Pimentel - no evidence

The Supreme Court Thursday denied the petition of opposition senatorial candidate Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III for a temporary restraining order (TRO) to stop the recanvassing of votes in Maguindanao.

The High Court unanimously turned down Pimentel’s petition for the TRO, saying he failed to prove allegations that the votes being counted by the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) from the province were spurious.

Pimentel had filed the petition seeking to stop the COMELEC from counting the votes from Maguindanao, which he claimed were already “compromised.”

Pimentel insisted the COMELEC should exclude the votes from Maguindanao since the Certificates of Canvass (COCs) were earlier reported missing by provincial election supervisor Lintang Bedol.

All the 12 justices present during Thursday’s oral arguments were not convinced with Pimentel’s claims.

Pimentel admitted before the court that he had no proof to substantiate his claims of fraud.

The High Court, however, has yet to decide on Pimentel’s 44-page main petition, which seeks to nullify the COMELEC resolution authorizing a task force to examine the election documents from Maguindanao to determine if there was any ground to declare a failure of elections in the province.

Pimentel later told reporters that his battle will now shift to the COMELEC.

“We had hoped to win the case on merits but with no TRO, the battle shifts to COMELEC,” he said.

For his part, Team Unity’s Miguel Zubiri, who overtook Pimentel for 12th place in the Maguindanao count, said the high court’s decision is “good for the country’s democracy.”

“I am delighted and happy. This is good for our democracy,” said Zubiri.

In the final tally, Zubiri garnered a total of 195,823 votes from the 22 towns in Maguindanao against Pimentel who only had 67,111.



Article Source

=======

Pimentel should just concede. he is stopping the counting in maguindanao, and he has no evidence. surely. the TRO wont be approved. why dont you just concede? lets finalize this elections...