Andresito filed the motion for reconsideration at around 5:30 p.m. yesterday, saying that it would be a fatal mistake to allow a foreigner to be elected as president of the country.

Comelec Chairman Benjamin S. Abalos said he will meet with his commissioners to study the motion for reconsideration filed by the petitioner to determine the real status of Poe’s candidacy.

Fornier said they have prepared all the evidence to support their petition and are hopeful that the Comelec en banc would favorably rule on it, and make them realize that the First Division committed "a big mistake" in dismissing the petition.

"With our evidence, I believe that even the commissioners of the First Division will be convinced that they have committed a great mistake in arriving at their decision," Fornier said.

The respondent’s lawyer, led by Estelito Mendoza, expressed optimism that the Comelec en banc, like the First Division, will rule that his client did not commit any misrepresentation of fact and that he is a natural born citizen of the Philippines and thus qualified to run for President.

"Evidence clearly shows that Poe is a genuine Filipino and is qualified to run for the presidential seat contrary to what his detractor claimed that he is a foreigner and has no right to run for the May 2004 election," Mendoza said.

Fornier, however, said that the commissioners, led by Rufino Javier, Resurreccion Borra and Luzviminda Tancangco, failed to thoroughly study the evidence which shows that he is not a Filipino and should be disqualified to run for president of the Philippines as stated in the Constitution.

The Constitution states that a person must be a natural born citizen to be qualified to run for the highest position of the land.

Meanwhile, thousands of Poe’s supporters yesterday threatened to charge Fornier before the Supreme Court for allegedly destroying the credibility of Poe.

"I hope they know what they are doing. I have done nothing but to uphold what the Constitution says," Fornier said.

Double registrants

More than 500,000 voters will be delisted after the Commission on Election (Comelec) uncovered double and triple registrants in Metro Manila and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) as part of the commission’s intensified preparation to ensure the free, honest, and credible manual elections in May 2004.

Comelec Chairman Benjamin Abalos admitted, in an interview, that they would conduct a cleansing of voters in Metro Manila where they discovered at least 400,000 voters registered twice during the conduct of validation of registered voters.

"We have to institute a massive investigation on double and triple registrant to ensure an honest election or avert election fraud or "dagdag bawas," Abalos said.

Earlier, the Comelec revealed that 110,000 voters in ARMM were also found to have registered twice, at least 20,000 of them were as young as 12 years old.

"The law provides that only 18-years old and older are legally allowed to register and exercise their right to suffrage for local or national elections,"Abalos said.

Manila, Pasay, Caloocan, and Parañaque and various provinces in ARMM have the most number of illegal voters, the Comelec chairman said.

The Comelec Law Department will file charges against double registrants which is punishable by one year to 6 years imprisonment. The violators will also be stripped of their right to vote in the future local and national elections.

Comelec information chief Ferdinand Rafanan claimed that the poll body has filed charges against more than 12,000 double registrants in 29 courts in Metro Manila.

Rafanan said that double registration of voters is prohibited under the Omnibus Election Code. (Rico C. Navarro and Hannah Torregoza)

Automation pushed

Information technology (IT) professionals who served as technical advisers to the Commission on Elections (Comelec) urged the Supreme Court yesterday to reconsider the petition that will be filed by the Comelec on the automation contract to ensure that the 1,973 automated counting machines (ACMs) already acquired and paid by the poll body will not "rust away."

Antonio G. Tinsay, technical adviser on the Phase II Election Modernization Project, said the ACMs, will only be wasted should the Supreme Court prevent the Commission from using them.

"The ultimate losers here are the Filipino people and taxpayers who aspire for a clean and credible elections through automation," Tinsay said.

He pointed out that aside from the ACMs, Comelec also purchased more than 2,500 IBM desktop PCs and printers and more than 600 generator sets in preparation for an automated elections.

Tinsay said it is still possible for the SC to allow the Commission to make use of the machines if they will opt to go for a semi-automated election.

"These (machines) will only rust away if these remain to be unused. We hope that an automated counting can be done for major cities like Metro Manila and Autonomous Region for Muslims Mindanao to help speed up election results."

The technical advisers, who are from Philippine Computer Society, are in-charge of the technical aspect of the Phase II Election Modernization Program of the Comelec.

The IT experts were tapped by Commissioner Resurreccion Borra, head of the Phase II project, who earlier requested that the private sector participate in the project planning and implementation for the automated counting and canvassing project.

Their role is to apply industry-standard processes in the development of the counting and canvassing software, including the review of program specifications, security provisions and conduct of proper testing procedures.

‘Dirty tricks’

Sen. Panfilo Lacson said yesterday that Malacañang operatives are now trying to shift the blame for the Poe disqualification debacle to his camp in an effort to "damage control" the negative impact of Poe’s citizenship issue on President Arroyo.

Lacson said efforts are under way to paint him as the brains behind the filing of the disqualification case against Poe before the Commission on Elections.

"We have received reliable reports that the administration is growing desperate over the bad publicity it has been getting because of the disqualification issue. Now they are trying to pin the blame on me as part of their damage control," Senator Lacson said.

Part of the "special media operations" by Malacañang spin doctors, is to link his spokesman and political adviser Lito Banayo to lawyer Victorino Fornier.

Banayo, in an interview with RMN radio, denounced the malicious attempt by the administration’s dirty tricks operatives to link him to Fornier with whom he had an accidental meeting late last week at Cafe Adriatico in Malate, Manila.

"The meeting I had with Victorino Fornier was purely accidental since I was there to meet former Surigao del Norte Gov. Francisco Matugas. In fact, I do not know Fornier and he was the one who approached me. Little did I know that such meeting would be exploited by the black propagandists of this administration to hit Senator Lacson," Banayo told RMN radio.

Lacson said the Arroyo administration could not deny its active involvement in the Poe citizenship issue since their fingerprints are all over the place.

He cited, for instance, lawyer Jose Gerardo Medina of the Medina and Bolongaita Law Offices, who is the legal counsel of Fornier in the disqualification case of Poe and who also happens to be one of the campaign contributors to Mrs. Arroyo when she ran for vice president in 1998.