Wrong figures from
government source

Since the elections ended, and up to yesterday, I had always believed that Antonio Trillanes IV topped the senatorial elections in Siquijor, obtaining more than 8,000 points ahead of the second senator. I had written about it at some point and made it a topic of conversation to just about whoever would care to know about the elections in Siquijor.

It always proved to be a wonderful conversation piece. As always, the listener would be shocked at the news. And theories and scenarios would start to unfold as to how policemen in that island convinced their family members to put only Trillanes' name on the ballot.

Yesterday, by some coincidence, I went to Bayawan City and there I met an incoming provincial official of Siquijor. "How did you manage to make Trillanes win in Siquijor?" I wanted to know.

"Oh, no. Trillanes didn't win in Siquijor. It was Angara who topped the elections there. The winners were composed of eight Team Unity candidates and four Genuine Opposition candidates."

"But I have official results that say Trillanes won," I protested. "Your facts are wrong," my source laughed. "Sayop imong source." I got my report from the wrong source? That didn't sound right. For a journalist to be told that he got his facts wrong, that was like telling a lawyer "you don't know your law."

So I opened my laptop and looked in my files. Yes, indeed, there was this table of results of the senatorial elections in Siquijor which showed that Trillanes topped the list with over 30,000 votes. Angara was shown to have only obtained 20,000 plus votes.

And the source was unquestionable. It was from the Philippine Information Agency in Siquijor, the official government mouthpiece. What could be more credible than that?

Before the report got to me, it passed through the Dumaguete PIA office. So I called the Dumaguete PIA office to clarify the error. Jenny Catan-Tilos, the PIA manager, seemed surprised that I was only asking about this more than one month after the elections.

"That was a wrong report," she said. Their personnel in Siquijor got that erroneous report from the Department of Interior and Local Government, another supposedly credible source.

Why did that erroneous report reach me? All I can surmise is that someone in DILG Siquijor goofed and messed up his figures. PIA Siquijor, in turn, copied the DILG figures and sent them out without double-checking. I hope that this reaches all those whom I had talked with about the Siquijor elections previous to yesterday. If it doesn't, then they'll have to find out the hard way -- with just about the same shock I got when I learned about it.*

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