Pineda Leads Panlilio in Pampanga Election Recount

The COMELEC approved recount of the Pampanga elections for Governor is telling a different story from the original results of the election in 2007. In the recent elections, Ed Panlilio was able to beat Lilia “Baby” Pineda with a very slim margin of around 1,000+ votes. So far in the recount it’s Pineda who’s leading Gov. Panlilio. They’ve already opened more than 1,000 ballot boxes out of 4,500+. According to Pineda’s lawyer, the reason for the turn of the tide was COMELEC’s decision to allow “Nanay Baby” votes to be validated and included in Pineda’s favor. However, Panlilio’s camp quickly dispelled this saying that only a few voters actually wrote that down.

Here’s the full article from Inquirer.Net:

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga—Losing Pampanga gubernatorial candidate Lilia Pineda has been leading in the first two weeks of the revision of votes cast in the 2007 elections, her lawyer said on Sunday, a claim that the lawyer of Catholic priest-turned-governor Eddie Panlilio strongly contested.

“We are very, very satisfied with the initial outcome,” said George Irwin Garcia, lawyer of Pineda.

Since beginning the revision on August 12 in Manila, the Commission on Elections (Comelec), through 21 committees, has opened at least 1,000 of 4,688 ballot boxes in the province’s 20 towns and this capital city.

Without giving figures, Garcia said Pineda has obtained additional votes because several ballots with her nickname “Nanay Baby” have been credited to her recently.

“More votes have been added to us, those which were not counted by teachers at the precinct level, then removed from us,” he said.

“Other irregularities were discovered,” he added, requesting that the details of these be mentioned later.

But the governor’s lawyer, Ernesto Francisco Jr., said Garcia’s claims are the “product of imagination and creativity.”

“The truth is you can count with your two hands the number of ballots with the nickname Nanay Baby,” Francisco said.

Lilia Pineda or Pineda was often the name her voters wrote on their ballots, he said.

Garcia said if all 4,688 ballot boxes could turn up with one or two ballots with the nickname “Nanay Baby,” Pineda could easily overturn the 1,147 margin of votes of Panlilio.

He said the so-called straying of ballots written with “Nanay Baby” was a result of “administrative brouhaha” by the Comelec.

He said the Comelec’s law department released the directive approving the “Nanay Baby” nickname on May 10, 2007. This was released by the Comelec Pampanga on May 22 that year, he said. Pineda’s son, Lubao Mayor Dennis Pineda, said this was released on the eve of the elections.

Comelec Commissioner Nicodemo Ferrer did not reply to calls from the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

I’m not a big fan of Governor Panlilio, especially when he announced his decision to run for the Presidency in 2010. However, I do have one major apprehension about the recount.

Security of the Ballot Boxes
It’s been more than 2 years since the election. What guarantee do we have that the ballot boxes were not tampered or fixed during that period? What’s the security protocol for the ballot boxes after they get counted? Where are they stored and who has access to them? Corruption is so wide-spread in this government that it’s so hard to fully trust them with important matters like the ballot boxes.

I won’t be siding exclusively with Among Ed here, I just want to make sure that the entire process is credible and truthful otherwise this will just further erode the credibility and trust of the people in our voting process.

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