Two Senate committees start Tuesday their probe into the alleged involvement of former First Gentleman Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo in what has been described as the “widespread, systematic, organized and massive poll fraud and electoral sabotage in the 2004 presidential and 2007 senatorial elections.”
Among those summoned before the committees are former acting Justice Secretary Agnes VST Devanadera; Alfonso Cusi, former Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) chief; and former Shariah Circuit Court Judge Nagamura Moner.
The two summonses were issued by the Senate Blue Ribbon committee, chaired by Sen. Teofisto L. Guingona III, and the Senate electoral reforms committee, chaired by Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III.
Others asked to appear also include lawyer Renault ‘’Boy’’ Macarambon, head of the election and barangay affairs division of the Commission on Elections (Comelec); lawyer Rey Sumalipao, Comelec regional director of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM); Navy Col. Alexander Balutan; Judge Casan-Ali Limbona; Lintang Bedol, former Maguindanao election supervisor; Norie Unas, former Maguindanao provincial administrator; T/Sgt. Vidal Doble; and Eric Jude Alvia, secretary-general of the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel).
Moner testified before the Guingona committee last Sept. 13 that Devanadera, then the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) undersecretary for legal affairs, had coached election officials in Muslim-dominated areas in Mindanao to claim in press conferences that there was no cheating in the 2004 elections and that the late movie actor Fernando Poe Jr. actually lost to former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA).
Full Article: Senate panels start poll probe | The Manila Bulletin Newspaper Online.