Void Comelec resolution, Palawan governor asks Supreme Court

Incumbent Palawan Gov. Mario Joel Reyes filed with the Supreme Court last Friday a petition to nullify and restrain the enforcement of a Commission on Elections (Comelec) resolution dated Jan. 2, declaring then Gov. Salvador Socrates disqualified from holding office and the defeated candidate, Douglas Hagedorn, winner in the 1998 gubernatorial elections.

The Comelec directed Reyes, who is not a party to the case, to vacate the gubernatorial post he assumed, being the duly-elected vice governor, when Socrates was declared missing in an airplane crash off Cagayancillo Island in Palawan on July 2 last year.

Reyes argued that the Comelec resolution is null and void and cannot be enforced against him because he is not a party to the disqualification case, so he was denied his right to due process.

Reyes added that in the 1998 elections, Hagedorn was a poor second placer with only 57,481 votes, compared to Socrates’ 146,299 votes, and yet the Comelec, after disqualifying Socrates, declared Hagedorn the winner.

In doing so, he said the Comelec has reversed and overturned settled decisions of the Supreme Court that the second placer in an election can never be declared the winner.

Reyes said the appropriate remedy of Hagedorn against him is to file a separate quo warranto case.

Under Comelec rules, Reyes said the resolution becomes final only after five days from its promulgation.

Since he filed the petition with the Supreme Court on the third day after the promulgation of the Comelec resolution, the running of the period is tolled, thus the resolution cannot be enforced, Reyes said.

Reyes is asking the Supreme Court to issue a temporary restraining order against the enforcement of the Comelec resolution, and to nullify it.