Ms. Ronadale Zapata
83321148/8334507
DE CASTRO LAWYER TO RESIGN IF LOREN CAN PROVE CEBU POLL FRAUD
18 December 2005
THE election
lawyer of Vice President Noli “Kabayan” De Castro yesterday vowed to resign as
lawyer of the vice president
if defeated vice-presidential candidate Loren Legarda can prove her claim that
she could recover by over
300,000 votes from the ballots of the various municipalities of the Province of
Cebu which are now being
revised by the Presidential Electoral Tribunal.
"I'm going to
resign as election lawyer of
Vice-President Noli De Castro if Loren can prove without the benefit of the doubt that my
client cheated by 300,000
votes in Cebu ," Atty. Romulo
Macalintal said.
Macalintal
then challenged Legarda to withdraw or stop her protest against De Castro in case she
failed to prove her aforesaid
claim that she could recover
300,000 votes from the Province of Cebu as he expressed confidence on the integrity of
De Castro as a candidate who
had no capability to committing
massive fraud as ridiculously claimed by Legarda.
"The Vice
President is not a cheater. I'm very confident that he won in an honest
election by a wide margin over
his contender. And most likely, his winning margin would turn out even higher
after Legarda's poll protest
is decided upon by the court,"
Macalintal added.
Records show
that De Castro garnered 886,910 votes in the Province of Cebu as against Legarda's
198,372 votes or a difference
of 688,538 in favor of De
Castro.
"By
withdrawing her protest in case of her failure to prove her baseless claim in Cebu, Legarda
could at least help to ease
the political tension in our
country instead of fanning it with baseless and unfounded claims and accusations,"
Macalintal charged.
Macalintal
also scored Legarda for relying too much on the alleged "findings" of her revisors in
the Province of Cebu in the
on-going revision of ballots in the PET that there were group of ballots written
by one person.
"With due
respect, Ms. Legarda should consult her lawyer so that she would not rely too
much on the alleged "findings"
of her revisors. This is so because it has been decided by the Supreme Court
in several cases that revision
is merely the first stage of an
election protest. It is not the alpha and omega of an election protest. Revisors do not have
judicial discretion since
their duties are merely clerical
which do not bind the PET. The findings of her revisors can never serve as a logical or
an acceptable basis for
conclusion that massive fraud or
irregularities were committed during the election", Macalintal advised Legarda.
Recently,
Legarda again went to the media after PET decided to allow her request to recount
the election returns from
Congress , which she earlier
said were more credible that the copies from the Commission on Elections (Comelec).
However,
early results showed De Castro's votes were higher than Legarda's, prompting the lady
senator to retract her
statement, saying the Congress-copy of ERs were tampered.
“In the
meantime she should stop spreading disinformation that the Vice President
was involved in election
fraud. Indeed the initial results affirm the victory of the Vice President and in fact
showing his lead widening but
let us await the final resolution of the protest by the Supreme Court,”
Macalintal said.
Macalintal instead advised the lady senator to respect the PET as the proper and appropriate venue for anything that
concerns her poll protest
instead of making hyperbolic or unfounded allegations not supported by the law and
the facts attendant to her
protest.
©
Copyright
2005
Office of the Vice President (OVP)
Management Information Services
Division (MISD). All rights reserved.
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