BY DENNIS GADIL

SENATE minority leader Aquilino "Nene" Pimentel yesterday said the Genuine Opposition (GO) will sue election operators who gave Team Unity a 12-0 victory in Maguindanao province.

"We will sue the election operators, Comelec officials who worked with them, and officials of the board of canvassers who looked the other way while massive fraud was being done," Pimentel said.

The Team Unity camp just shrugged off the accusations of cheating.

The 12-0 vote based on initial returns from all 27 towns of Maguindanao showed Luis Singson on top with 87,954. Prospero Pichay was second with 87,000 votes. The province has 336,000 registered voters.

Loren Legarda and Francis Escudero were at 13th and 14th slot. These two GO candidates are No. 1 and 2 in the ongoing Namfrel quick count.

Maguindanao was one of the provinces mentioned in the "Hello Garci" tapes which supposedly rigged votes in favor of President Arroyo in 2004.

Before last Monday’s elections, there had been talks in Mindanao that elections were already over in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) as early as last Saturday.

GO, in a statement, said the validity of election results in Maguindanao province is highly questionable.

"The 12-0 result in Maguindanao with Chavit as number one speaks volumes about the credibility - or lack thereof - of elections in that area," GO spokesman Adel Tamano said.

"Even assuming that Maguin-danao is an administration bailiwick, why is Chavit - a Christian and not from Mindanao - No.1 and (Sultan Jamalul) Kiram, who logically should be supported by his fellow Muslims and Mindanaoans, was not even in second place?" he added.

"It does not only smell of cheating but it stinks to high heavens," Tamano said.

Team Unity deputy spokesman Tonypet Albano had been warning of a "juggernaut" of command votes from Mindanao which would bring victory to majority of TU candidates.

He said the command votes are shown in the initial tallies from various towns in the Visayas and Mindanao which have delivered a 12-0 or an 8-3-1 in favor of Team Unity.

He said TU is also banking on the 56 towns that delivered a 12-0 vote to the senatorial candidates of President Arroyo in 2004.

He said in Lapinig town, Northern Samar, the TU slate won by a landslide; in Mabuhay town, Zamboanga Sibugay, Cesar Montano, Pichay and Joker Arroyo were the top three choices; in Carmen town, Agusan del Norte, it was 10-1-1 with Pichay, Montano, Edgardo Angara, Juan Miguel Zubiri, Arroyo, Mike Defensor, Ralph Recto, and Vic Magsaysay in the first eight slots; in San Jose, Dinagat island, it was 9-2-1, with Pichay and Zubiri in the top two slots, and in Cortez, Surigao del Sur, Pichay and Singson topped the elections.

"We will have other provinces and scores of towns and cities that would deliver eight TU winners at the very least," he said. – With Wendell Vigilia