While wholesale fraud might have attended the 2004 presidential elections, the infamous demand for “‘yung dagdag, ‘yung dagdag” heard across continents from the “Garci” tapes may now mean something else altogether. In the light of recent revelations, rather than fudging ballots, the appeal may have referred to breast augmentation.
Keeping abreast of electoral protests, we however believe the telephone call still refers to electoral fraud although no longer of the surgical “dagdag-bawas” paradigm. At least not in Sultan Kudarat.
Last year, when contested ballot boxes were opened following the protests of candidates competing for the slot of the last senator in the 2007 senatorial derby, exactly 197 of 198 ballot boxes from Sultan Kudarat were found empty. Within those there were no ballots to recount and none to validate the 37,904 votes of the 39,327 registered voters of Sultan Kudarat whose mandate had earlier been confirmed by the Commission on Elections when its Chairman proclaimed the 12th and last senator on July 14, 2007.
In proclaiming the 12th senator in the May 2007 elections, the lead of the 12th against the 13th candidate was exactly 19,292 votes after the contested Maguindanao results were deemed valid and consequently included in the final national tally. This means that votes from the 197 ballot boxes also constituted the margin of 19,292. It also means someone had counted what might have never existed.
Failing to find validating ballots from 197 ballot boxes, recount officials opened Sultan Kudarat’s 198th ballot box and upon strict scrutiny, they found 11 fake ballots within. The jurisprudence is clear where there are overwhelming anomalies against what might be regular. Empty ballot boxes constitute more than an anomaly when we consider the fact that votes from this municipality were part of and possibly integral to the basis for a proclamation.
More important than the discovery of empty boxes, following jurisprudence, the directions officials are duty bound to take, the immediate next steps and the process of resolution are defined. Add to these a sense of urgency as within months another deadline, this time for another set of senators running for another term is set to start.
The jurisprudential directive is based on a precedent-setting case (Hadji Loong versus Bensaudid Tulawie, HRET case no. 92-003, Sept.26, 1994) where results were nullified after municipal-wide results were due to massive fraud. Among the considerations was the fact that “vital election documents like Election Returns, Tally Sheet, and detachable coupons were not found inside the ballot boxes”. In Sultan Kudarat’s 197 ballot boxes, being empty does the precedent one over and sets new standards for the term “missing”.
Beyond statutory imperatives let us analyze the 19,292 margin that determined the 12th senator. Employing applied mathematics and undisputed data both the 12th and 13th candidates accept, we can come to the same conclusions upon which officials must act.
While it is relevant to consider 100% of protested precincts including those outside Sultan Kudarat, the latter’s numbers sufficiently alter the 19,292 margin. Moreover, counter-protests simply delay the inevitable when comparative mathematical recovery rates are factored in.
Following Loong versus Tulawie, the results of Sultan Kudarat, when nullified affects both the 12th and 13th senatorial candidate. Given 197 empty boxes and 11 ballots spurious, fraud need not be proven. There is nothing to count.
Based on the 2007 proclamation, the 12th senatorial candidate received 33,888 votes in Sultan Kudarat while the 13th 2,791. Now do the math. By netting out 2,791 from 33,888, the resulting 31,097 determined as null is more than enough to erase a margin of 19,292 1.6 times over. This more than compensates for votes representing Sultan Kudarat’s share in what underlies the 12th candidate’s national margin. In that municipality alone, mathematically, the 197 empty ballot boxes can determine the 12th senator from the 2007 elections.
Considering both protested, in the name of fairness, the process is replicated using the contested municipalities of both the 12th and 13th candidates. Because the municipalities identified would not be the same for both analytical comparisons are achieved by taking the ratio between the sum of net gains attained by each against each’s total number of precincts contested. The resulting ratio illustrates the number of votes impacting on 19, 292 votes where one either whittles or adds to the margin.
The computed gain of one against the other on a margin of 19, 292 votes reveals the truth. The resulting ratio is called the recovery rate where one whittled the margin at a rate of 155 votes per precinct while the other gained at 0.005 votes per precinct.
Thus, it is demonstrated. Following Euclid’s protocol on proving theorems, when mathematicians validate a postulate they signify definitiveness and finality with the letters Q-E-D. Others have benefited from the counting of non-existent ballots. But in this exercise, the 12th and last senator who should have been proclaimed in 2007 is Aquilino Pimentel III. Quod erat demonstratum.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Well, just a simple-minded view.
It is mathematically useless to have two Pimentels in the Senate. The taxpayers cannot pay for the price of two – for one thing and the other, nothing.
The true results of the elections be damned?
Primer, I followed this specific case very closely, tied also to the death of a certain Musa Dimasidsing, which I have also written about extensively.
The vote and the will of the people must be respected, it is our right of suffrage at stake.
Of course I care who gets into the Senate, but also important is how these Senators got in. If they know in their heart of hearts that they got in with tampered votes, then they are as guilty as the operators who has done their bidding..
Hi Nick,
I just checked the link on your post re Dimasidsing. It’s not very long and its last year’s. You may have others that don’t appear on this page. I would be very interested to read what you’ve written. Can you direct me to them or if they’re no longer archived, maybe you can e-mail me?
Regards,
Dean
Hi Dean, here is a link to a writing project that a few bloggers and writers, including myself, did during 2007..
http://www.tingog.com/local-issues/group-writing-project-write-for-musa-dimasidsing.html
You will also find some related resources in the article itself..
I covered The Maguindanao Votes extensively back in 2007.. as Bedol and the gang would blatantly steal the votes even during extensive media coverage..
It was just as sickening as 2004, even worse.
Dimasidsing is a hero that should never be forgotten, and I try to commemorate his death anniversary each year..
That having two Pimentels in the Senate is “mathematically useless” is a political issue and should have been used as an issue against my candidacy in 2007 (and I believe it was). But if in spite of the eloquence of those who raised this issue, the people still elected me then it was wrong and criminal to have cheated me just so that there won’t be two Pimentels in the Senate.
Hope in the generations to come no Pagunuran kin will ever have to undergo and suffer what I have suffered.
I agree, Having two Pimentels in the Senate is not the issue.
THE FRAUD WAS A GREAT INJUSTICE TO KOKO, TO THE MAGUINDANAO VOTERS AND THE FILIPINO TAXPAYERS!
which is the reason I never have and never will recognize Fake Senator Zubiri…
Amen to this!
When will we learn not to cheat in any election ?
as to the empty ballot boxes, in the absence of any credible evidence (other than the empty boxes), what makes you automatically assume that the people responsible for the disappearance of the contents were supporters of zubiri? the opposing camp could also have done it to buttress their claim that there was indeed cheating. if the voting trend was leaning toward zubiri, wouldn’t his opponent be more benefited by a declaration of anomaly and, therefore, a failure of election?
the idea is somewhat akin to kidnappers wearing military uniforms to incriminate and put the blame on the military.
??????????
Ben, I covered this extensively.. read my articles on “The Miraculous Maguindano Votes” over at tingog.com, and it will explain better as to why only Zubiri would have and did benefit from the anomalies that occurred.
By the way, the reason that it leads to Zubiri because in those instances where ballot boxes were empty or could not be found.. are the same instances where votes for Zubiri would mount to percentages in cases that would even reach over 100%..
Clearly, If you’re ahead in the count, as was Zubiri, would you want these found?
Answer is obviously, NO.
why not, nick? if, as you say, zubiri was ahead in the count overwhelmingly, then the only chance remaining for zubiri’s opponent was to have a declaration of “failure of election” to get a second shot, right?
Better to hold the position vacant
than staffed by someone who cannot ever hold the public trust
by virtue of the circumstances.
Joe
I am guessing that “…holding the position vacant” is not acceptable to the 1987 Constitution.
UP n
Throw it out then, eh,
after the 2010 election.
Joe
Thank you Nick.
Of course, neither would I agree that one Zubiri seats in the Senate were those votes bogus or rigged.
Besides, he has also become the trapo in the process.
Dean,
i incline to believe that the coming 2010 elections still be marred by fraud and surely not clean, even if automated. Manual or electronic voting and counting does not make a difference for as long as it is run by the ever- dirty Comelec people and the mafia outside it- the so called “Comelec operators” composed of resigned comelec personnel who made fortune in millions every elections that they cannot earn while working inside comelec.
This is the Comelec mafia “COMELECTED” Migs Zubiri. Millions of pesos flooded from the pockets of the Zubiris given to municipal and provincial comelec personnel through the comelec operators, the mafia. I noticed that in the provinces of North Cotabato, South Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, Shariff Kabunsuan, Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Lanao del Norte, and Basilan.I covered these areas and as the Mindanao Coordinator of Candidate Koko Pimentel, we were warned already that in these areas dagdag-bawas operations will happened. So we keep a tight watch in these areas. Zubiri’s henchmen brought with them cold cash in millions bribing comelec people and the politicians that controls the locality. Dagdag-bawas operations happened.Copies of municipal canvass remaining at comelec office are then doctored to favored the intended benificiary, in that case Migs Zubiri ( in fairness to other administration candidates they also tried doing a Zubiri but Migs is smarter than them anyway). During the provincial canvassing being one of Pimentel’s watcher, we were always ignored by the provincial canvassers everytime we complain of discripancies in the tally. They even ridiculed us by telling Pimentel has no money to speak of while Zubiri has plenty. But not in the provincial canvassing of Surigao del Norte ( the last to conduct canvassing due to local protest) where I protested and save by the courageous volunteer lawyers of sympathetic partylist, 5,000 votes of Koko Pimentel in the municipality of Sta. Monica padded in favor of Zubiri were rectified and return to Pimentel.
And who will believe in Comelec pronouncement that this coming automated election is better than the old one. It is still the same Comelec people that will conduct the election. And Garci is still alive together with the mafia comelec operators. My source in Comelec itself, a detailed security personnel, told me that the mafia already found a scheme through the printed ballots intended for electronic counting. Soon, negotiations are on its way between local moneyed politicians with their counterparts-the comelec operators. They have made the scheme after the ARMM elections where the automated counting machines were tested.
And how in the world Koko Pimentel electoral protest in the Senate Electoral Tribunal be delayed. Pimentel has proven and ruled by the the tribunal that he won over zubiri by over 94,000 votes through the results of the revision of votes in his pilot areas comprising the 25% of the 2,000 precints covered in some provinces of mindanao. That the 19,000 votes lead of zubiri during the time when he was “comelected” by abalos ( courtesy of Maguindanao’s Comelec faked provincial COC’s) has now been surpassed by Pimentel votes. In the counter protest of zubiri against Pimentel, it even showed after the revisions in the 18,000 precincts representing 25% of pilot precincts of the 72,000 precincts nationwide proetested by zubiri, pimentel lead over zubiri is more than 300,000 votes. No wonder Senator Bong Revilla, a member of the SET representing the administration was quoted as saying to the Misamis Oriental Municipal Mayors in one of their acquintance after SONA, that soonest Koko pimentel will be proclaimed the winner of his electoral protest against zubiri. That the only obstacle to that is the delaying tactics of zubiri. But we have high respect to the honorable members of the Tribunal. With God’s grace, justice will be served to Koko Pimentel, he will soon have his rightful seat in the senate. Congratulations KOKO. The Filipinos are proud of you.
Senders Note:
Ben Ranque was also a former Executive Officer of the Foundation for Clean Elections, Cagayan de oro chapter.
It is an absolute great evil when one not properly voted for sits in the position of power without the clear mandate of the people. The true and legitimate 12th senatorial winner was already revealed. Ultimately, Zubiri’s proclamation will eventually be nullified and voided because the longer Zubiri functions as Senator, the longer the people suffer. The very people who’ve been cheated off of their true choice, of their sovereign will. Before it is too late, it is absolutely necessary that the choice of the people be not supplanted by an impostor. But since there is a doubtful existence of even a single decent bone in his body, no matter what we write here, he will just cling as hell to the 12th senatorial seat.
Dean,
At the onset of the electoral protest by Koko Pimentel now in the SET, records would speak that there was indeed a mistake and injustice to the sovereign people who actualy cast their votes in favor of Koko Pimentel. Again brazen display of cheating has robbed us from our true choice of a senator we want to elect because we believed that under their watch we are confident that we are best represented. I hope that the SET will have the wisdom and finally rule infavor of the true winner so as not to frustrate the end of justice.
if you need to know more about the Pimentel protest, please visit the website address http://www.pimentelprotest.ph
thank you