‘A classic case of dagdag-dagdag’

AS the canvassing draws to a close, complaints of poll fraud pile up before the Commission on Elections (Comelec). Just yesterday, progressive party-list groups filed a case against the entire board of canvassers of Zamboanga Sibugay for the “unusually and incredibly huge number of votes” in favor of two “party-list fronts” of the administration.

In a seven-page complaint filed before the Commission on Elections (Comelec), party-list groups Bayan Muna, Gabriela, Anakpawis, Kabataan, and Suara Bangsamoro said they found glaring irregularities between the certificate of canvass (COC) and the statement of votes (SOV) in seven municipalities in Zamboanga Sibugay.

According to the group, votes were tampered with by surreptitiously inserting another digit to make the original entry bigger.

Read the complaint filed against the Board of Canvassers of Zamboanga Sibugay.

For example, in Kabasalan, the Cooperative-Natcco Network Party (Coop-Natcco) only got 208 votes in the municipal COC, but the figures increased to 2,089 in the SOV by municipality.

Another “administration-backed” party-list, United Movement Against Drugs (UNI-MAD), supposedly got only 60 votes in the COC of Kabasalan; in the SOV, the figures were changed to 3,600.

In another town, Imelda, the COC showed that 290 votes were cast for Coop-Natcco, but the recorded figures in the SOV reached 2,290. UNI-MAD, meanwhile, had 35 votes in the COC, but it got 2,350 votes in the SOV.

The group reported that in six of the municipalities, Coop-Natcco got a total of 10,447 votes “when they actually got 1,298.” While UNI-MAD got 19,044 votes in the seven municipalities, when it was only supposed to get 357 votes.

“This is a classic case of ‘dagdag-dagdag.’ The votes for Coop-Natcco and UNI-MAD were tampered with and increased by adding another or more digit to the actual number of votes received,” the group said.

Coop-Natcco could still not give its comment on the allegations because it has yet to see a copy of the complaint. Coop-Natcco, whose top nominee is party Rep. Guillermo Cua, is considered an administration ally.

UNI-MAD, on the other hand, is headed by high-ranking retired police and military officials. Enrique Galang Jr., one of the nominees, used to be the Philippine National Police regional director in Central Luzon. He was appointed by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as Bureau of Immigration executive director; he is now associate commissioner.

The latest party-list tally of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) show that Coop-Natcco now has over 264,212 votes or 2.34 percent of all votes cast, earning one seat in the 14th Congress. UNI-MAD is catching up with the two-percent mark, with 150,444 votes (1.33 percent) so far counted in its favor.

The progressive party-lists said only the members of the canvass committee or the provincial board of canvassers could had been responsible for tampering the votes in the SOVs. A case for committing electoral sabotage — tampering, increasing or decreasing the votes received by a candidate — has been filed against the canvassers before the Comelec.

More of the same

Task Force Poll Watch, a monitoring group formed by the five party-lists, also revealed similar findings in several areas, mostly in Mindanao.

In Zamboanga del Sur, UNI-MAD reportedly got 153 votes in three municipalities, as stated in the COC. The SOV however showed that it got 4,660 votes, which would mean a total of 4,507 padded votes.

Votes were also allegedly padded in favor of party-list Ang Laban ng Indiginong Filipino (ALIF), an administration ally, in Zamboanga del Sur. A total of 22,011 votes were padded for ALIF in 15 of 28 municipalities, findings of TF Poll Watch show.

In Margosatubig, for instance, the certificate of votes had 114 votes for ALIF; votes in the SOV however showed a total of 2,114 votes.

In Caloocan City, the group also found discrepancies between entries in the election returns (ERs) and in the SOV in favor of Kasangga party-list.

Kasangga is a member of Sigaw ng Bayan, the group that launched the controversial people’s initiative to propose amendments to the constitution.

In a six-page complaint, the Caloocan Board of Canvassers were charged with electoral sabotage for altering the votes in the SOVs. ERs from 11 precincts in Caloocan showed that Kasangga got 17 votes; entries in the SOV increased to 669.

The group said the BOC members “did not act and even refused to verify the questioned SOVs in order to correct them.”

TF Poll Watch estimates that votes in the ongoing Comelec count may be padded by as much as 2.7 million, a number big enough to affect the overall percentages of party-list groups.

The group said the trend in the 2007 elections shows “a systematic vote padding in different levels,” which may result in even fewer members of the progressive bloc in the 14th Congress. — with additional reporting by Julienne Urrea, PCIJ intern