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[av_heading heading=’Election protest vs Bacolod VM junked’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY MAE SINGUAY
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BACOLOD City – Due to “insufficiency in form and content,” the election protest that defeated vice mayoral candidate Vladimir Gonzales filed against Vice Mayor El Cid Familiaran was dismissed.
Gonzales, running mate of defeated mayoral bet Monico Puentevella, filed the protest on May 20. He sought a manual recount/audit of the ballots cast in clustered precincts here during the May 9 elections.
Familiaran got 108,360 votes, while Gonzales got only 86,611.
Gonzales claimed he was deprived of the chance to see how the appreciation, tabulation and computation of the ballots took place.
The Commission on Elections (Comelec) First Division said the protest was not compliant with Section 9(b) in relation to Section 7, Rule 6 of Comelec Resolution No. 8804 (Comelec Rules of Procedure on Disputes in an Automated Election System).
As the rule requires, the protest must contain the acts or omission constituting the alleged election fraud or irregularity, the division said in a ruling dated Sept. 7, 2016 and signed by Presiding Commissioner Robert Lim and Commissioner Luie Tito Guia.
The division said it took in particular consideration the requirement stated in Section 7(g): “the presence of acts or omissions constituting the electoral fraud, anomalies or irregularities in the protested precincts; and that the protestant shows in the election protest a detailed account thereof.”
“This requirement entails that the ultimate facts reflecting the reason for the filing of the election protest must be based on election fraud, anomalies and irregularities, and not mere conjectures, suppositions and suspicions,” read part of the ruling.
“It must be stated in the protest that these acts or omissions constituting the election fraud actually happened and that there are no legal or valid justification on the same,” the ruling stated.
Gonzales cannot be reached for comment as of this writing.
Puentevella filed a similar protest against Mayor Evelio Leonardia, but the First Division also dismissed it in a ruling on Aug. 18, 2016 for the same reason. The former mayor appealed the ruling on Aug. 22./PN
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