Aquino camp hits ballot design

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MANILA, Philippines—The current design of election ballots is unfair to Liberal Party standard-bearer Sen. Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III and the Commission on Elections should do something about it, his campaign manager said Monday.


LP campaign manager Florencio “Butch” Abad said the Comelec should already remove the name of Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL) presidential candidate Vetellano Acosta—who had already been disqualified—to correct the supposedly unfair ballot design.

"As it is now, left unchanged, the present design of the ballot is disadvantageous to Noynoy Aquino," Abad said in a statement.

"Unlike the original design where the candidates' names are presented in a clear, easily readable vertical order, now the names are bunched tightly together three names to a box in a horizontal order," he said.

Aquino said that, in the ballots that the National Printing Office (NPO) produced, the first box for the presidential candidates still had Acosta first in the list with Aquino and Ang Kapatiran presidential bet JC delos Reyes "tightly bunched with him."

"On the other hand, curiously, at the extreme end of the space for the names of presidential candidates, (Nacionalista Party standard-bearer Manuel) Villar's name is by its lonesome self," Abad said.

"It is easy to make a mistake in shading other spaces, but not in the case of Villar. We just hope that this is not deliberate and the reluctance of the Comelec to remove Acosta's name has nothing to do with this," he added.

Abad said the reluctance of Comelec commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal to remove Acosta's name was "puzzling and worrying to the LP."

"After (Comelec) chair Jose Melo called him unfit to run for president, after KBL heir-apparent (Ferdinand Jr.) Bongbong Marcos disowned him and after Larrazabal himself threatened to sue him for perjury, falsification and other charges, the Comelec, on its own, should have ordered the instant removal of Acosta from the ballot," Abad said.

He said that even though the NPO had already printed at least 9 million ballots, the LP will still petition Comelec to remove Acosta's name from the ballot.

Source:Philippine Daily Inquirer

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