THE COMMISSION on Elections (Comelec) has cancelled the certificate of candidacy filed by Marikina City’s Mayor Marcelino Teodoro who now aspires to be congressman representing the city’s first district.
The poll body ruled that Teodoro misrepresented his place of residence when he said he has transferred his residence back to a barangay in the first district from his former residence in a barangay in the second district.
The Comelec first division noted that his own legal documents indicated Teodoro’s continued residence in the second district.
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Senator Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III is running for congressman against Teodoro in Marikina’s first district.
Pimentel is among those who filed a petition seeking Teodoro’s disqualification. He appears to have an inside track into Teodoro’s candidacy because of a previous alliance that had him dividing Marikina’s congressional districts with Teodoro.
The mayor purportedly faced bigger challenges in the second district, changed his mind and decided to cross swords with Pimentel in the first district.
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The Comelec noted that Teodoro’s driver’s license established his residence in the second district. It also appreciated evidence that Teodoro has not been seen actually and physically residing in that district.
The Comelec concluded that Teodoro committed material misrepresentation in his certificate of candidacy when he claimed that he had reestablished residency in the first district one year before the elections.
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The 1987 Constitution provides that a candidate for election to the House of Representatives must be a “registered voter in the district in which he shall be elected, and a resident thereof for a period of not less than one year immediately preceding the election.”
When former first lady Imelda Romualdez-Marcos ran for representative of Leyte’s first district in 1995, her opponent filed a petition seeking her disqualification invoking her alleged lack of residence in the area.
While the Comelec then agreed that she was disqualified, the Supreme Court reversed the ruling after Marcos claimed that she was a resident of the area “from the day she was born.”
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According to the Supreme Court, an individual does not lose his domicile even if he has lived and maintained residences in different places.
One’s absence from his legal residence or domicile to pursue studies or undertake a profession of a temporary or semi-permanent nature “does not constitute loss of residence.”
In Imelda’s case, while it is conceded that she established residences in several places when she was first lady of the republic, or even when she held positions as congressman and Governor of Metro Manila, the Court noted that she followed the domicile of her parents in Tacloban, grew up and reached adulthood there, and decided that “domicile, once acquired is retained until a new one is gained.”
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It has become the trend to hide one’s domicile of origin, attempt to establish residence elsewhere and run for public office despite not knowing the locale and its people.
Is the Comelec now minded to entertain petitions seeking the disqualification of candidates who lack residence in places where they seek elective office?/PN
