The Senate is reopening an inquiry into charges of massive electoral fraud in 2004 and 2007 in the hopes of putting closure to the \u201cHello Garci\u201d scandal that has hounded former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.<\/p>\n
Sen. Teofisto Guingona III on Monday said the blue ribbon committee would begin its inquiry into the charges of vote rigging and other election fraud once a resolution seeking the inquiry is referred to it.<\/p>\n
The resolution has been filed by Sen. Panfilo Lacson directing the blue ribbon committee to inquire into the charges of \u201cwidespread, systematic, organized and massive poll fraud and election sabotage\u201d in 2004 and 2007.<\/p>\n
Guingona voiced hope that former election supervisor Lintang Bedol and ex-Gov. Zaldy Ampatuan of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, possible key witnesses in the fraud, would help the Senate put closure to the scandal.<\/p>\n
The \u201cHello Garci\u201d scandal, which erupted in 2005, was sparked by the circulation of wiretapped conversations that had then President Arroyo talking to an election commissioner about a one million vote lead over closest rival Fernando Poe Jr. The other voice on the tape with Arroyo was believed to be the election commissioner Virgilio Garcillano.<\/p>\n
No. 1 electral reform<\/strong><\/p>\n Arroyo, who won by more than one million votes over the action movie icon, admitted it was her voice on the line but denied she was involved in cheating. She survived a Cabinet crisis and went on to complete her term in June 2010.<\/p>\n Guingona said a reopening of the charges \u201cshould lead to No. 1, electoral reforms, but most definitely, it will write finis to this continuing saga that we all know: That FPJ was and is the real president.\u201d<\/p>\n Lacson, who claims to have been a victim of vote-shaving and padding (dagdag-bawas) in Maguindanao in 2007, said the charges pointed to Arroyo and ex-elections chair Benjamin Abalos as the brains of the fraud.<\/p>\n \u201cElection fraud and electoral sabotage of this magnitude and scale cannot be committed without public officers committing malfeasance, misfeasance and nonfeasance in their offices,\u201d he said in the resolution.<\/p>\n Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and other senators had expressed reservations about a fresh congressional inquiry into the scandal, asserting that the Department of Justice should handle this.<\/p>\n Past is catching up with Arroyo<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThere will be an investigation. Where that leads to, we don\u2019t know,\u201d Sen. Sergio Osme\u00f1a III said in an interview. \u201cWe will invite Bedol. And by extension… we will invite Garcillano.\u201d<\/p>\n Reminded that Garcillano had balked at testifying on the fraud, he said: \u201cWe\u2019ll see.\u201d Osme\u00f1a observed that the emergence of Bedol and Ampatuan was a sign that the past was catching up with Arroyo, now a lawmaker in her home province Pampanga.<\/p>\n \u201cIn a system of laws, the law has to be respected and implemented. You can\u2019t say you\u2019ll get away with it,\u201d he said. \u201cUntil now, some Nazis are being captured [for World War II crimes].\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018I want the truth to be retold\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Sen. Loren Legarda, Poe\u2019s defeated running mate in the 2004 presidential vote who won a fresh term as a senator in 2007, sounded ambivalent about an inquiry into the scandal.<\/p>\n \u201cI have let go… I have moved on,\u201d she told reporters. \u201cBut now that it\u2019s being talked about, of course I want the truth to be retold.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI want the world to know the truth, the truth that killed FPJ and broke his heart, and the truth that killed my ambitions, and 2010 buried it. The truth has been staring us in the face since 2007,\u201d she added. (Legarda ran for the vice presidency again in 2010 and lost.)<\/p>\n Sen. Joker Arroyo was not so keen on a fresh Senate inquiry into the scandal.<\/p>\n \u201cAnything that we do in the Senate amounts to nothing because it could not be the basis for any complaint. The ones who can charge for electioneering are either the Ombudsman, the Department of Justice or the Comelec. Why not bring it there directly?\u201d he told reporters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Senate is reopening an inquiry into charges of massive electoral fraud in 2004 and 2007 in the hopes of putting closure to the \u201cHello Garci\u201d scandal that has hounded former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,45],"tags":[7564],"byline":[132],"source":[206078],"column":[],"editor":[],"videographer":[],"position":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n