The Philippine Online Chronicles

Four witnesses have stepped up to proclaim that late action star and filmmaker Fernando Poe Jr. (FPJ) lost due to cheating by Arroyo cronies in the 2004 elections reports ABS-CBN News.

Former Shari’ah court judges Nagamura Moner and Casan Ali-Limbona, professor Maulawi Calimba and Amer Hassan Doro admitted to participating in fraud during the 2004 elections during the hearing of the Senate Blue Ribbon and electoral reform committees on alleged fraud in the 2004 and 2007 elections.

Moner admitted when questioned that FPJ would have won by 1 million votes against rival former President Gloria-Macapagal Arroyo in Lanao del Norte, Lanao del Sur, Cotabato, Maguindanao, Tawi-Tawi and Sulu.

Moner had said in an earlier hearing that he paid people to cheat for Arroyo on orders from her husband, former First Gentleman Mike Arroyo, handed down from Alfonso Cusi, former Philippine Ports Authority General Manager.

Casan Ali-Limbona affirmed Moner’s claims. He said Moner had approached and offered to pay him P50,000 to contact former Maguindanao election supervisor Lintang Bedol to offer P5 for every lead vote secured for Arroyo.

The deal was called off because the election results had already been announced at that time, said Limbona.

However, Limbona said he believes Bedol complied with the agreement since Arroyo won by a margin of 80,000 votes in Sultan Kudarat.

Bedol had previously stepped forward to confirm that the Arroyo camp won by cheating in the 2007 senatorial elections and 2004 presidential elections.

Former professor Maulawi Calimba said Moner had approached him to distribute money to 17 election officers and two other persons prior to the elections. He claims not to have been paid by Moner but used the opportunity to study the election process and coming out with a research paper on the topic.

Amer Hassan Doro was the former law student of Moner who said he had accompanied Moner to provinces to distribute money onboard the controversial chopper owned by the former First Gentleman.