Greg's family will fight poll protest

CEBU, Philippines - The family of the late Vice Governor Gregorio Sanchez, Jr. is determined to continue the fight to protect the ballots they won in the last elections despite Vice Governor Agnes Magpale’s begging off not to intervene in the case in behalf of the former governor.

Sanchez’s daughter, Engr. Grecilda Zaballero, said with or without the order by the Commission on Elections on Magpale to intervene, they are going to continue the fight even if her father has gone.

Zaballero explained her father won despite being at odds with Governor Gwendolyn Garcia, adding nobody believes her father cheated resulting to the lose of the governor’s runningmate, Glenn Anthony Soco.

The Comelec Second Division ordered Magpale to intervene in the election protest filed by Soco against Sanchez.

In his order last May 20, Presiding Commissioner Lugenito Tagle said Magpale becomes a real party in interest in this case and should therefore defend the votes obtained by her predecessor for her to be able to continue discharging the functions of the contested office and enjoy the privilege.

However, Magpale said she will not intervene as she is not after the position of vice governor.

Magpale said if Soco wins the protest then she will vacate the post and go back to being Provincial Board Member.

Soco filed election protest before the Comelec against the late vice governor citing massive fraud and immense irregularities in the conduct of the elections.

Soco got 517,687 votes while Sanchez had 543,924 votes. Cebu has 1,703,829 voters and has a total of 10,923 established precincts which were clustered and reduced to 2,276 precincts.

He claimed the total number of null and/or unaccounted vote, taken together, could materially affect the results of the elections considering the 1,365,975 actual votes cast for the position of vice governor, as reflected in the Statement of Votes by city/municipality for the position of vice governor does not tally with the total number of votes cast for him, Sanchez and other vice gubernatorial bets which is only 1,070,570. (FREEMAN)