MANILA, Philippines?The latest twist in the House inquiry into election fraud is the claim of former censors chief Manuel Morato that officials of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) had approached him with an offer to cheat for administration standard-bearer Gilbert Teodoro for P1 billion.

Morato testified Wednesday before the House committee on suffrage and electoral reforms that the men wanted him to be a conduit for the offer. He said he did not bother to tell Teodoro about it because he knew that it would be ?out of character? for his candidate ?to indulge in such an operation.?

Morato said he appeared before the committee to corroborate the statements on Tuesday of lawyer Homobono Adaza, who said a group of seven men, including four Comelec regional directors who supposedly controlled 14 regions, was behind an election cheating operation.

?I mentioned to [Adaza] that something happened in the first week of February,? Morato said. ?I was visited by seven people offering their service regarding the forthcoming election, but it was not being offered to me because I was not a candidate. It was being offered to ... Teodoro through me. I was supposed to be a conduit because they could not get hold of [him].?

Cheat to win, protect

Morato said the men claimed that for P1 billion, they could cheat to make a candidate win, or protect the candidate from being cheated.

He said he knew the four Comelec officials? designations but that he had left his notes at home, and that he only got the first names of two of them, ?Artie? and ?Bong.?

Morato said he remembered the men?s faces and that he could identify them from pictures.

Makati Rep. Teodoro Locsin, the committee chair, suggested that Morato be shown pictures of Comelec employees so he could pick out those who had met with him.

(Later in an ambush interview, Morato told reporters: ?I wish I could say more here. One of [the men] has appeared in newspapers.?)

Apprised of the possibility that he was being taken for a ride, Morato said he was old enough to know if someone was pulling his leg.

?Believe me, they?re real,? he said.

Computer-illiterate

According to Morato who described himself as computer-illiterate, the men claimed that they could manipulate election results by tampering with the source code, changing the memory card and manipulating the transmission of poll results.

He did not detail how the men could supposedly protect a candidate?s votes.

Morato said he engaged the men in conversation although he had no intention of hiring them, and that at one point, they lowered their price to P750 million.

He added that upon agreement, a down payment of P250 million was required, then another P400 million, and the rest to be paid after the polls.

Morato said the information he got from the men matched the statements of the masked witness that earlier claimed massive election fraud.

He said he got a transcript of the statements of this witness, who called himself ?Robin? but is dubbed ?koala bear,? and whom some officials had deemed suspicious, if not ridiculous.

Surigao del Norte Gov. Ace Barbers said Morato?s testimony corroborated his own earlier claim of being offered a cheating service for a princely sum.

Scam artists

Parañaque Rep. Roilo Golez said it was possible that the men who had met with Morato were scam artists out to fleece candidates. He said he doubted that anyone would fall for their ploy.

?I don?t know if anyone would consider a proposal where the end result is not clear, where one would have to make a down payment of P250 million. That is a fantastic story as far as [I am] concerned. I don?t know any politician who would even consider that proposition,? Golez said.

Locsin later clarified that what Golez described as fantastic was the men?s proposal.

Golez also said the next step was to identify the men. He said it was the lawmakers? collective responsibility to do this by showing Morato pictures of Comelec officials so the latter could pick them out.

?Until this exercise comes to fruition ... I think we can leave it at that. I cannot see the reason why we should pursue this story without that very important input. Otherwise, we?ll be taking this committee on a wild goose chase,? Golez said.

Morato?s public testimony almost did not come to pass, with Locsin saying he should speak in executive session lest he make wild accusations against presidential candidates under a coat of immunity.

But other lawmakers objected, saying other witnesses were being allowed to speak openly. Morato himself said he did not want to testify behind closed doors.

Later, Locsin said that upon the prodding of the House leadership and against his better judgment, he was letting Morato speak.

?Let?s move on?

Malacañang wants Locsin?s committee to wrap up its inquiry into purported cheating in the country?s first-ever nationwide automated elections.

?We hope we can put an end to this investigation so we can move on,? Executive Secretary Leandro Mendoza told reporters in Filipino. ?The elections are over and many candidates have been proclaimed. We hope there will be a final decision [by the committee] so we can move on and move forward.?

Mendoza aired a challenge for ?Robin? to come forward: ?The masked man should come out in the open so we?ll know who he is and what evidence he has.?

The masked man appeared in a video first shown at a media forum on May 18, claiming he was involved in vote-shaving and vote-padding during the elections.

The same video was next shown during a hearing of Locsin?s committee.

Monitoring masked man

Mendoza acknowledged that government intelligence agents were monitoring the masked man. He said ?part of the monitoring is the identification? but that no report had been submitted to the Palace.

Locsin was earlier quoted as saying that Malacañang was behind the exposé. He later clarified that he had never directly linked former Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita to the video.

Ermita said he only got a copy of the video from Manila Times columnist Buddy Cunanan, a son of Inquirer columnist Belinda Cunanan.

Asked to categorically assure the public that the Palace had nothing to do with the video and that it would not wish to delay the proclamation of the new president and vice president, Mendoza said: ?Of course.? With a report from Christian V. Esguerra