Polls watchdog mulls over suit vs Brillantes, Tingting Cojuangco aide
MANILA, Philippines–Watchdog group Automated Election System (AES) Watch is contemplating legal action against former Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chair Sixto Brillantes and Worthy Acosta, a former employee of ex-Tarlac Gov. Tingting Cojuangco, for purportedly making it appear some AES Watch members were involved in “election sabotage.”
“We’re consulting with our lawyers, discussing what legal action to take… we have to defend the integrity of AES Watch,” said Bobby Tuazon, director for policy studies of the Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPeg), a coconvenor of AES Watch.
“Damage had been wrought to an election watch group that plays a vital role in our already damaged electoral institutions,” he said in a statement.
Tuazon was reacting to news reports on separate affidavits filed last week by Brillantes and Acosta with the Comelec law department.
Acosta, who claimed to be a former executive assistant of Cojuangco, said President Aquino’s aunt ordered him to steal election ballots stored in the Baguio City Treasurer’s Office in June 2013 in order to discredit the poll results by making it appear there had been massive fraud.
Acosta said Cojuangco was aided by a former Biliran congressman, Glenn Chong, who ordered him to tamper with the ballots.
Brillantes said he was convinced election laws were violated by Cojuangco, Chong and the others involved in the operation.
Evidence of election fraud
Acosta in his affidavit gave the names of persons he described as “notorious advocates of clean elections and very visible critics of the Comelec,” among those whom their group had met with as they continued to gather evidence of election fraud.
Among the names were those of AES Watch convenors, including Evita Jimenez, CenPeg executive director.
In a phone interview, Jimenez denied having anything to do with any efforts to discredit the 2013 elections.
She admitted, however, going to a meeting with Cojuangco’s group in 2013 but said she was only invited to present CenPeg’s research and study on automated elections, particularly on the vulnerability of the precinct count optical scan machines.
