PIMENTEL COMMENDS ELECTION REGISTRAR FOR PURGE OF 20,000 FLYING VOTERS IN CAGAYAN DE ORO

The field election supervisor in Cagayan de Oro City
has been commended by Senate Minority Leader Aquilino
"Nene" Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) for cracking down
on bogus voters in the city in a bold effort to make
the May 14 elections as clean and credible as
possible.

City election registrar Stalin Baguio was praised by
Pimentel for cleansing the voters' list of about
20,000 flying voters.

Pimentel, who hails from Cagayan de Oro, said the
existence of a huge number of flying voters has been
the bane of the electoral process in the city for a
long-time now but it was only Mr. Baguio who seized
the initiative in striking them out from the
masterlist of registered, qualified voters.

The lone senator from Mindanao said he himself
personally verified and confirmed the existence of
20,000 flying voters and double registrants in the
records of the Comelec-Cagayan de Oro office during
the weeks preceding the May, 2001 elections.

Pimentel said there were even some teenagers who came
forward, admitting that they were able to register as
flying voters in Cagayan de Oro although they were
residents of different towns of Misamis Oriental and
nearby provinces like Lanao del Norte and Bukidnon.

He said the self-confessed flying voters even
signified their willingness to testify before the
Comelec or the Senate to reveal the truth behind the
scam.

Pimentel said the admission of thousands of flying
voters into the roster of qualified voters could not
have been made possible without the connivance of
corrupt Comelec officials with unscrupulous
politicians and their political operators.

He said the investigation and purging of the fake and
flying voters from the official list were foiled by
highly-placed Comelec officials, both in Northern
Mindanao and in the Comelec office in Manila, who were
probably part of the election fraud syndicate
responsible for the anomaly.

"That is why we are saying that election registrar
Stalin Baguio achieved quite a feat in delisting some
20,000 flying voters from the official roster. This is
a good example of sanitizing the voters list of
spurious registrants which can be replicated in other
areas," Pimentel said.

The opposition leader also voiced suspicion that some
top Cagayan de Oro political leaders had something to
do with the listing of the flying voters which gave
them an undue advantage over their opponents in past
elections, enabling them to entrench themselves in
power even if they no longer enjoyed the trust of
majority of their constituents.
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