Zubiri to resign if tribunal finds no fraud in '07 NCR ballots

Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri on Friday said that he will resign from his position if the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET) does not detect any anomaly in the ballots cast in Metro Manila during the 2007 senatorial polls. "If the SET does not find anymore evidence of election fraud in Metro Manila, then I will resign my post as senator," Zubiri said in a statement on Friday. The senator issued the statement after defeated senatorial candidate Aquilino “Koko" Pimentel III said that Zubiri should stop with his counter protest because Pimentel had already supposedly proven that he actually won the hotly-contested 12th senatorial spot. In the official Comelec results of the 2007 senatorial elections, Pimentel ranked 13th while Zubiri scraped through at 12th. Pimentel contested the win and the SET ruled in 2008 that he actually won by more than 200,000 votes. Zubiri, however, filed a counter protest and said that he was cheated in more than 73,000 precincts. Last June 4, the SET — voting 7-2 — allowed Zubiri to proceed with the revision of the results. “How can Koko say the fight is over when my 25 percent (of the) counter protested area clearly shows that cheating took place in Metro Manila and Mega Manila especially when the SET revisors found tens of thousands of spurious or fake ballots in these areas," Zubiri said. The SET said in its resolution that more than 50 percent of the ballots especially cited in the revision reports were indeed "spurious." "Accordingly, the presence of said bogus ballots must be considered as a strong indicator that the elections in the said areas were marred by irregularities," it said. Zubiri, for his part, attributed this to a supposed "electoral syndicate" operating in Metro and Mega Manila. “My deepest suspicions have come true. It seems that SET has uncovered the syndicates that operated in the cities and areas perceived to be opposition bailiwicks to enhance the candidacies of certain opposition members," he said. The senator thus challenged Pimentel to let the SET open the remaining ballot boxes in Metro Manila to prove that electoral fraud did take place there. “I am not delaying this protest. What I want to know is the truth. Why are you afraid to seek the truth behind these syndicates?" he said. He said this action will not take up too much time because the ballot boxes can be quickly retrieved and counted. —Kimberly Jane T. Tan/JV, GMANews.TV