TACLOBAN CITY – A court has dismissed the election protest filed by losing mayoral candidate Lope Dorado Jr. against Catarman, Northern Samar Mayor Antet Rosales.
In a decision dated Aug. 26, 2022, the Regional Trial Court Branch 20 in Catarman upheld the validity of the proclamation of Rosales as the duly elected local chief executive of the provincial capital.
Dorado filed the protest on May 17, 2022 seeking to annul the results of the elections due to alleged irregularities and anomalies.
He claimed that the Vote Counting Machines (VCMs) on May 9 did not count some of the votes in his favor.
Of the 53,855 total valid ballots counted, only 50,656 were earned by all five mayoral candidates.
He added that there was a massive substitution of voters in the clustered precincts in Barangays Polangi, Cag-abaca, Macagtas, General Malvar, and Imelda.
Despite Rosales’ prayer for summary dismissal, the court ordered a technical examination of the voter's thumbmarks and signatures in the Election Day Voters List and Voters Registration Records in the questioned clustered precincts.
Based on the evidence presented, the court decided that Dorado was unable to present adequate proof to justify the nullification of the election.
It ruled that the questioned ballots, even if nullified, do not satisfy the 50 percent threshold to affect the results of the elections.
The court also said that the protestant, if there was indeed irregularity, should have reported the alleged anomalies to the representatives of Commission on Elections (Comelec) manning the elections and the police.
The reports should have been reflected in the minutes during the casting of votes or a police blotter containing a report on the questioned incident, it said.
Dorado has signified his intention to bring the matter to the Comelec Central Office in Intramuros, Manila.