Bedol wants to testify vs Abalos in 2007 poll fraud case

MANILA, Philippines - Detained former Maguindanao provincial elections officer Lintang Bedol wants to become a state witness against former Commission on Elections chairman Benjamin Abalos and other persons implicated in the alleged massive cheating in Maguindanao during the May 2007 midterm election, his lawyer said yesterday.

Lawyer Reynaldo Princesa told reporters after a court hearing at the Pasay City regional trial court (RTC) that Bedol wants to testify on the alleged cheating, which resulted in a sweep by Team Unity candidates. He refused to say how Abalos was involved but noted that the fake ballots used in the Maguindanao polls were transported from Bukidnon to Cotabato City.

“There are four other witnesses who will collaborate the statement of my client,” he said.

Princesa said he will personally accompany Bedol to the Department of Justice to personally apply to be admitted in the government’s witness protection program.

Abalos’ camp strongly reacted to the allegations. “Why only now? My father has never been mentioned in the Maguindanao case. Bedol wants to get out from mess he created by implicating my father. This is too much for my father, who is already 77 years old,” Mandaluyong Mayor Benjamin “Benhur” Abalos Jr. told The STAR in a telephone interview.

He said it was his father and namesake who ordered the investigation of reports of poll fraud in Maguindanao and ordered the filing of charges against those allegedly involved.

“They (Bedol) were the alleged operators and now they are looking for scapegoats,” Abalos said.

Aside from the two counts of electoral sabotage charges pending before the Pasay RTC Branch 112, the elder Abalos is also facing 11 separate counts of electoral sabotage at the Pasay RTC Branch 117.

Bedol, serving a jail term for direct contempt, is a co-accused in the electoral sabotage case filed against former President and Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and former Maguindanao governor Andal Ampatuan Jr. for the 2007 poll fraud.