio’s campaign manager further claimed that the respondents delayed the opening of the trade center during the election proper when the distribution was supposed to take place as early as 1 a.m. of election day.

He said that despite persistent demands from city election officer Calixto Ramos (District 2), Malonzo and his co-respondents deliberately withheld pertinent election paraphernalia, thereby causing much delay in the distribution of ballot boxes to the district’s 1,071 precincts.

This delay was blamed by the Asistio camp for the alleged massive disenfranchisement of voters in the districts, a ground used by the Asistios in their petition calling for the Comelec’s declaration of a failure of elections in the city.

"All these facts are attested to and affirmed under oath by Ramos himself when he was called by the Comelec en banc led by Chairman Alfredo Benipayo last May 24," Casimina said.

In the second affidavit, Casimina said that Malonzo, Jose, Teodisio, and the Emnarca sisters allegedly carried out their fraudulent scheme by deliberately making it impossible for the designated team called Group 1-C headed by Maxilyn Morales, to segregate and distribute the ballot boxes for District 1’s 783 precincts.

"There was an obvious scheme to delay the distribution because in previous elections, two groups were usually assigned to handle the distribution of boxes and election materials because of the sheer volume," Casimina said.

Included in the complaint was a three-page joint supplemental affidavit signed by at least eight employees of the treasurer’s office, who attested to how the respondents allegedly deliberately delayed the distribution of the election supplies.

In their sworn testimony dated May 24, 2001, Merie Vindollo, Lourdes Fajardo, Delia Manapat, Gracia Victoria Ong, Rosita Bondoc, Imelda Guitierrez and Amparo de los Santos of the City Treasurer’s Office and members of Maxilyn Emnace-Morales Group 1-C, also reiterated their request for the Comelec to conduct a through investigation of the fiasco.

Casimina was optimistic the Comelec will act on the matter with dispatch as the poll body is set to come out with a ruling on a petition they earlier filed calling for the declaration of a failure of elections.