The Philippine Online Chronicles

Former Maguindanao election supervisor Lintang Bedol is now under the custody of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) after surfacing in the poll body’s office in Intramuros shortly after 9 a.m. Tuesday, Comelec chair Sixto Brillantes confirmed in a press conference.

Bedol, who went into hiding for four years after the probe of the 2007 senatorial elections, told the media he wasn’t ready to answer questions yet.

Brillantes said the Comelec will make arrangments with concerned agencies since the poll body does not have its own detention facility.

"Wala kaming detention facility rito. Pwede sa NBI, pwede sa Crame (We do not have our own detention facility. We are considering having him detained at the National Bureau of Investigation or Philippine National Police headquarters in Camp Crame)," Brillantes said in a radio interview.

But the poll chief raised concerns on the possibility of detaining Bedol at Camp Bagong Diwa in Bicutan in Taguig City, where members of the Ampatuan clan are detained. The Ampatuan clan is tagged in the 2009 Maguindanao Massacre.

Earlier, Department of Justice (DOJ) secretary Leila de Lima announced the possibility of putting Bedol under the Witness Protection Program.

Last week, Bedol, who earlier exposed the anomalies surrounding the 2007 elections, claimed in a media interview that the 2004 presidential election was also rigged.

Bedol, along with former Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao govenor and massacre suspect Zaldy Ampatuan, has offered to testify in the possible fresh probe of the alleged electoral fraud during the Arroyo administration.

But a lawyer of former president and now Pampanga representative Gloria Arroyo cast doubt on Bedol and Ampatuan’s credibility, saying “powerful forces were manipulating them.”

“What is the integrity and character of these two (Ampatuan and Bedol)? It’s very clear that they want to be saved from the serious criminal charges they are facing,” Arroyo’s legal spokesman Raul Lambino said.

Lambino alleged that the revelations of Ampatuan and Bedol are part of the Aquino administration’s efforts to pin down former president Arroyo on electoral fraud.

Pinoy netizens have spurned massacre suspect Ampatuan as a possible state witness in the fresh probe to be initiated by the Comelec.

The Comelec meanwhile asserted that it still wants to hear Ampatuan and Bedol testify to establish the truth regarding the alleged vote-rigging during the 2004 and 2007 elections.