Palace snubs claims of 'link' between SONA, Bedol-Zaldy exposés

Malacañang brushed off on Saturday claims it is behind the “exposes" of suspended Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Zaldy Ampatuan and former elections officer Lintang Bedol linking former President Gloria Arroyo to poll fraud in 2004 and 2007, and that these are timed for President Benigno Aquino III's State of the Nation Address (SONA) on July 25. Deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte insisted the Palace was “surprised" that the two personalities came out only now. “We were just as surprised as anyone that the two came out with their claims only now after hiding for so long. We are as interested in finding out the truth on what happened in the 2004 and 2007 elections," she said on government-run dzRB radio. Valte particularly contested the claim of Arroyo’s legal spokesman and defeated senatorial candidate Raul Lambino that the Palace was behind the exposés of Ampatuan and Bedol as a run-up to Aquino’s SONA. Lambino had been quoted in earlier reports as saying that the exposés were meant to pin down and eventually send Arroyo to jail. Valte said the Arroyo administration had always dismissed the opposition as making noise in time for her SONAs. “Parang sinabi na nila yan dati nang president si Pangulong Arroyo, ‘ah kaya kayo nanggugulo dahil sa SONA.’ Naibalik lang ako sa panahon na yan, kaya kayo nagra-rally dahil sa SONA," she said. “A single SONA does not make or unmake a president, it is the governance," she added. ‘We could have jailed Arroyo’ Valte also told Lambino that if the Palace could have jailed Arroyo if it had wanted to earlier on, by making up charges against her. “If we had wanted to jail your client, if we were only after revenge, we should have done so earlier. We could have filed trumped-up charges for PR. The point is, Arroyo is not our objective but the ends of justice," she said. But for now, she said the Aquino administration will continue to be “transparent" and bare the anomalies it finds against its predecessor. “Tungkulin namin na ilabas sa publiko kung ano ang nakikita namin sa araw-araw na trabaho. Hindi yan dapat tinatago o kinukubli, dapat malaman ng publiko ang anomalyang mahanap namin,"she said. “Hindi pwedeng sabihin move on tayo, hindi pwedeng kalimutan at move on (We cannot just move on. We cannot forget and move on just like that)," she added. — LBG, GMA News