Gloria Arroyo Cheats in 2004 Philippine Election?

By Jelly F. Musico

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile opposes a joint resolution seeking a Senate inquiry into the alleged massive election fraud that gave former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo fresh mandate in 2004.

”It is not Congress that should investigate but the government agencies because election cheating is a crime. The job of Congress is in aid of legislation. We have already law that tasked our law enforcements to investigate,” Enrile said.

Enrile said another Senate inquiry into the election fraud in 2004 would only waste the people’s money.

”We have already passed the computerization of the election that we already used in the last (2010) elections. The law enforcement of government should be the one who should file cases in the alleged election fraud,” Enrile said.

Enrile said the Department of Justice and the Office of the Ombudsman can form a fact-finding body composed of all the lawyers of government, including from the Commission on Elections and Armed Forces of the Philippines.

”They should get experts who can help them so that they accomplished what they want to accomplish or charge those who should be charged,” Enrile said.

Senator Francis ‘Chiz’ Escudero said he would co-sponsor the joint resolution following the emergence of Lintang Bedol, a former election supervisor in Maguindanao, who had implicated Arroyo in the purported manipulation of the 2004 presidential and 2007 senatorial polls.

In a separate radio dzBB interview on Sunday, Escudero said the objective of the Senate inquiry was to correct the history by giving due recognition to the real winner of the presidential election in 2004.

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