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.



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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...

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Koko - Bribe try!?

The Commission on Elections was urged Monday to look into the allegations of an election supervisor in South Cotabato that Genuine Opposition Senate candidate Aquilino Koko Pimentel 3rd tried to bribe her.

Lakas-CMD Reps. Edwin Uy of Isabela and Eladio Jala of Bohol said the claim of poll supervisor Lilian Radam against Pimentel was serious enough to merit an investigation.

Uy and Jala also advised Pimentel, the son of opposition Sen. Aquilino Pimentel, to submit himself to any inquiry instead of clearing himself in the media.

Jala said Radams allegation that Pimentels staff sought her help with a bribe offer was serious enough to warrant a formal probe by Comelec.

This serious allegation cannot just be simply dismissed by Koko with a plain denial especially in light of Radams statement that she is willing to provide details of the alleged bribe offer by Pimentels camp, he said.

Through an investigation, Radam would be able to identify the people involved in the alleged bribery; Jala said.

Uy said Radam should prepare herself to prove her accusations against Pimentel.

As a poll official herself, she knows it is her responsibility to report any poll anomaly in her area, he said.

Uy added Radam should not make a mockery of the poll processes just to counter Pimentels election sabotage case filed against her.

Radam must surface and face the Comelec so that the poll body would be able to get to the bottom of the poll fraud issue in South Cotabato, he said.

Well, anything can be possible. first, it might be his opponent destroying his name or, he might be desperate to do such act. but, i dont want to judge them, let the others be the judge. im just saying, anything can be possible. politics is a dirty place to be in and even though you have a good intention, politics will still be a dirty place to be.


more on the article above, Here!

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