10 charged in Tarlac ‘poll fraud’ case

GERONA, Tarlac — The People Power Coalition (PPC) filed criminal, administrative and civil cases against the chairman of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) here, three municipal officials and six public school teachers, for allegedly conniving in election fraud in favor of an opposition candidate.

Named as respondents in charge sheets lodged with the Comelec central office, the local court and the Office of the Ombudsman, were Gerardo Gonzales, head of the municipal board of canvassers; and Dante Mata, Santiago Viray Jr. and Teodoro Cabanes, municipal assessor, treasurer and engineer, respectively.

Also accused of poll fraud were Venancio Tabbilos, representative of the education department to the municipal board of canvassers, and public school teachers Himaya Bumagat, Engelbert Agunday, Isasias Gregorio, Jose Domingo and Nelia Dalgo.

The respondents were accused of allegedly cheating PPC re-electionist councilor Regina Balmores-Laxa, through the so-called dagdag-dagdag (vote-padding) scheme, in favor of councilor-elect Manuel Milla, a candidate of Gov. Jose Yap Sr.’s Sama-Sama sa Tarlac (SST) party.

Outgoing Gerona councilor Ronjie Daquigan, a losing PPC vice mayoral bet, said more than 350 votes were discovered to have been allegedly added to Milla’s tally.

He said that election returns showed that Milla got only 32, 29, 31 and 14 votes from Precincts 771A in Barangay Tagumbao, 30A in Barangay Magaspac, 41A in Barangay Parsolingan and 21A2 in Barangay Caturay, respectively.

But in the municipal canvassing, these votes were recorded by the municipal board of canvassers as 132, 129, 131 and 64, respectively.

As a result, Daquigan said the municipal board of canvassers proclaimed Milla as the eighth winning councilor, with a total of 8,052 votes, edging out Balmores-Laxa who got 8,006 votes.

Daquigan said the Integrated Bar of the Philippines-Tarlac chapter has offered legal assistance to the case. Balmores-Laxa is an incoming director of the IBP chapter.

In the provincial level, Tarlac City Mayor Gelacio Manalang, losing gubernatorial bet of the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino-Third Force (Laban-Third Force), has accused re-elected Gov. Yap, SST’s standard bearer, of resorting to "massive, systematic cheating," vote-buying and terrorism during the recent polls.

Manalang has filed a case with the Comelec, seeking to nullify the election results in the province on grounds of alleged massive fraud.

According to Vice Gov. Herminio Aquino, losing PPC gubernatorial bet, pursuing criminal, administrative and civil charges against Comelec personnel, government employees and teachers suspected of taking part in the poll fraud "is one imperative strategy that we must employ to cleanse our electoral process of this kind of mockery to our democracy."

The PPC here has coalesced with Manalang’s Laban-Third Force to prove allegations that Yap and other SST-Nationalist People’s Coalition candidates cheated to win the elections in Tarlac City and in the province’s 17 towns.