I’VE been receiving several messages from supporters of vice presidential candidate Sen. Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. expressing their sentiments about the issues be setting their candidate, especially their fear of possible cheating given the very slim advantage (by merely more than 200,000 votes) of closest rival Congresswoman Leni Robredo.
One avid Marcos supporter asked me yesterday if it was true that the Senate has been experiencing brownouts recently. He said there were reports that during such brownouts, the ballot boxes containing the Certificates of Canvass and Election Returns for the presidential and vice presidential race from cities and provinces nationwide are being brought to the office of Senate President Franklin Drilon, a Liberal Party stalwart and partymate of Robredo. Evidently, there is fear that rigging might be done to alter the results of the elections. I denied the report. I said that except for intentional power outages during the simulation exercises done for the COC and ER teams prior to the May 9 elections in order to address the possibility of brownouts, no such other brownouts happened in the Senate.
One friend who is a constituent of Batac City, a “Marcos country” and a sister city of Lamitan, also asked about the photo circulating on Facebook of the zero votes garnered by presidential candidates in Barangay Bohenange, Lamitan City except Roxas who had 595 votes and Duterte with 2 votes. Robredo had 595 votes, while all the other vice presidential candidates had zero votes. Marcos’ media relations officer voiced out the same concern. I explained that Lamitan City, and even the entire ARMM, is a stronghold of the Liberal Party with no known strong political opposition, thus, party loyalty and the influence of national and local officials is very strong that even the word of a barangay captain is law.
Mayor Rose Furigay of Lamitan said that it is possible for such things to happen in a barangay like Bohenange where there are merely a little over than 600 voters. In this Yakan dominated barangay, the voice of the barangay captain is law and almost all the constituents support and follow him like they do the leaders of their clans.
Lamitan City election officer Rohaida Dia, herself a Muslim, affirmed that zero votes is possible for such a small, clannish barangay like Bohenange. She added that she has not received any complaints of election irregularities from any of the 45 barangays in the city.
Senator Marcos’ last chance for the figures to possibly change in his favor is when Congress would convene on May 25 and hold joint session to start their work as national board of canvassers for the presidential and vice presidential votes and thereafter officially declare the winners. BEEN THERE DONE THAT/JOSEPHINE CODILLA
