All eyes on Lanao del Sur

AFTER what many believe to be questionable results of the elections in Maguindanao that showed a “clean sweep” of the the senatorial race by administration candidates, the focus of attention should shift to another province in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao — Lanao del Sur.

There is fear of yet another possible manipulation of election results with the Commission on Elections declaring a failure of elections in 13 of the province’s 39 municipalities last May 14. Special elections have been scheduled on May 26.

The public apprehension is not without basis as the situation bears an uncanny resemblance to that of 2004, when special elections were also held on May 22, 2004 in 200 precincts in Lanao del Sur.

Read PCIJ reports on the Lanao del Sur elections in 2004:

• The Lanao del Sur vote
• Lanao’s dirty secret
• Did Mike Arroyo fund postelection ‘special operations in Lanao del Sur?
• Dagdag-bawas, Lanao style
• More ‘telling’ evidence of 2004 electoral fraud in Lanao

Votes were still being counted in Lanao’s seven municipalities, as well as in five barangays of Lanao del Norte, when Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was caught making calls to former Comelec commissioner Virgilio Garcillano in the “Hello, Garci” recordings from May 26 to June 10, 2004 in an alleged conspiracy to influence the outcome of the elections.

Arroyo later on apologized to the nation for making such calls, which she acknowledged as a “lapse in judgment.” But she denied the phone conversations were meant to influence the results of the 2004 polls since “the election results were already in and the votes had been counted.”

Yet on May 29, 2004, Arroyo made the now infamous question: “So will I still lead by more than one million (votes)?” And to which Garcillano replied: “Mataas ho siya (Poe) pero mag-compensate po sa Lanao ‘yan (His count is high, but that will be compensated in Lanao).”

Lanao del Sur was believed to be the center of massive dagdag-bawas (vote-padding and shaving) operations in Mindanao in 2004. Namfrel provincial chair Abdullah Dalidig noted then the discrepancy in the final congressional tally that had Arroyo winning in the province with 128,301 votes over Fernando Poe Jr. who only got 43,302. In the special elections, Arroyo received 30,477 more votes while Poe only garnered 6,805.

Namfrel’s tally of half of the election returns showed the exact opposite, with Poe leading Arroyo, 42,374 to 32,389.

The extent of alleged dagdag-bawas operations was illustrated by Poona Bayabao town where Arroyo got 4,700 while her rivals for the presidency all had zero votes. But this was not the case in Namfrel’s sixth copy of the ERs. In at least 13 precincts, the returns showed that Poe got 767 and Arroyo 964.

In all, Dalidig said that the votes for Arroyo were padded by 21,217 votes while Poe’s votes were shaved by 9,174.

Further proof of questionable results from Lanao del Sur was also seen in the voter turnout for the party-list elections. Party-list groups got 279,927 votes when the total number of registered voters in the province was only 273,011. Topping the party-list polls in Lanao del Sur was also a virtual unknown, first-time group, the Ang Laban ng Indiginong Filipino (ALIF), which got an incredible 116,489 votes (42 percent) in a crowded contest that involved 65 other organizations.

Of Lanao del Sur towns that were able to hold elections last Monday, voting was marred by the usual cases of violence and irregularities, topped by Comelec ARMM regional director Ray Sumalipao‘s refusal to hand over copies of the election returns to the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) for its quick count.

Dalidig said that they were only able to obtain ERs from six towns — Malabang, Bubong, Ditsaan-Ramain, Madamba, Poona Bayabao and Bumbaran — and Marawi City the other day. The ERs correspond to only 123 precincts involving 22,067 registered voters and showing an unusually high partial voter turnout of 87 percent (19,233 voted).

The initial, partial results showed eight Genuine Opposition candidates — Loren Legarda, Francis Escudero, Antonio Trillanes IV, Benigno Aquino III, Aqulino Pimentel III, Alan Peter Cayetano, Manuel Villar, and Panfilo Lacson — landing in the senatorial Magic 12, though Team Unity’s Jamal Kiram emerged number one, while two other administration bets, Edgardo Angara and Ralph Recto, are ranked 11th and 12th, respectively. Independent candidate Francis Pangilinan was at 6th place.

Noting discrepancies in the ERs, Dalidig attributed this to the lack of security in the canvassing areas. Days before the elections, Dalidig had appealed to the Comelec to beef up the military in Lanao to deter the presence of armed men, flying voters and threats of ballot snatching, but to no avail.
As he had predicted, the situation went out of control, with several incidents of harassment of voters and poll watchers. In one town, 14 were injured when supporters of candidates indiscriminately fired upon voters. At least three people were also killed on the day of the election.

“The elections were the same as 2004,” said Dalidig, pointing to election officers and members of the board of election inspectors who were engaged in a lot of anomalies. Failure of elections in several municipalities was due to election officers who mysteriously did not show up in their precincts on election day.

The Namfrel provincial chair also noted the statistical improbability in the increase in registered voters by about 100,000, up from 395,948 to only around 250,000 in 2004.

For the failed elections in the province, Dalidig placed the blame on Comelec’s Sumalipao. “Sumalipao is Garci Jr. He now decides the fate of elections in Lanao del Sur.”