Namfrel to submit documents on alleged poll fraud to Senate

The election watchdog National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) on Tuesday said it will submit documents to the Senate blue ribbon committee that would show the alleged discrepancies in the results of the 2004 and 2007 polls. During Tuesday's Senate blue ribbon committee hearing, Namfrel Secretary-General Eric Alvia said they have copies of certificates of canvass (COC) that have certain "inconsistencies" when compared with the copies of the Commission on Elections (Comelec). "These are voluminous documents we will provide the Senate with these documents," he said. Alvia specifically said that as early as November 2005, they have been in possession of election returns and COCs of seven municipalities in Lanao del Sur that have "manifest errors." At the start of the hearing, Comelec chairman Sixto Brillantes turned over documents that he said were vital to the Senate investigation into allegations of poll fraud in 2004 that supposedly benefited then presidential candidate Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. "There are several documents in the possession of the Comelec which I think would assist in the final determination of who [was] at fault [during] the 2004 elections," Brillantes said. The Arroyo camp had repeatedly denied that there was cheating in the 2004 elections where Arroyo, now a congresswoman representing the second district of Pampanga, was pitted with the late actor Fernando Poe Jr. - Kimberly Jane Tan/KBK, GMA News