The Aquino administration may consider as witnesses Maguindanao massacre suspect Zaldy Ampatuan and former Maguindanao election supervisor Lintang Bedol in possible election fraud cases linking former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. At a news briefing on Thursday, Justice Sec. Leila de Lima said that President Benigno Aquino III's administration will not discount the recent exposés of Bedol and Zaldy, who both pinned Arroyo to alleged widespread cheating in Maguindanao in the 2007 elections. "If that is duly proven, then that is electoral sabotage. Then we can consider [as witnesses] whomever, if it's Zaldy or Lintang Bedol," De Lima said. Zaldy claimed that in 2007, Arroyo and husband Jose Miguel gave orders to reduce votes from senatorial candidates from the opposition, namely then-Tarlac Rep. Aquino, then-Taguig Rep. Alan Peter Cayetano, and re-electionist Sen. Panfilo Lacson. The votes will then be padded in favor of the Arroyo administration's senatorial ticket. Zaldy said Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri, an administration candidate, benefited in the alleged fraud as he got the last seat in the Senate that year.
Bedol said it was then Commission on Elections chair Benjamin Abalos who orchestrated the cheating in 2007. He added that Abalos and Comelec commissioners Nicodemo Ferrer and Rene Sarmiento authenticated fabricated election returns in Maguindanao. In Thursday's briefing, De Lima said the exposés are still subject to evaluation by a team formed by President Aquino. "That is part of the assessment, the plausibility. Because why only [come out] now?" she said.
De Lima as election lawyer De Lima likewise said that Zaldy's and Bedol's statements only validated what she already knew when she was an election lawyer in 2007. She disclosed that she was the counsel for Cayetano and defeated senatorial bet Koko Pimentel. Pimentel, son of former Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr., has a pending election protest against Zubiri. De Lima, however, cleared Sarmiento from allegations that he participated in election cheating. She said Sarmiento was not present when the votes were being canvassed in General Santos City. "If Bedol is referring to proceedings in GenSan, I think in Royal Hotel where the representatives of senatorial candidates were... I was counsel of Alan Peter, but I was not yet counsel of Koko. So they (Comelec) held the proceedings and I remember that Chairman Abalos and Commissioner Ferrer were in the proceedings. Commissioner Sarmiento was not there," she said. Despite having served as Pimentel's and Cayetano's election lawyer, De Lima said she will not inhibit from the evaluation of the information on alleged election cheating.
— KBK, GMA News 
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