THE ruling Liberal Party will resort to election manipulation and political harassment in the May elections because the only way for it to win is by cheating, the United Nationalist Alliance said Thursday.
“The administration political party has the capability to manipulate the elections to cheat because they have the resources,” UNA secretary-general JV Bautista said during the launching of the group ANIB or Abogado ni Binay, which is composed of more than 500 lawyers nationwide.
“ANIB was formed to support the candidacy of Vice President Jejomar Binay who believes he is the most qualified president among the presidential candidates,” said former Integrated Bar of the Philippines national president Vicente Joyas.
He made his statement even as a Binay spokesman said Binay would allocate P65 billion a year to provide free uniforms, books and school supplies to 20 million public school students nationwide if he was elected President.
“A Binay administration will complete the construction of at least 50,000 new classrooms in 2016 because education is the key component in addressing poverty,” Joey Salgado said.
He said Binay’s education program would include scholarships, student loans, subsidies and other incentives to underprivileged students.
Joyas said ANIB would also act as Binay’s poll watchdog during the elections to make sure no cheating took place in all the voting places.
Bautista said the LP had already started to cheat in the form of vote-buying through the use of the 4Ps or the government’s dole to the poor by spreading the lie that Binay would stop the dole should he be elected president.
“They have the capability to cheat by manipulating the vote-counting machines or exploiting the Commission on Elections,” Bautista said.
“It’s always a possibility that the Liberal Party will exploit the flaws of the electronic elections. It is not far-fetched the party will be using the VCM to manipulate the results of the election.”
Lawyer Nasser Maharomsalik said the LP would also use the ARMM to cheat because the “ARMM is the cheating capital of the Philippines.”
He said the widespread blackouts in Mindanao would be employed in time for the elections. The media and other poll watchdogs should focus on Mindanao because it was notorious for election cheating.