The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Thursday declared former Board Member Lilia G. Pineda as the duly elected governor of Pampanga, unseating incumbent Gov. Eddie Panlilio.

The Comelec also ordered Panlilio to immediately vacate the post and allow Pineda to assume as governor of Pampanga.

The Comelec Second Division declared Pineda winner after the appreciation of the ballots revealed that she won by 2,011 votes over Panlilio in the 2007 gubernatorial race in Pampanga.

“The foregoing results of our appreciation of the ballot clearly show that it was Lilia G. Pineda who got majority of the votes of the electorate for the province of Pampanga,” read the resolution.

The Comelec found after the review and the examination of the contested ballot that Pineda got 190,729 votes against the 188,718 of Panlilio.

Panlilio, who was present during the promulgation, was not surprised by the decision.

“I think sometime in October lahat naman ng mga motions namin and requests namin hindi napagbigyan…So itong mga pattern na ito has been leading us to think that we will not get a fair treatment on this case,” he said.

The camp of Panlilio is planning to file a motion for reconsideration in the coming days.

It was recalled that the priest turned-politician only won by 1,147 over Pineda, a known President Arroyo ally, in the initial count.

But Pineda questioned the result and accused Panlilio of massive cheating.

The Comelec began the recount proceedings in August 2009.

As this developed, the Supreme Court has denied all motions seeking to reverse its earlier decision upholding the validity of the P7.2-billion poll automation contract awarded to Smartmatic-Total Information Management Corp. (TIM), clearing the way for the Comelec to proceed with country’s first ever nationwide computerized elections on May 10, 2010.

Voting 13-2, the High Court affirmed its September 10, 2009 decision that ruled the Comelec did not commit grave abuse of discretion in the award of the poll automation contract to Smartmatic-TIM.

The SC threw out the motion for reconsideration of lawyer Harry Roque Jr. and his group, as well as the petitions for intervention separately filed by the Senate, through Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, and election lawyer Pete Quadra. All motions sought to reconsider the decision on the contract between Smartmatic-TIM and Comelec.

Quadra also asked that the Board of Election Inspectors (BEIs) to manually count the ballots after the printing and the election transmission of ballots.

SC Spokesperson Jose Midas Marquez, in a press conference, said the 15-man tribunal found the arguments in the motions to be mostly “rehash.”

“That means any legality surrounding the poll automation project has been laid to rest,” Marquez added.

In a 15-page resolution penned by Associate Justice Presbitero Velasco Jr., the High Court again reminded anti-election fraud advocates that instead of undermining the efforts of the Comelec to transform the country’s election system from manual to automated, they should help the poll body in ensuring the successful implementation of the project.

“That difficult and complex undertaking belongs at the first instance to the Comelec as part of its mandate to insure orderly and peaceful elections. The Comelec, as it were, is laboring under a very tight timeline. It would accordingly need the help of all advocates of orderly and honest elections, all men and women of goodwill, to assist Comelec personnel in addressing the fears expressed about the integrity of the system. After all, peaceful, fair, honest, and credible elections is everyone’s concern,” the court said.

Chief Justice Reynato Puno and Associate Justices Renato Corona, Antonio Eduardo Nachura, Teresita Leonardo de Castro, Arturo Brion, Diosdado Peralta, Lucas Bersamin, Mariano del Castillo, Roberto Abad, Martin Villarama Jr., Jose Perez, and Jose Mendoza concurred in with the decision.

Only Associate Justices Antonio and Conchita Morales dissented.

The court reiterated that the automated election system (AES) chosen by the Comelec for the May elections has been successfully deployed in previous electoral exercises in foreign territories, such as Ontario, Canada and New York, United States, although Smartmatic was not necessarily the system provider.

In its earlier decision, the court said the AES was not to be confused with the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) system procured by Comelec for the May elections.

PCOS, it noted, is merely one of the several automated voting, counting, or canvassing technologies coming within the term AES.

Roque’s group had argued that the certifications for the system were not actually issued to Smartmatic-TIM, but to a third party, which is the Dominion Voting Systems.

But the court said the system subject of the certifications was the same one procured by Comelec for the upcoming polls, adding that the licensing agreement between Smartmatic and Dominion indicates that the former is the entity licensed by the latter to use the system in the Philippines.

In their motion for reconsideration, Roque et al. pointed out that the system certified as having been used in New York was the Dominion Image Cast, a ballot marking device.

To this the court ruled: “Petitioners have obviously inserted, at this state of the case, an entirely new factual dimension to their cause. This, we cannot allow for compelling reasons. For starters, the Court cannot plausibly validate this factual assertion of petitioners.

As it is, private respondents have even questioned the reliability of the website where petitioners base their assertion, albeit the former, citing the same website, state that the Image Cast Precinct tabulation device refers to the Dominion’s PCOS machines.”

“As a matter of sound established practice, points of law, theories, issues and arguments not raised in the original proceedings cannot be brought out on review,” the court said.

It also dismissed as “highly speculative and without evidentiary value” the claim of the petitioners that Smartmatic-TIM will not be able to provide for telecommunication facilities in some areas.

“Surely, a possible breach of a contractual stipulation is not a legal reason to prematurely rescind, much less annul, the contract,” the court pointed out.

The court likewise brushed aside the petitioners’ claims that Smartmatic-TIM has allegedly entered into a new contract with Shanghai-based Quisdi to manufacture on its behalf the needed PCOS “The argument is untenable. Surely, petitioners cannot expect the Court to act on unverified reports foisted on it,” it said.

Meanwhile, the Comelec said that registered political parties have until this Friday, February 12, to file petition for accreditation as dominant majority or minority parties, or as one of the 10 major national parties or one of the two major local parties, which the poll body is determining pursuant to Republic Act 9369, the Poll Automation Law. The accreditation entitles them to official watchers and copies of election returns and certificates of canvass.

The Comelec, led by Chairman Jose A.R. Melo, reminded the political parties that the deadline for the filing of the petition for accreditation will not be extended as the preparations for the county’s first fully automated polls have to be kept on target to insure its success.

The petition must include pertinent data and statistics to support the argument for accreditation either as a dominant majority or minority parties, or one of the 10 major national parties or one of the two major local parties to help guide the Comelec in making the final determination, it was pointed out.

Aside from the petition, the Comelec, after due notice and hearing, will determine the dominant majority party, the dominant minority party, the 10 major national parties and the two major local parties, on the basis of the established record of the parties, coalition of groups that now composed them, taking into account among other things, their showing in past elections.

The Comelec will also take into account the number of incumbent officials belonging to the political parties, the number of incumbent officials belonging to them 90 days before the date of election, identifiable political organizations and strengths as evidenced by their organized chapters, ability to fill a complete slate of candidates from the municipal level to the position of the President, and other analogous circumstances that may determine their relative organizations and strengths.

The battle for recognition as dominant majority party and dominant minorit party is expected to become intense because until Republic Act 7166 was amended, “the dominant majority party and dominant minority party, shall each be entitled to one official watcher who shall be paid a fixed per diem of P400.”

Among the political parties expected to figure prominently in the race for accreditation as dominant majority party and dominant minority party are Lakas-Kampi-CMD, the Liberal Party (LP), Nacionalista Party (NP), Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL), and Nationalist People’s Coalitin (NPC). (With a report from E. T. Suarez)

Other SC decisions:
• Issues writ of Habeas Corpus demanding AFP and PNP to bring to the Court of Appeals the 43 health workers mistaken for rebels.
• Affirms resolution allowing the conversion of the some 753 million sequestered shares of San Miguel Corporation from common shares into preferred shares.