PRESS RELEASE by Citizens Watch [citizens.watch [at] yahoo [dot]com]
June 5, 2007

Now, it’s “Hello, Maguindanao!”

The controversy on the purported election results in the province of Maguindanao that gave the Team Unity (TU) slate a 12-0 victory that “no one actually believes,” could be the next “Hello, Garci” scandal, that will continue to hound the Arroyo administration—including its senatorial candidates.

This was stressed by Citizens’ Caucus for Effective Governance, a network of development non-government organizations, policy think-tanks and citizens’ movements working towards the deepening of Philippine democracy, grassroots empowerment and sustainable development, after more than a hundred chairpersons and members of the province’s Board of Election Inspectors (BEI’s) who were kidnapped by armed men and forced at gunpoint to sign filled-up ballots started to reveal the details of the crime.

Maguindanao delivered a 12-0 sweep for TU amid allegations that no real election took place in the province, and that the “election results” were fabricated.

“The Maguindanao issue reveals election crimes at the highest level. The cheating operations done there should be exposed in detail, and, the perpetrators should be punished for electoral sabotage,” said Citizens’ Caucus.

“The BEI chairpersons and members should be spared from the prosecution, and even provided with ample protection and even reward for their brave, patriotic act,” the group added

The canvassing of the Maguindanao Certificate of Canvass (COC) has been stalled just because of the failure of the chairman of the provincial board of canvassers to appear before the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) en banc sitting as the National Board of Canvassers (NBC) at the Philippine International Convention Center in Pasay City. Reportedly, the COMELEC en banc will meet this week to decide on what to do with the province’s COC.
Citizens’ Caucus expressed alarm at the statement made by TU that it is “still confident of winning based on the Maguindanao COC.”

The group said it supports the calls made by the Genuine Opposition and election watchdog groups to declare a failure of elections in Maguindanao and exclude the province’s COC from the national canvassing, because the inaction of the COMELEC and the persistent claims of victory by TU based on the province’s COC reveal a “grand cheating design.”

The Citizens’ Caucus members include the Convergence for Community Centered Area Development (CONVERGENCE), Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement (PRRM), the La Liga Policy Institute (LLPI), Rural Enlightenment and Accretion in Philippine Society (REAPS), and the Kilusan para sa Makatarungang Lipunan at Gobyerno (KMLG).