PHL ready for next week’s polls as 15 more killed in ambushes

Pnoy pushes for 12-0 LP Senate bets; Binay sees victory for UNA

By FRED GABOT and MARIE-ALSIE PENARANDA

MANILA (PhilAmPress) – It’s all over but the voting and the counting on the May 13 senatorial, congressional and local elections.
If President Benigno S. Aquino III’s Team Pnoy and Liberal Party are to be believed, it will be 12-0 with all 12 of their senatorial candidates winning the elections.
Mr. Aquino has been personally joining the Team Pnoy and LP campaign rallies and sorties, the latest of which were in Quezon, Batangas, Misamis Oriental, Tarlac and Pangasinan. 
Vice President Jejomar Binay, leader of the opposition United Nationalist Alliance (UNA), however, warned the administration party against premature celebration, claiming that if their own surveys and the much bigger turnout of voters during their campaign rallies and sorties all over the country, it will UNA candidates who will be dominating the elections.
“Don’t celebrate just yet,” he said. “Remember 2010? When Mar (Roxas) claimed to have dominated the race with 52 percent in ratings and I, only 2 percent? Who ended up the winner?”
 Pulse Asia survey showed 9-3, from 8-4 and 7-5 in favor of Team Pnoy, but Binay predicted it will eventually end in favor of most UNA candidates due to the groundswell of support from local leaders and the people.
Binay said that surveys are not the basis for a candidate’s loss or victory, “although they help the candidates.”
The senatorial candidates who appeared to be in the Magic 12 or have chances of winning are reelectionists Sen. Loren Legarda, Francis Escudero, Alan Peter Cayetano, Antonio Trillanes IV and Gregorio Honasan, comebacking former senators Richard Gordon, Ramon Magsaysay Jr. and Juan Miguel Zubiri, Congressmen Joseph Victor Ejercito and Juan Ponce “Jackie” Enrile, former Congresswoman Cynthia Villar,, Grace Poe, adopted daughter of the late presidential candidate Fernando Poe Jr., and presidential cousin Benigno “Bam” Aquino.
Meanwhile, 15 more persons were killed, including a mayor’s daughter and two aides of another mayor in three new election violence only 10 days before the election, bringing the total deaths to over 50 and scores wounded.
Thirteen persons were killed when Mayor Abdulmalik Manamparan and his convoy were ambushed in Nunungan town in Lanao del Norte. One of those killed was the mayor’s daughter. Mayor Manamparan himself and nine others were wounded in the attack.
Two more election-related violence in Bacoor City in Cavite and in Antipolo City in Rizal resulted to the death of two followers of Mayor Strike Revilla, brother of Sen. Ramon Revilla, and the wounding of four others in the two cities, including a barangay chairman.
A week earlier, Gingoog City Mayor  Ruth Guingona, 78, wife of former Vice President Teofisto Guingona, was wounded in an ambush where two of her aides died and  two policemen escorts were wounded.
This developed even as the Commission on Elections assured of clean and honest elections as its preparations are in the final stage,  former Comelec Commissioner Augusto Lagman,l who is also an information technology (IT) expert, backed proposals for a parallel manual counting of votes as he maintained that the system to be used for the elections is vulnerable to manipulation or even cheating.
Other developments:
1. The Comelec is ready for the May 13 elections which it hoped would be orderly and peaceful, Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes said. See related story in this issue.
2. The Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces were placed on alert as 12 more areas of concern and hot spots were included in the Comelec list of possible areas of violence.
3. Presidential sister Kris Aquino has joined the campaign for senatorial candidates of Team Pnoy but she also campaigned for UNA candidates Mayor Junjun Binay and Vice Mayor Marjorie de Veyra in Makati City. She said se will actively endorse re-electionist Sen. Chiz Escudero, Grace Poe Llamanzares, her cousin Paulo Benigno “Bam” Aquino IV, and former Akbayan party-list Rep. Risa Hontiveros. Kris will join Escudero and Poe in their separate campaign sorties in General Santos and Davao Cities and Tacloban City.
Lagman said he agreed with the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) that a parallel manual count should be done by the Comelec to ensure the correctness of the PCOS machines’ tally.
He explained that the refusal of the poll body to allow a local review of the source codes, the absence of the “voter paper audit trail,” the function of the PCOS machines to print out “receipt” to show the machine’s correct recording of votes, and the digital signature for teachers has left voters without safeguards.
“What is happening at the Comelec is very problematic, there are no safeguards left for our assurance,” Lagman stressed.
This is the reason, he added, why the poll body should allow a parallel manual count which should be part of its supposed contingency plan and should be implemented with or without technical glitches.
According to Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo and 16 concerned election groups, a parallel manual count is important since the poll body has removed all election safeguards.

“If the Comelec has nothing to hide, we challenge it to institute manual count,” Pabillo pointed out.
“To restore the credibility of our electoral procedure with all the limitations and shortcomings, we call for a parallel manual count to be done in all precincts. If the Comelec has nothing to hide, we challenge it to institute manual count,” the prelate said in a weekly Church forum.

Pabillo said the parallel manual count will address the credibility issue of the automated elections, especially with the recent glitches observed in the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines. If a manual count is held, precinct officials will not solely depend on the election returns (ER), he explained.
The Vice President said that the Team Pnoy and LP will be in for a “big surprise” in the elections as what had happened in the 2010 elections where he was not winning in the surveys but eventually won over LP vice president bet Manuel “Mar” Roxas II, now the Interior and Local Government Secretary. In 2010, he recounted that Roxas started with 54 percent in surveys as against his two percent.
For as long as the elections are clean and honest, Binay said that a 12-0 win in favor of Team Pnoy and LP was not possible, noting that even during the term of President Cory Aquino, who was then very popular, two opposition candidates – former President Joseph Estrada and Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile – won as senators.
Binay said he was confident the President Aquino will not allow cheating as he banked on the assurance of Chairman Sixto Brillantes of the Commission on Elections that there will be no “Hocus PCOS.”
Brillantes, who is an appointee of President Aquino, showed his independence and himself indirectly supported Binay’s assessment on the impossibility of a 12-0 vote for Team Pnoy when he declared after making his absentee or advance voting that he voted for nine senatorial candidates only – three from Team Pnoy, three from UNA and three independents – although he refused to them the nine. He said all nine candidates are his personal friends.
“I did not fill up the 12 because I thought, I had the kodigo with me and I can only think of 9 that I think will qualify to sit in the Senate. I am not giving any names. Three from LP, 3 from UNA and 3 independent. That’s a very fair voting,” Brillantes told a television show after he voted.
It appeared many provincial governors and mayors also will be defying their party’s order for a 12-0 vote for the senators.
In Legaspi City, Albay Gov. Joey Salceda, an LP stalwart and classmate of President Aquino who is running for reelection unopposed, joined the UNA sortie and openly junked the 12-0 call of his party, pointing out that he will also vote for  Nancy Binay and Teddy Casiño of Bayan Muna and he will  junk Liberal Party candidates and fellow Bicolano reelections Senators Francis Chiz Escudero and Antonio Trillanes IV. Governor Salceda earned rebuffs from LP for his support to UNA candidates.
Majority of Bicol governors according to political observers are also defying President Aquino’s appeal as Camarines Norte Gov. Edgar Tallado, Catanduanes Gov.  Joseph Cua, Sorsogon Gov. Raul Lee and Masbate Gov. Rizalina Seachon-Llanete said they were supporting the candidacy ofRep. JV Ejercito Estrada, former Senator Juan Miguel  Migz Zubiri, Nancy Binay, reelectionist Sen. Gregorio Honasan and Rep. Juan “Jack” Enrile.
Besides Liberal Party governors, local mayors in Bicol are also backing  the UNA senatorial slate as they joined UNA’s Bicol sortie with Vice President  Binay and personally talked with Rep. JV Ejercito Estrada, expressing their support. 
Aside from its nine candidates, UNA has also adopted three independent  senatorial candidates, namely, Puerto Princesa Mayor Edward Hagedorn, Jesus is Lord Movement leader Eddie Villanueva and Grace Poe, boosting their chances of joining the possible winners.
Binay also predicted solid support from Northern Luzon consisting of Ilocos-Pangasinan, Cagayan Valley and Cordillera regions, Mindanao and many areas in Luzon and the Visayas.
 “We have solid support from Northern Luzon, more or less the Solid North, Region 2, we will win. I just came from Bicol. How can there be a 12-0 there when the newspapers say [Albay] Governor Joey Salceda will support five UNA candidates? I came from Zamboanga. I cannot think how we can possibly lose in Mindanao,” Binay said.
“We will definitely not lose by 12-0. In Iloilo our candidates are  strong. We have future Governor [Ferjenel] Biron, so how can we lose here?” Binay said.
Binay said while the LP’s support from its allies was crumbling and had gone to UNA, the LP must also contend with the solid support from UNA bailiwicks and partners such as his Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan  or PDP-Laban, former President Joseph Estrada’s Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino, the Nationalist People’s Coalition and local party affiliates.
Interior and Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas revealed details of “Oplan Last Two Weeks” that will send additional police personnel to the field to ensure safe and fair elections.
At a press briefing at the Philippine National Police (PNP) headquarters in Camp Crame, Roxas said the plan, which covers the period from May 6 to 20, also includes the cancellation of all leave privileges; maximum deployment of legal officers and the establishment of a round-the-clock media operations center starting May 6.
Roxas said that  the DILG and PNP had ordered the recall of some 11,693 PNP recruits and on schooling from training centers for deployment to 15 priority provinces.