Aquino Cheating on Vote, Enrile Charges

MANILA —  Former Philippine Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile charged Wednesday that President Corazon Aquino is cheating in the tabulation of Monday’s national election, and he declared that democracy still has not returned to the Philippines.

Flanked by a dozen senatorial running mates in his right-wing coalition, Enrile shouted to several thousand supporters in a protest rally outside the National Election Commission, “We know we won in the election, but we lost in the count.”

Although fewer than one-fourth of the ballots have been tallied in Monday’s elections for a new Senate and House of Representatives, the Aquino government has been predicting since early Tuesday that all but one or two of the president’s handpicked candidates will win in the 24-member Senate.

The latest unofficial tallies by several independent radio stations and citizens’ groups today continued to confirm that the Aquino administration will win a resounding victory in the Senate. They also showed, however, that many opposition candidates led by former government ministers and cronies of deposed President Ferdinand E. Marcos--among them men who are now facing criminal charges here--will be among the big congressional winners.

Several of Enrile’s coalition leaders at the rally, among them senatorial hopefuls Francisco Tatad and Eva Kalaw, led the crowd in chanting, “Down with Aquino! Down with Aquino!” And many were also heard shouting, “Still Marcos!”

Kalaw and popular film actor Joseph Estrada, who, along with Enrile, are still considered possible opposition winners in the Senate contest, both backed off positions they took Tuesday, when they said they would refuse to accept their Senate seats even if they won.

“The law says we have to sit, so we will sit,” Kalaw said. And Estrada, famous for his film portrayals of Mafia-style gangsters, told interviewers Wednesday that he “will respect the will of the people” if he is proclaimed a winner.

Election Commissioner Ramon Felipe, who has called the election one of the most peaceful and honest in Philippine history, called the protest rally “an amusing show.”

Asked about the charges of cheating leveled against Aquino, presidential press secretary Teodoro Benigno later said, “She cannot cheat in the polls any more than Queen Elizabeth can steal money from her chambermaid.”

Benigno said that proof of the election’s integrity was in the absence of widespread media charges of fraud. Such charges were widespread 15 months ago after presidential elections that Aquino believes Marcos stole from her through fraud, intimidation and massive vote-buying. Two weeks later, in February, 1986, a church-backed military coup drove Marcos into exile.

“Even the media agrees that the May 11 polls were one of the cleanest and most peaceful in our country’s history,” Benigno said, adding that Aquino met Wednesday afternoon with a 20-member team of foreign election observers that also praised the president for the orderly elections.

The president has not appeared in public or commented publicly on the election, and aides said she is waiting for final, official results, which are not expected until this weekend at the earliest.

Election Commission officials blamed the delay on the country’s manual system of tabulation and poor communications between the capital and the many canvassing centers in the Philippines, a nation of 7,100 islands.

Enrile and the opposition losers, however, asserted that the slow counting was deliberate and identical to tactics Marcos employed during his 20 years of authoritarian rule, in which he rigged elections and used government propaganda to control all three branches of government.

Aquino fired Enrile as defense minister last November amid rumors that his military supporters were plotting a coup against her government. Enrile did not indicate during his protest speech what his protest movement will do now.