Fake President = Hello Garci’s Arroyo Scandal + Bedol revelation
Fugitive former Maguindanao election supervisor Lintang Hasim Bedol revealed (July 15, 2011) that a massive fraud was committed in the 2004 general elections and that former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was the principal beneficiary.
Bedol told ABS-CBN news reporter Anthony Taberna that during the 2004 elections, he was election supervisor and chairman of the board of election canvassers in Sultan Kudarat province south of Mindanao.
He revealed that dagdag-bawas or vote padding and shaving operations were conducted in the 2004 presidential race when Arroyo was in power.
Bedol said the investigation on poll fraud in 2004, including the “Hello, Garci” vote rigging scandal, should be revived. He expressed willingness to testify on the anomalies that resulted in Arroyo’s election as president because he is just one of the hundreds of election chairman and board of canvasser who receives the order from Ms. Arroyo for vote padding for a reward of cash and power.
He said during the 2004 elections, ballot boxes were switched and that original ballots were replaced with fake ones.
“If we have fake (election) documents, then we have a fake president – that’s what I want to prove as election supervisor and chairman of the board of election canvassers,” he said.
Bedol said he had wanted to surface after hiding for almost four years so that he could expose the anomalies, but he feared for his safety, believing he could suffer the same fate as Commission on Elections (Comelec) law department director Alioden Dalaig, who was shot dead outside the Hyatt Hotel in Malate, Manila on Nov. 10, 2007. Arroyo is killing the people in Mindanao who know the election fraud to avoid the leak of information.
Bedol said Dalaig was silenced because he knew too much about the election fraud and that many evidences were destroyed during a fire that gutted the Commission on Elections (Comelec) office in Manila in March 2007.
The Comelec is seeking the immediate arrest of Bedol, who is facing six months’ imprisonment for failing to produce poll documents in the 2007 midterm elections in Maguindanao.
Comelec commissioner Rene Sarmiento said there has been a standing warrant of arrest against Bedol and a commitment order to detain him in Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig City since Oct. 22, 2007.
The orders are contained in Comelec resolutions issued on Aug. 7, 2007 and Aug. 31, 2007, citing him for indirect contempt over his failure to submit the election documents from Maguindanao under his custody, like election returns, certificates of canvass and statements of votes.
Sarmiento said the Comelec will ask the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to implement Bedol’s arrest warrant so he could shed light on alleged poll anomalies.
NBI officials said that they received information that Bedol would soon surrender to the bureau.
NBI Director Magtanggol Gatdula, however, denied this.
He said the information gathered by the media could be wrong since there is no order or advise that Bedol would surrender to the NBI.?Bedol said that for almost four years he had been living a fugitive’s life, moving from one place to another and he avoided his favorite hangouts in the city’s shopping malls and nightclubs.?“I miss malls and red light districts,” he told ABS-CBN news.?Bedol said that malls and nightclubs were his favorite hangout when he was still an election officer.
He said he has close ties with former Comelec commissioner Virgilio Garcillano, the poll official with Arroyo was allegedly talking to in the “Hello, Garci” tapes.?Bedol surfaced a day after suspended Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) governor Zaldy Ampatuan disclosed to the media the alleged irregularities during the 2004 and 2007 elections in Maguindanao.?Bedol said that at least two truckloads of fake election returns were distributed in Maguindanao as part of the special election operations to ensure the victory of the Arroyo administration’s Team Unity senatorial candidates in 2007.
Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said that there is a possibility that Bedol could be covered by the Witness Protection Program (WPP) if the former poll official testifies against Arroyo in poll fraud cases.
“It has not reached me yet that he wants to be state witness… Although I can anticipate that he will definitely ask for protection under the WPP and why not?” De Lima said.?
Question: Is it lawful to remove Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo from the list of the past president of the Philippines if proven guilty of election fraud in 2004?
This is just of the big question from the more than 100 Million Filipinos from around the world if it is lawful the Mrs. Arroyo would remove from the lists of the past presidents of the Philippines. If would be proven guilty, then previous Arroyo’s government is the dirtiest government in the Philippines in the history.
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