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Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider National devider Comelec 2nd Division dismisses election protest against Manila Mayor Lacuna

Comelec 2nd Division dismisses election protest against Manila Mayor Lacuna

Published Oct 8, 2022 04:13 pm

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) Second Division has dismissed the election protest filed by then-mayoral candidate Alexander Lopez against incumbent Manila Mayor Honey Lacuna-Pangan.

Photo from the official Facebook page of Dra. Honey Lacuna/ MANILA BULLETIN

According to the nine-page document issued by Comelec on Oct. 6, the Second Division said that Lopez' protest was dismissed for being "insufficient in form and content".

Lopez had filed an election protest on May 23, 2020, alleging that there were "electoral frauds, irregularities, and anomalies" during the polls and that these resulted in the victory of the incumbent Mayor. Lopez also alleged that resources of City Hall were used to aid in the commission of these supposed "electoral frauds, irregularities, and anomalies".

Comelec Second Division stated that Lopez failed to identify evidence to prove his allegations of irregularities. It added that his election protest or in his "voluminous annexes" is there an attachment of alleged joint affidavits of voters who supposedly claimed vaguely that they voted for him during the May 9 elections and that their votes were not reflected in the election results.

Furthermore, while a discrepancy was found between the number of registered voters (886,133) and the number of actual voters (846,179), Lopez was unable to prove that such a discrepancy was due to electoral fraud.

The Second Division also mentioned that Lopez "heavily relied" his election protest on the alleged identified "unaccounted or missing votes" - miread ballots, miscounted votes, and/or unexplained/improper rejection of ballots; wherein the alleged total number of valid ballots cast for the position of mayor in the city do not correspond with the total number of registered voters that actually voted during the May elections.

"On the other hand, the Protestant painstakingly enumerated in his election protest a total of 31,608 unaccounted ballots out of 1,404 clustered precincts," the document read.

In its ruling, the Comelec Second Division pointed out that even if the discrepancy of 31,608 votes were presumed to have been miscounted and then added to the votes Lopez received, it still would not overturn the results of the elections.

Lacuna received 538, 595 votes giving her a landslide victory against Lopez who received only 166, 908 votes. She said in a statement that she welcomes the Comelec ruling, saying she hopes that this finally puts the matter to rest.

"While it is Mr. Lopez' right to file a protest as he sees fit, the reality is that the people of the City of Manila have overwhelmingly expressed and placed their support for the current, duly elected city administration. All the voters in our city deserve to have their collective choice recognized and given due course for the remainder of the incumbent's term," she stated.

"Furthermore, we are grateful that the Comelec Second Division has also recognized, and ruled accordingly, that these allegations of electoral fraud, irregularities, and anomalies remain just that: allegations that have no actual proof; no evidence has been found to support any of these claims," said Mayor Lacuna-Pangan," she added.

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