FRUSTRATING THE MARINES
To some extent, the Marines succeeded. The voting was relatively uneventful by Lanao standards, although there were a few shootouts and attempts to switch ballot boxes. A failure of elections was declared in several towns, but not quite as many as in the past. On the request of the candidates, who feared violence if the counting were held in many different places, the canvass in all but two of Lanao del Sur's 39 towns was held in scenic Marawi, on the northern shore of Lake Lanao. The actual voting on May 10 and the first few days of the canvass were tightly secured by the Marines, and it was partly for this reason that the municipal counts, while not completely blameless, went relatively well, even resulting in the defeat of a handful of well-entrenched local dynasties.

	TELL THAT TO THE MARINES? Gudani (left) and Balutan (right) told the Senate that the Marines did their best to ensure an honest election in Lanao. [photos courtesy of Malaya]

The Marines, however, could not prevent what now appears lo have been a large-scale manipulation of the presidential count. Judging from the parallel counts based on election returns obtained by Namfrel and the opposition, the presidential votes seem to have been tampered with big lime, not at the precinct level but at the municipal and provincial canvass.

Unknown to both Namfrel and the opposition, or for that matter, the Marines, several groups taking orders from the administration had been assigned to "operate" in Lanao and other Mindanao provinces. According to interviews with individuals who were part of the postelection operations in Mindanao, these groups were moving independently of each other and were apparently not aware of each other's movements. But their instructions were the same: ensure the president wins by a million votes.

One of the groups was led by Virgilio Garcillano, the commissioner who was ostensibly assigned to Southern Tagalog. His role was to get the cooperation of Comelec field personnel in the tampering of the count in Lanao and other places in Mindanao, apparently with the knowledge of the president herself, at least as indicated by the conversations in the "Hello. Garci" tapes.

Another group involved Nagamura Moner, a Maranao politician and currently a shari'ah court judge who is widely seen in Lanao as a political operator in the employ of First Gentleman Jose Miguel 'Mike' Arroyo. Two of Moner's followers — Abdul Wahab Batugan and Lomala Macadaub — told "The Probe Team" that during the canvassing, they were sent by Moner to different provinces in Muslim Mindanao where they distributed cash to Comelec personnel "para baliktarin ang COCs (to reverse what's in the certificates of canvass)."

The third group involved the military, but it is unclear how far up the chain of command the conspiracy went. Based on testimonies so far given at the Senate and the AFP Fact-Finding Board, senior military officers in Mindanao were involved in ensuring that the operators could do their work and in at least one instance, instructed soldiers to take pan in the cheating.

SUSPICIOUS MOVES
A few days before the elections, there were already signs that things were going awry. On May 6, four days before election day, Garcillano. who was also the commissioner in charge of personnel, removed Helen Flores, the Comelec regional director for Muslim Mindanao, from her post and transferred her to Western Mindanao. The timing of the reshuffle just days before the polling was highly unusual. Even more suspicious, Flores was replaced by her deputy, Renato Magbutay, who was known to be Garcillano's protege. Comelec sources in Manila and Mindanao say that Flores, while also close to commissioner, had a reputation for being hard-headed; "hindi nila mapasunod (they couldn't make her follow their orders)."

Gudani, in his Senate testimony, said that he was surprised to find that just a few days before May 10, Ray Sumalipao. the provincial elections officer for Lanao del Sur, was changing the assignment of election inspectors and the clustering centers of the voting precincts. Sumalipao, the general said, was taking orders from Garcillano. The two elections officials were known to be particularly close. Sumalipao was in fact the election supervisor for Lanao del Norte but was moved to Lanao del Sur in February 2004, shortly after Garcillano's appointment as commissioner.

Sumalipao denies taking instructions from Garcillano during the elections. He also says that contrary to Gudani's testimony, he didn't move election personnel prior to the voting. "The clustering was approved by the commission way before the elections," he says. "It was Gudani who wanted to change the clustering, but the Comelec approved the recommendation of the election officers. He's lying."

A lawyer employed by the Comelec since 1961 and assigned to Mindanao for most of his 40 years at the commission, the amiable Garcillano was a familiar figure among the Comelec field personnel on the island. In fact, all the Comelec employees there called him "Tatay," or "Dad." Having risen up the ranks and cultivated friendships with election bureaucrats, he was known for being approachable and also for taking care of his people.

Garcillano was particularly familiar with Lanao del Sur, having served as the provincial election supervisor there from 1970 to 1971 and having been assigned to supervise either the registration or the election there several times in the 1990s. So close were the Lanao Comelec officials to Garcillano that in February 2004, they all signed a manifesto supporting his appointment as commissioner.

Garcillano was in Manila during the election and the counting. Hut he sent his trusted nephew, Michaelangelo Zuce, to monitor the operations for him. Zuce, who was then employed in the office of Jose Ma. Rufino, the presidential adviser on political affairs, has since testified in the Senate and implicated his uncle in a conspiracy to rig the polls that included payoffs made to compliant Comelec officials and personnel.

In an interview with "The Probe Team" in October, Zuce revealed that he was in Mindanao even before election day, keeping an eye on what was happening there. Lanao del Sur, he said, became a cause of concern. "I was talking frequently to the provincial election supervisor there," he said in Tagalog. "He told me they could not move because the security was strict. The Marines were very strict."

Zuce said that he reported the matter to his uncle. Garcillano apparently complained about the strict Marines to military authorities, having received reports not just from Zuce but other informants. The leaked tape containing the commissioner's wiretapped conversations reveals that in a phone conversation with the president in the evening of May 28, 2004, Garcillano said he had to ask Brig. Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr., then deputy chief of staff for operations, and then Southern Command chief Lt. Gen. Roy Kyamko to get Gudani out of Lanao.