LP residents question suit for exclusion

Residents of Las Piñas City has asked the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to investigate moves by a possible congressional candidate to disenfranchise eligible voters by employing "dirty tactics" to exclude them from the list of bonafide voters.

Residents learned that Antonio Tamayo, who ran but lost his vice mayoral bid in 1998, has filed "spurious" exclusion cases against thousands of Las Piñas residents in the Municipal Trial Court.

Francisco Cuevas, barangay chairman of Talon 3, revealed that supporters of Tamayo went from house to house December last year and when they found residents not at home, filed exclusion cases against them.

Cuevas said that Tamayo, who is reportedly eyeing the city’s congressional seat to be vacated by former Speaker Manny Villar, was behind the petitions filed to exclude him and his family from the voters’ list for allegedly being "fictitious persons."

"This is pure and simple political harassment with the self-serving objective of bolstering his chances in the coming elections," said Cuevas of Tamayo, adding, "How can a barangay captain and his family be fictitious?"

This was the same complaint of Ismael Khan Jr., assistant court administrator and chief information officer of the Supreme Court, who has been a resident of Philamlife Village, Barangay Pamplona 2, since 1973. It is clear, he said, that moves to declare him and five members of his immediate family as fictitious are "baseless."

Emy Trinidad, a stenographer of the Las Piñas Municipal Trial Court and resident of Barangay Pamplona 1, expressed surprise at the exclusion case filed against her husband.

"How come that I am a registered voter of the city while my husband who lives in the same house with me is not?" she asked.

Barangay Talon 1 chairman Emiliano Ramos also reported that his wife and other housemates were included in the list of disenfranchised voters.

Ramos appealed to Tamayo not to use dirty tricks that affect the integrity of the May 14 elections. He explained that the move was intend to remove from the voters’ list, residents perceived to be supporting candidates other than Tamayo.