UNA urged to concede Team PNoy victory to quell cheating rumors

Senator Franklin Drilon. FILE PHOTO

MANILA—Sen. Franklin Drilon on Thursday called on the United Nationalist Alliance to concede Team PNoy’s election victory to dispel conspiracy theories and allegations of irregularities in the last elections.

Drilon made the comment after the Commission on Elections said it was looking into what some information technology experts claimed was an unusual 60-30-10 pattern in the number of votes won by administration, opposition and independent candidates. The certificates of canvas supposedly revealed a consistent pattern of 60 percent of the votes going to Team PNoy candidates, 30 percent to the United Nationalist Opposition and 10 percent to other candidates.

The campaign manager of the Liberal Party-led coalition who is expected to be elected Senate president in the 16th Congress branded as “ridiculous” the allegations that the canvassing of votes was manipulated, thus the 60-30-10 vote pattern in favor of the administration candidates.

“The conspiracy theories to manipulate are very ridiculous to me and it doesn’t serve any purpose,” Drilon said at the Senate’s weekly news forum.

“I would therefore suggest that UNA should now issue a formal statement conceding the election to Team PNoy because they have not questioned the result of 9-3 so we can move forward, work on a common agenda for the benefit of our people,” he told reporters.

With administration candidates winning nine of the 12 Senate seats at stake in the elections, Drilon is expected to be elected Senate president when the 16th Congress convenes in July.

“The elections are over.  Perhaps, it’s time for UNA to say, as a responsible political party… ‘We concede that the message is clear to support the agenda of this administration for the next six years.  We concede that we lost the elections but we will continue to act as fiscalizers of this administration so we can move forward’,” Drilon said.

“That reluctance of UNA to concede the election gives an opportunity for all these conspiracy theories to surface,” he added.

Drilon said there were provinces, cities and municipalities where the administration’s local candidates lost but nine of its senatorial candidates still managed to land in the winning circle of 12.

“And so it’s difficult to imagine that there is a nationwide manipulation because in a number of provinces where our local LP candidates lost, the result was still 9-3″ in the race for Senate seats, Drilon said.

“So if we were going to manipulate, why did the opposition win in the local elections but our [national candidates] prevailed?” he added.

Drilon added that the 9 – 3 outcome in the senatorial elections had been indicated in the surveys conducted by polling firms since the start of the campaign.

That “alleged 60-30-10 manipulation would entail conspiring with all the survey outfits for the last three months because for the last two to three months, all the survey firms of note had always projected 9-3 — at worst 8-4, sometimes 10-2,  but (they) always projected a victory by the Team PNoy,” Drilon said.

Drilon expressed confidence that the Comelec itself would be able to explain the allegedly unusual pattern of votes.

“The human mind is rich.  There will always be theories of conspiracy about the election, etc.  I’m not surprised that another conspiracy is being raised on the 60-30-10,” Drilon said.

“I am sure that the Comelec will be able to address this new conspiracy even if the record of Comelec in any controversy is untarnished by any legal victory in the Supreme Court,” he added.