43,000 FLYING VOTERS FOUND IN ARMM, CALABARZON
MANILA, JANUARY 23, 2010 (STAR) By Mayen Jaymalin - The automated election system that will be implemented in the May 2010 presidential elections has not stopped flying voters and multiple registrants.The Commission on Elections (Comelec) yesterday reported the discovery of 43,000 multiple registrants despite having computerized the voters’ list.
Comelec Commissioner Rene Sarmiento said the poll body found 43,000 voters from the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and the Cavite-Laguna-Batangas-Rizal-Quezon (Calabarzon) area who have intentionally registered twice or even thrice.
“If you will look at the pictures, some just changed their hairstyles or used different clothes while some made themselves look a little older. So I think the double or triple registrations were done deliberately,” Sarmiento pointed out.
He said the poll body identified the multiple registrants through the use of data capturing machines or biometrics, which store the voters’ thumbprints, signatures and pictures.
According to Sarmiento, the poll body is likely to uncover more multiple registrants as they are now checking the list of voters in other regions.
Sarmiento said the Comelec plans to release a resolution ordering the delisting of multiple registrants from the official list of registered voters for the May 2010 elections.
The Comelec may also file the appropriate charges against the 43,000 multiple registrants, he said.
Under the law, a voter found guilty of registering more than once faces one to six years’ imprisonment without probation and a ban on holding public office.
Sarmiento said the discovery of the irregularity should send a strong warning to those with similar plans of registering more than once.
Extend registration
Sen. Loren Legarda yesterday urged the Comelec to extend the registration of Filipino voters in foreign countries “so as to extend to them the primary right of suffrage.”
There are an estimated eight to 10 million overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and emigrants, including dual citizens, abroad. Under Philippine election laws, they are all entitled to vote.
“The right to vote is the primary right of every Filipino citizen or dual citizen,” Legarda said. “It is the duty of the Comelec to provide them with the means to exercise that right as much as possible.”
According to Legarda, the OFWs and Filipino emigrants are sending to the Philippines billions of dollars annually, keeping the Philippines afloat economically amidst the global economic crisis.
“It is the least we can do to show our gratitude for their sacrifices and their continuing concern for our country despite their absence,” declared Loren. “The government must not be seen to be abandoning them by failure to protect their rights as citizens and saviors of our country.”
Earlier, Comelec said it would pilot automated polls in Hong Kong and Singapore. These two places registered the highest turnout of overseas voters’ enlistment at 95,355 and 31,853, respectively.
Delay in printing
The Comelec also reported yesterday that the printing of 50 million official ballots containing the list of candidates in the 2010 elections will start on Jan. 30.
“The printing of official ballots will commence on Jan. 30 as scheduled,” Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal said.
The National Printing Office (NPO) will print the ballots containing the names of all candidates, from president down to local positions.
Sarmiento, however, expressed concern that the printing of ballots may be derailed due to the poll body’s failure to resolve pending disqualification cases.
Before the printing, Sarmiento said the poll body has to resolve all the pending cases.
But other than the official list of candidates, Sarmiento said all other materials necessary for printing ballots are already in place.
The poll body has already approved the candidacy of a total of 10 presidential, eight vice presidential, 62 senatorial and 150 party-list candidates for the May 10 elections. – With Christina Mendez
'Massacre is worst political violence in recent history' By Pia Lee-Brago (The Philippine Star) Updated January 23, 2010 12:00 AM
MANILA, Philippines - An international human rights watchdog has cited the Maguindanao massacre as the “worst apparent politically motivated violence in recent history.”
Human Rights Watch (HRW), summarizing the human rights condition in the Philippines, released “World Report 2010” blaming local officials, police, and paramilitary forces for the massacre of 57 people in Maguindanao on Nov. 23, 2009.
In its 20th annual report, Human Rights Watch said “several key institutions, including the judiciary and law enforcement agencies, however, remain weak, meaning the military and police still commit human rights violations with impunity.”
“Politically motivated extrajudicial killings and targeted killings of alleged petty criminals continue, with the government failing to acknowledge and address involvement by the security forces and local officials,” the report said.
HRW said hundreds of leftist politicians, political activists, journalists, and outspoken clergy have been summarily executed since 2001 but so far only 11 people have been prosecuted. Of the 11, only two were convicted in 2009.
“No member of the military active at the time of the killing has been brought to justice for such crimes,” the report said.
The report also cited the United States as the most influential ally of the Philippines and, along with Australia and Japan, as the three largest bilateral donors of the country.
The report noted the visit of President Arroyo to the US in a meeting with President Barack Obama to discuss closer military and counterterrorism cooperation. In November, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited the Philippines.
“But neither she (Clinton) nor Obama pressed Arroyo to address continuing impunity for extrajudicial killings,” the report added.
The report also cited the privilege given to the US military forces under its Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) in conducting the annual joint exercises with Filipino troops.
The report also noted the assessment made by UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions Philip Alston before the United Nations Human Rights Council.
Alston observed that while the Philippine government has taken some steps to address extrajudicial killings, it failed to implement needed reforms such as institutionalizing the principle of command responsibility.
Alston also noted the Philippine military has not changed its counterinsurgency methods to eliminate the likelihood of unlawful killings.
The HRW also detailed how the Philippine government failed to prosecute retired army general Jovito Palparan.
Palparan, now a party-list lawmaker in the House of Representatives, had been considered a “prime suspect behind the extrajudicial killings” by a fact-finding panel created by the Philippine government in 2006.
The report also indicated optimism over the Philippine Supreme Court’s writs to compel military and other government officials to release information on people in their custody, often dampened by difficulty in enforcing the writs of amparo and habeas data.
The report also pointed out that the so-called death squads operating in Davao City and other urban areas in southern Philippines and Cebu City continue to target suspected petty criminals, drug dealers, and gang members, including street urchins.
Police officers and local government officials have been implicated in the decade-old killing spree that has plagued Davao City.
According to local human rights groups, more than 89 Davao residents were murdered in death squad killings from January to early September 2009, bringing the total to more than 926 victims since 1998.
In May 2009, President Arroyo ordered the Department of the Interior and Local Government and the police to “get to the bottom” of the killings.
The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) has spearheaded efforts to investigate the death squads, holding three public hearings in Davao City since March 2009, and in June set up a multi-agency task force involving police, military, and other government agencies to conduct investigations.
“The task force has uncovered human remains, guns, and ammunition on land belonging to a former police officer, but in the courts it has faced obstructions and unnecessary bureaucratic delays,” the report said.
The HRW also noted the hostilities between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) that intensified in the first half of 2009 amid the prevailing ceasefire agreement.
The report noted the increasing number of “internally displaced persons” (IDPs) due to the conflict with the MILF, the communist New People’s Army rebels and the terrorist group Abu Sayyaf.
The HRW blamed the Philippine military for accusing IDPs of being “enemy reserve forces,” quoting the Army’s 6th Infantry Division spokesman Col. Jonathan Ponce on June 30 last year.
The HRW also criticized the Philippine government for failing to protect migrant domestic workers who continue to experience abuses abroad for unpaid wages, food deprivation, forced confinement in the workplace, and physical and sexual abuse.
Human Rights Watch also noted that tens of thousands of cancer patients and people living with HIV/AIDS in the Philippines suffer from severe pain without access to treatment, due to unnecessarily burdensome narcotics regulations and a poor supply and distribution system for controlled medications.
The report noted the statements of the United Nations Committee Against Torture that expressed deep concerns about allegations of routine and widespread torture of suspects in police custody, failure to investigate and prosecute such allegations, and a “climate of impunity.”
Maguindanao cops relieved By Rose Tamayo-Tesoro (The Philippine Star) Updated January 23, 2010 12:00 AM
SHARIFF AGUAK, Maguindanao , Philippines – The Philippine National Police (PNP) relieved yesterday all policemen assigned in Maguindanao to allay suspicions that they might influence the investigation of the massacre in the province.
The relief was ordered amid reports that a police raiding team found P120 million at the house of a member of the Ampatuan clan but did not declare the money.
The PNP denied that any cash was found at the home of Samera Nor Santiago in Shariff Aguak, mother-in-law of Datu Unsay Mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr., principal suspect in the massacre. The PNP also said the relief of the provincial police was not related to the raid.
Senior Superintendent Bienvenido Garcia Latag, Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) police director, told The STAR that except for Maguindanao police chief Senior Superintendent Alex Lineses, the more than 800 policemen assigned in the province were all relieved.
More than 300 men of Lineses were relieved earlier.
Members of the Regional Mobile Group (RMG) will take the place of the relieved policemen in anticipation of attacks by lawless elements.
“It (the relief) was done so as not to influence the operations and investigation and to take away doubts of the public,” Latag said.
The province is still awaiting the arrival of policemen from Regions 13, 9, 12 and 10 to replace Lineses’s men.
However, PNP spokesman Chief Superintendent Leonardo Espina, in a separate interview at Camp Crame, said that the cycle of reassignments in the Maguindanao Provincial Police Office (PPO) has been completed as early as Jan. 8, 2010.
“Slowly, we have completed the cycle of reassignments in Maguindanao. This completes the relief as planned,” Espina said.
PNP chief Director General Jesus Verzosa ordered the relief of the entire Maguindanao PPO to pave the way for an impartial investigation on the Nov. 23 massacre that claimed the lives of 57 people, including 30 journalists.
‘Absurd’
The police, the military and local officials, many of whom were former allies of the Ampatuan clan, said insinuations that policeman and soldiers took some P120 million in cash hidden in a house they raided the other day as unfair and malicious.
“There were thousands of firearm ammunition found in the house, but there was no money as stated in a newspaper report. Occupants of the house were there, so was a lawyer of the Ampatuans. There were witnesses to that raid,” said a municipal councilor and former political ally of the Ampatuans.
Lineses said the report is absurd.
A close relative of former Gov. Datu Andal Ampatuan Sr. said the family have all transported their money out of Shariff Aguak using pickup trucks from Nov. 28 to 30, some four days after Ampatuan Jr. was turned over by his elders to Presidential Assistant for Mindanao Jesus Dureza.
“The first to take out money from Shariff Aguak was the ‘old man,’ the former governor, who doesn’t keep money in banks,” said an Ampatuan family member, who asked not to be specifically identified.
“Keeping money at the house of the mother-in-law of the detained Datu Unsay mayor defies logic. Who in his proper frame of mind would keep money there when the raids and searches were done almost everyday since the last week of November? The issue is whimsical,” he said.
Col. Jonathan Ponce, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said the 6th ID will not dignify “speculative” report on the allegedly stolen money.
“Such an unfounded story is demoralizing, but it will not affect the performance of our soldiers helping the police restore normalcy in Shariff Aguak,” Ponce said.
According to the report, aside from high caliber weapons and ammunition, the raiders also found P120 million stored in cigarette boxes.
However, the report said that the raiders only declared the weapons and ammunition and allegedly divided the seized cash among themselves.
Dug up from the compound during the raid were several boxes of ammunition for M203 grenade launchers, M16 rifles, light machine guns, seven tripods for caliber 50 machine guns and 81 mm mortar tripods.
The report further stated that the cash seized from the compound of Samera Nor Santiago were loaded into police and military vehicles before members of the media and the public were allowed to enter the compound.
‘When there’s smoke…’
But Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo contended that the story about the recovered P120 million that was not declared could be true.
“As they say, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. The DOJ should look into these stories because there might be more to them than plain gossip,” said Ocampo, who is running for the Senate under the Nacionalista Party of Sen. Manny Villar.
“Journalists have not been allowed to cover the actual raids after Proclamation 1959 was lifted. If the Ampatuans saw it fit to store high-powered weapons in their mansions, it isn’t so far-fetched that they would also stow millions in cash as well,” he said.
Ocampo, a deputy minority leader, issued the statement following reports that police and military personnel didn’t just discover high-powered firearms and ammunition, but cash as well.
“These reports should be investigated because they are already spreading. The credibility of the findings of the PNP and the AFP operatives and other members of the raiding teams are already affected,” he said.
Authorities said they found only arsenal in the compound of Datu Unsay Mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr.’s mother-in-law in Shariff Aguak last Wednesday.
“P120 million is a large sum of money, and if money has indeed been found, these should be immediately transferred to the keeping of the Department of Justice (DOJ) for later disposition,” said Ocampo, a former spokesman of the left-wing National Democratic Front.
He also urged the DOJ to look into the reports and not to disregard the strong possibility that there are corrupt elements in the AFP and the Department of National Defense who may have assisted the Ampatuans in securing access to their various weapons and ammunition.
Based on reports, of the more than one million rounds of ammunition recovered from the Ampatuan compound, some 600,000 have markings of Armscor while the rest came from the arsenal of the DND.
“All this lends credence to previously made charges that the weapons being used by terrorist groups like the Abu Sayyaf and the various private armies of local warlords come from the AFP itself,” Ocampo said.
“Are the weapons and bullets being sold? The DOJ should not fail to look into this matter.”
PNP: What millions?
But the PNP has officially denied the report saying the operation was transparent and was done in the presence of the Ampatuans’ lawyers and barangay officials.
“The claim is not true. There is no truth to the report,” said Espina.
Espina said Latag has forwarded his report to Camp Crame stating that the service of the search warrant and the search of the compound were done in the most orderly and transparent of manner in the presence of the Santiago household.
Espina, however, said that despite the report submitted to Camp Crame Verzosa still ordered Director Felizardo Serapio, head of the PNP’s Western Mindanao Directorate for Police Operations (DIPO) in Western Mindanao to “countercheck the rumor.”
DOJ extends submission of affidavit
Meanwhile, the DOJ has given Maguindanao officials and their supporters tagged in the alleged rebellion in the province a fourth and final chance to submit their respective defenses in its preliminary investigation.
In the third hearing on the rebellion case yesterday morning, the DOJ panel of fiscals granted the request of some of the 638 respondents for another extension of period for submission of counter–affidavits over various reasons.
The panel led by State Prosecutor Lamberto Fabros gave the remaining respondents until Jan. 29 to file the charges and submit their counter-affidavits before the case would be submitted for resolution.
Fabros said they allowed another extension of the deadline for submission of defense since not even half of all respondents were able to submit the required documents yesterday.
But the fiscal gave lawyers of respondents an ultimatum and told them that the new deadline would no longer be extended and the Maguindanao rebellion case would already be submitted for resolution afterwards.
Fabros said during the hearing that they could no longer afford to give another extension since the panel has to resolve the case in 60 days from date of filing last month. – With Mike Frialde, Edu Punay, John Unson, Delon Porcalla
Chief News Editor: Sol Jose Vanzi
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