My Daily Inquirer

Philippine legislators on Wednesday launched an inquiry into allegations of fraud in last week's national elections, officials said.

The House of Representatives suffrage committee will look into allegations of irregularities surrounding vote-counting machines in the nation's first automated ballot, committee vice-chairman Matias Defensor said.

"It seems that the complaints are not isolated but came from all over the country," Defensor said.

Congress is set to convene next Monday to confirm the apparent winner, Benigno Aquino, as the next president. More than 17,000 other positions were contested from vice president to local town mayors.

While Aquino's lead is so big over his rivals that the final verdict appears not to be in doubt, some of the losing presidential candidates have alleged some of the results were already pre-programmed in the computer memory cards.

Other complaints have focused on contests for lower positions.

House Speaker Prospero Nograles, who lost his bid to become a city mayor, urged the government to withhold payments to the private contractors of the automated ballot, Smartmatic-TIM, until the complaints were cleared up.

"The remedy is not to pay them until the air is clear," Nograles said.

However, outgoing President Gloria Arroyo's ruling Lakas-Kampi CMD coalition, which did badly in the elections with their presidential candidate coming a distant fourth, said there had been no widespread fraud.

"Unless proven otherwise, we believe that this automated election was a big success," said Lakas-Kampi CMD's Prospero Pichay, an adviser to Arroyo.

"Maybe we should look into (the allegations), but ... the people have spoken and you have to respect that."

Independent poll monitor Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting also said it had seen few discrepancies.

Source: News