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Malacañang defended anew the election results in Maguindanao, which have stirred controversy because pro-administration senatorial candidates swept the top 12 slots in the province.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said it was unfair that Maguindanao was singled out by the opposition in its claims of cheating by the administration when there were some areas where the Genuine Opposition got all 12 slots but no questions were raised.

Ermita said that it was not impossible for all of the Team Unity (TU) bets to land in the top 12 in some areas such as Maguindanao, because of the strong support given by the local officials and electorate.

He said the administration coalition, which is made up of five political parties, has performed well in the elections for local positions.

Citing figures from May 22, Ermita said that in a contest with 81 gubernatorial slots up for grabs, 73 winning candidates had been proclaimed. Of the 73, 59 belong to the parties under the Team Unity coalition, while eight more pro-administration gubernatorial candidates are leading in their respective areas.

With 219 congressional seats to be filled, 203 candidates were proclaimed – 163 of them from Team Unity.

Ermita said the Team Unity coalition has another 16 bets for congressional districts who were not yet proclaimed, but are ahead of their opposition rivals as the canvassing of votes continues.

Ermita also said that, of the candidates vying for a total of 119 city mayors’ seats, 109 were declared as winners – 85 of them Team Unity.

Eight more Team Unity mayoral bets were leading as of May 22.

“The significance is the vibrancy of our elections,” Ermita said. “People voted according to their choice.”

Allegations of electoral fraud were reported in Maguindanao, based on the claim of an anonymous teacher that the names of Team Unity bets were written down on blank ballots after the polls and that children were made to affix their thumbmarks on the ballots.

Outgoing Sen. Franklin Drilon has called on the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to declare a failure of elections in Maguindanao.

Canvassing for the elections in Maguindanao has been deferred by the Comelec but, according to Chairman Benjamin Abalos, this was because the poll body’s provincial supervisor for Maguindanao, lawyer Lintang Bedol, did not attend the canvassing.

Ermita said that the executive branch will just have to wait for the final action of the Comelec on Maguindanao now that a task force has been created to investigate the alleged fraud.

Public school teachers in Maguindanao dismissed as plain “ignorance” allegations that they helped to cheat in favor of the administration’s Team Unity senatorial ticket during the recent elections.

Moro politics, according to the mentors, many of them ethnic Maguindanaons and Iranons, is traditionally a projection of oneness under the leadership of the datus.

Some 2,000 teachers were at the Maguindanao provincial capitol in Shariff Aguak town to air their indignation over accusations that they helped rig the May 14 elections there in favor of Team Unity.

Hadji Udtog Kawit, officer-in-charge of the Department of Education (DepEd) in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), told reporters the entire teaching force in the province was hurt by the issues raised against them.

Kawit has asked the lawyers’ group Legal Network for Truthful Elections, or Lente, to present the teacher it claims helped cheat in favor of Team Unity senatorial bets in one of the polling precincts in the province to the Comelec.

Lawyer Mustapha Sambolawan said teachers in Maguindanao have the right to demand the appearance of the alleged teacher-turned-witness in the proper forum. Sambolawan is the manager of the ARMM Social Fund Project (ASFP), which is implementing costly, World Bank-funded socio-economic programs in the ARMM.

“Unverified, unvalidated allegations cannot stand in any judicial or quasi-judicial proceedings. That’s what the teachers want to say,” Sambolawan said.

A 45-year-old teacher, who asked not to be identified, said that unless the Lente can bring its witness to the proper forum, allegations that they cheated are “gossip.”

“Murkah (divine wrath) would surely come to them and their families,” said a science teacher from Datu Piang, Maguindanao, referring to all members of Lente.

Meanwhile, the province of Datu Shariff Kabungsuan in Mindanao was placed under Comelec control after the canvassing of votes failed to proceed a week after the May 14 synchronized elections.

Abalos said at a press briefing in Pasay City that the poll body is also appointing Josslyn de Mesa, of the Comelec law department, to head the provincial board of canvassers after two previously-assigned chairmen refused to serve their functions due to security concerns.

De Mesa will be assisted by lawyers Emmanuel Ignacio and Gregorio Lardizabal, regional election directors for Regions III and IV, respectively.

“This is a precautionary measure to keep the pressure off the local election officers there,” Abalos said, noting the political tension between the opposing camps of re-electionist Gov. Bimbo Sinsuat and Tocao Mastura.

Comelec Commissioner Rene Sarmiento said that it took a gutsy woman like De Mesa to take on the responsibility of heading the provincial board of canvassers in the province.

The Comelec will also look into the possible liabilities of the two election officers who refused to serve as chairmen of the provincial board of canvassers.

Because Datu Shariff Kabungsuan has been placed under Comelec control, there will be an augmentation of troops there from both the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Armed  Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

“We will deploy more troops depending on the need,” Abalos said. “Let us prove the sovereignty of this government over lawless elements. If we allow the canvassing to be stalled just because of this, it would be an insult to our military and police.”

He also said De Mesa, who served as the chairman of the provincial board of canvassers in Sulu during the 2004 presidential elections, has been instructed to complete the canvassing in Datu Shariff Kabungsuwan in the soonest time possible.

In a related development, Sarmiento said he is set to leave for Lanao del Sur to personally supervise the special elections in 18 areas in the province where elections failed after members of the Board of Election Inspectors refused to serve during the May 14 polls out of fear for their safety. – With John Unson, James Mananghaya