Statement of Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri
on "watered down" ballots

It is disturbing that many took Senator Nene Pimentel's allegations and imputations against me as facts without balancing it with my position before the articles saw print.

Finding wet ballots inside ballot boxes is a usual occurrence not just in the Senate Electoral Tribunal but also in the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal and local courts that have jurisdiction over local election protests.

Right now, we are revising the counter-protested precincts, or, the precincts where I was cheated. Why would I cause the destruction of ballots that would prove that I have been cheated? In fact, these ballots are Opposition ballots.

In instances where ballots are watered down or destroyed, the votes as they appear in the election returns will stand. Hence, the occurrence of the watered down ballots are not beneficial to me: I have nothing to gain if I did this deplorable act. The occurrence of "watered down" ballots in the subject ballot boxes is in favor of the Opposition camp.

In fact, we join Koko's camp in urging that this incident be investigated more deeply. My lawyers have already filed with the Senate Electoral Tribunal a Motion to Investigate this occurrence, other irregularities such as receiving less than the number of ballot boxes requested from the local custodians and receiving ballot boxes containing barangay election ballots, all of which are detrimental to me.

For more than two decades since 1984 when my father was elected an Assemblyman in the Batasang Pambansa, the Zubiri family has never engaged in cheating. Anyone could ask the whole of Bukidnon and the answer would always be that we won no less than 90% of the votes in all those elections.

No electoral protest has ever been filed against any member of our family when we started our political careers.

We want an in-depth investigation including the breach of the custodial responsibilities in those areas.

We support all electoral reforms and the modernization efforts that would make our elections fair, clean and honest.