Pasig City’s new mayor still awaiting proclamation

Former Pasig City Mayor Vicente Eusebio is ahead in the mayoral race in the city but the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has yet to proclaim him pending decision on a disqualification case filed against him.

Official Comelec tally showed Eusebio, who ran under the banner of the Koalisyon ng Nagkakaisang Pilipino (KNP), winning by a slim margin over his wedding godson, lawyer Henry Lanot. He garnered a total of 109,693 votes against Lanot’s 108,941, or a margin of only 710 votes.

Lawyer Esmeralda Ladra, head of the Comelec’s National Capital Region (NCR), said Eusebio has to wait for the poll body’s en banc decision on the disqualification case filed against him by Lanot for premature campaigning, vote-buying and faking a political survey before he could be proclaimed.

Eusebio is the only winning mayoral bet in Metro Manila that has not been proclaimed by the poll body.

Last Sunday, the Comelec has already proclaimed duly elected Pasig City congressional bet Dodot Jaworski, Vice Mayor Yoyong Martirez and the 12 city councilors.

While the Comelec-NCR is still waiting for the decision on Eusebio’s case, it is also not wasting time in investigating the case of election returns (ERs) discovered inside two Toyota Revo vans in Pasay City on May 13.

"We will call on all witnesses so that we could determine who is behind this," Ladra told reporters.

She said that the camp of mayoralty candidate Ding Santos has pointed to Mayor Pewee Trinidad as the one who owns the election returns,which was vehemently denied by the mayor.

However, unlike the case of Eusebio, Trinidad was already proclaimed by the Comelec. – Non Alquitran