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Comelec exec grilled on alleged 2004 poll cheating in ARMM


A controversial Commission on Elections (Comelec) official on Tuesday was grilled over his alleged inaction despite repeated reports of cheating in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) during the 2004 polls. At Senate blue ribbon committee hearing, panel chair Teofisto Guingona III and Senate Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano took turns in asking ARMM regional director Ray Sumalipao why he did not do anything despite receiving reports there was cheating in Lanao del Sur during the 2004 elections. At the time, Sumalipao was provincial election supervisor (PES) of Lanao del Sur. "Shouldn't you have done something? What did you do?" Guingona asked Sumalipao. Sumalipao admitted he did not do anything about the complaints, but defended that it was the not the job of the PES to hear pre-proclamation protests. Cayetano refused to accept Sumalipao's reply. "Are you saying na yung trabaho lang ng PES is to hear manifestations and do nothing about it?" he said. To which, Sumalipao replied: "I do admit that there was such a shortcoming." But Sumalipao noted that it wasn't true that they did not canvass the votes for positions in the national level as alleged by former Mindanao State University regent Ansari Alonto. "I vehemently and vigorously deny that we were not canvassing simultaneously. I (even) preserved the casette tapes that recorded the canvassing. I swear to the Koran that there was simultaneous canvassing," he said. He then stressed that he himself did not engage in any cheating. "With the pouring in of witnesses... I’m a more inclined to believe that there were irregularities but I’m stating your honor, I did not commit any," he said. But aside from this, Cayetano also asked why Sumalipao kept getting promoted even though the areas where he was assigned were always tainted with allegations of cheating. "I have qualifications (and) I am the only one who applied," came Sumalipao's reply. Sumalipao's name was mentioned in the "Hello Garci" tapes, which refers to alleged wiretapped conversations where vote-rigging in the 2004 elections was discussed by a woman presumed to be former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and a man presumed to be former Elections Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano. The Senate hearing was still ongoing as of posting time. — Kimberly Jane Tan/RSJ, GMA News

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