Losing Calamba bet claims uncounted votes

CEBU, Philippines - If the chairpersons of the different Board of Election Tellers did not “misread and misappreciate” the votes in 10 clustered precincts. Calamba barangay captain candidate Armando Lozano said he could have won in the barangay elections last Monday.

This was the statement of Lozano in his election protest filed before the Municipal Trial Court in Cities against his opponent, Ma. Yvonne Cana Feliciano, who was declared as barangay captain-elect of Calamba, Cebu City.

“If these ballots for protestant for these 10 precincts were considered and counted in his favor, then the margin of protestee would have been overtaken for which protestant would be declared the winner,” he said.

“For instance, several ballots in every precinct containing wrong spelling but with the same sound when read of protestant’s name and surname were not counted,” he added.

Barangay Calamba has 22 clustered precincts.

Based on the result, Feliciano garnered 1,883 against Lozano’s 1,512 votes or a small margin of 371 votes.

Lozano further claimed that instead of putting his name in the space provided for the barangay captain, many of his voters placed his name in the space provided for the barangay councilmen.

He added that about 20 ballots per precinct were not credited to his name.

Because of an alleged anomaly in the casting of votes, he asked for the recounting of ballots in clustered precincts No. 880, 884, 879, 887, 873, 885, 869, 868, 864 and 877.

Lozano, likewise, said that some of his supposed votes were “intentionally or erroneously” tallied in the election returns as votes of Feliciano.

Aside from that, he said that several ballots containing his nickname “Amid” were not counted in his favor. He claimed that there was no other candidate with the same nickname as him.

Feliciano was not available for comment yesterday. — (FREEMAN)