Ex-poll exec Bedol to be turned over to Comelec Tuesday

Controversial former Maguindanao elections supervisor Lintang Bedol will be turned over to the Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Tuesday morning, the poll body's spokesman said Monday. In a phone interview with GMA News Online, Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said Bedol will be presented to the Comelec en banc by an undisclosed government agency at around 8 a.m. "Meron siyang conviction. Kailangan niyang harapin ang Comelec (He has a conviction. He has to face the Comelec)," Jimenez said. Jimenez noted, however, that they have yet to determine what will be discussed during Tuesday's en banc session with Bedol. He likewise said that they have no definite plans yet on whether Bedol will be presented to the media. But he said that there will most likely be a press conference after the en banc session. Bedol was accused of manipulating the provincial poll results in the 2007 elections allegedly to favor candidates allied with then-President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, particularly Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri, who has since denied involvement in any poll fraud. The Comelec found Bedol guilty of indirect contempt after he defied summonses to appear in investigations on his province's voting in the May 2007 midterm elections. In 2008, Bedol petitioned the Supreme Court to nullify a Comelec ruling that found him guilty of indirect contempt. The court gave the Comelec 30 days to submit its own memorandum so that it could finally rule on Bedol's petition. In the end, the court sentenced the poll official to six months imprisonment and fined him P1,000. Authorities, however, failed to locate him. Just recently, Bedol linked Arroyo, who is now a congresswoman representing the second district of Pampanga, to the supposed poll fraud in 2007. - Kimberly Jane Tan/KBK, GMA News