NAMFREL

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from NAMFREL Election Monitor Vol.2, No.11

Within ten days after the May 10, 2010 elections, former Angeles City Mayor Francis Nepomuceno filed an electoral protest against Edgardo Pamintuan, who had just won the election with a final count of 60,5632 votes against Nepomuceno's 34,105 votes. In his protest, Nepomuceno alleged that Pamintuan's camp placed identifying marks and other unnecessary words and expressions in the ballots that caused the PCOS machines to count the votes in Pamintuan's favor. Nepomuceno also reportedly alleged that the machines were preprogrammed to count votes for Pamintuan.

However, Pamintuan countered that there is a possibility that it was Nepomuceno's camp who did the cheating. "They were still in power 46 days after the elections, meaning all the ballot boxes were in their custody. They were also the ones who identified the supposed questionable precincts -- the precincts which they may have tampered with," Pamintuan said. "The cheating happened after the elections and the cheating was against me." Pamintuan alleged that only ballots with Nepomuceno's name were not spoiled. Regarding the charge that the machines were pre-programmed in his favor, Pamintuan said that it is technically impossible and that the charge actually questions the entire automated elections.

187 precincts were identified by Nepomuceno in his protest. Early this month, the Comelec's second division commenced the opening of the ballot boxes in question. On May 16, the Comelec suspended the revision process after having only opened four ballot boxes, saying that there were massive discrepancies between the results in the automated election returns and the votes as reflected on the physical ballots. Comelec Second Division chair Lucenito Tagle has suggested checking on the election results reflected on the compact flash cards (CFCs) used by the PCOS machines as per revision rules, to which Nepomuceno's camp objected. Tagle cited discrepancies between the ballot images obtained from the CFCs and the original ballots which were transported from the city hall here to the Comelec central office for the recount. He cited reports from members of his division’s committee on revision that ovals intended for mayoral vote on the ballots were shaded for more than one candidate for mayor, thus supposedly voiding the vote. Corresponding photo images of the ballots, however, showed no such over-voting. Tagle admitted that the tampered ballots examined so far did not seem to affect votes for Nepomuceno.

On May 20, Nepomuceno unexpectedly announced the withdawal of his petition against Pamintuan, citing lack of funds to continue with the protest. Pamintuan, however, said Nepomuceno's withdrawal of the case will not stop him from filing charges of electoral fraud and sabotage. He said they have evidence of massive tampering of the ballots after the elections in the precincts Nepomuceno's camp precisely pointed to as having questionable results. "These evidences reveal a sinister operation conducted while the ballots and ballot boxes were still in the custody of Nepomuceno before officially turning them over to me on June 30, 2010," Pamintuan said.
(Sources: SunStar, PhilStar)

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