SEN. Loren Legarda on Thursday said she has no other recourse
but to tell the people how she was cheated by Vice President Noli de Castro in
the 2004 elections after the Supreme Court dismissed her electoral protest with
finality.
Legarda said she would bare to the public the evidence they
had gathered to prove that she was cheated.
De Castro advised Legarda to just follow the rule of law now
that the highest court of the land has already affirmed his election.
But Legarda's lawyer Sixto Brillantes countered with "he who
benefits from fraud is himself a fraud."
"Without a legitimate mandate, De Castro has no business
talking about the rule of law and about yielding to duly constituted
authorities," Brillantes said. "Duly constituted he is definitely not, so he's
got his premise all wrong. We cannot turn a blind eye on his illegitimacy as
vice president."
Brilliantes said De Castro cannot stop Legarda from revealing
to the public how he had cheated her. He said De Castro fails to appreciate that
the Constitution guarantees free speech, which Legarda is exercising to correct
the injustice of a rigged election producing mandate-less leaders.
He said going public after the termination of judicial
proceedings is more appropriate than what De Castro's lawyer did when he came
out with full-page ads even while the motion for reconsideration of Legarda was
still pending. "At least Sen. Legarda opted to wait for the closure of the
protest before she made her decision to go public on details which may not have
been touched by the judiciary," Brillantes said.
In her election protest, Legarda proved that election returns
(ERs) retrieved from Congress were forgeries by comparing them with six other ER
copies, including those from the Commission on Elections and the National
Citizens' Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel).
In the ERs from the Lanao del Sur towns of Taraka and
Balindong, Legarda's win over De Castro in the six ER copies was reversed
through vote-padding and -shaving in the Congress ERs.
Last week, three self-confessed election operators from Mindanao, including a
former Sharia judge, revealed how the administration cheated the opposition in
2004. Two policemen were also reported to be ready to attest that break-ins took
place at the House of Representatives from December 2004 to February 2005 to
slip in the fake ERs. The ERs were faked to tally with the dubious figures
reflected in the statement of votes and COCs for Lanao del Sur. - JP Lopez
