Sunday, May 16, 2010

Atienza Refuses To Concede, Will File Election Protest

On Wednesday, Former Manila Mayor Lito Atienza refused to concede even after the proclamation that incumbent mayor Alfredo Lim won the election and is set to file to an election protest following the city's automated polls .

In a press conference, Atienza said that their camp wants to shed light on speculations sorrounding the results in elections in Manila.

“This is not about who won here. I am only here for the total credibilty of the automated elections. In the history of Manila, our camp always concedes when there’s credibility in the results,” Atienza said.

In 1988, Atienza conceded to then mayor Mel Lopez two days after elections and his son, now campaign manager, Ali Atienza conceded when Lim won the elections.

"We have so many data that point to the malfunctioning of the PCOS machine in Manila at hindi katanggap tanggap sa marami ang naging resulta at dahil sa mga dudang ito ay hindi kami maaaring manahimik na lamang at hayaan lahat, as a candidate, I have this obligation to the people to protect the vote of our supporters. Ang political at personal interes ko ay isinasantabi ko at ang ating ipinaglalaban ay ang accuracy ng mga PCOS machine na syang gagamitin sa mga darating pang eleksyon," Atienza told reporters.

Residents of city are asking where their votes were placed, the reason why their camp are filing protest and would ask to conduct manual count on the six districts of the city.

He also said that if he would “just let it pass,” irregularities would prevail in the next elections to come.

Atienza said that results of the random manual audit conducted in various barangays in Manila did not complemented the results of the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines.

According to the statement, the former environment secretary cited that in precinct 367 of barangay 198 in District 2 incumbent mayor Alfredo Lim had 464 votes in the PCOS machines while in manual count he had only received 400.

In Legarda Elementary school at precinct 887 barangay 559, Lim garnered 393 votes as compared to 183 votes in manual count. According to him (Atienza), the same thing also happened in Earist school at district 6, barangay 633 precinct number 1291, wherein PCOS count for Lim is at 347 while the manual count is only at 216.

Atienza showed to the media that one of the election returns was dated April 28, a day after their camp showed Nilda Reluya, an employee of the City Hall under the Office of the Mayor-Electronic Date Processing went to the Atienza camp and revealed on the “poll results” in Manila prior to the election proper.

He also clarified that they only want to clear the cloud of speculations by checking the results of the PCOS machines and in the manual count and they only want to check the credibility of the elections in Manila following the alleged “finished election results” prior to the election proper.

Earlier reports told that Atienza got the support from Iglesia ni Cristo, El Shaddai, Muslim community, and others.

"We have ten days after the election to file the protest,” Atienza said.

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