Retrieval of ballots ordered in 5th district

CEBU, Philippines — The electoral dispute between 5th District Rep. Vincent “Duke” Frasco and his predecessor, former congressman Ramon “Red” Durano IV continues to advance as the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET) ordered the collection of electoral ballots.

In an order dated January 31, HRET directed the municipal treasurers of Borbon, Carmen, Catmon, Compostela, Liloan, Pilar, Poro, San Francisco, Sogod and Tudela along with the City Treasurer of Danao City to collect the ballot boxes containing the 2019 National and Local Election ballots.

HRET likewise ordered the collection of the Voter’s Registration Records or the Book of Voters, the Election Day Computerized Voters’ List with voting records and all other election documents and paraphernalia. The order covered the 462 clustered precincts in the enumerated municipalities and city.

Both camps were also directed by the HRET to put up the needed amounts for the retrieval of the ballot boxes.

Former Commission on Elections (Comelec) commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal, Durano's legal counsel, welcomed the new development.

 “It’s a very good development. It shows the case has merit and is moving forward,” he told The Freeman.

But Frasco believes that the new development was based on his counterprotest.

“Because we believe our lead of almost 36,000 would have been much more. We have asked the HRET to proceed with the collection of ballot boxes in all eleven LGUs to conduct an immediate recount,” he said.

Durano, who lost by 35,609 votes against Frasco in the May 2019 elections, protested the results from the five municipalities on the ground that there was fluctuation of multiple Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machine resulting in the delay of the counting of ballots for four hours.

 Frasco filed a counterprotest and included all 11 towns and city in the district. Frasco won with 152,435 votes against Durano's 116,826 votes.  FPL (FREEMAN)