Comelec orders Cebu board of canvassers to reconvene

CEBU — It may not take long for a new Cebu governor to be named after the Commission on Elections (Comelec) ordered the provincial board of canvassers to reconvene and proclaim the winning candidates.

The proclamation of winners got stalled because of protests over the certificates of canvass (COCs) of 13 municipalities and component cities.

The Comelec’s first division, through its presiding commissioners, Rufino Javier and Resurreccion Borra, has ordered the board to set aside the protests and to resume the tabulation.

It denied the petitions of rival gubernatorial candidates Gwendolyn Garcia and Celestino Martinez Jr. to exclude the COCs of three component cities and 10 municipalities from the canvassing allegedly because of fraud.

Rogelio Benjamin, who chairs the provincial board of canvassers, earlier had denied the petitions for exclusion for lack of evidence.

Martinez sought to exclude the COCs of the cities of Mandaue and Toledo and the towns of Argao, Boljoon, Dumanjug, Oslob and San Francisco where Garcia won allegedly due to fabricated and tampered ballots.

Not to be outdone, Garcia also blocked the tabulation of the COCs of Lapu-Lapu City and the municipalities of Bogo, Medellin, San Remigio, Tabogon and Tuburan where Martinez won allegedly because of fraud.

But Javier and Borra, in their 12-page resolution, denied the petitions of Garcia and Martinez, saying they found no indications that the COCs had legal infirmities.

The allegations that Garcia and Martinez hurled against each other do not fall under the grounds for exclusion provided for under the Omnibus Election Code, they said.

The Code provides that COCs can only be excluded if the composition of the board of canvassers is irregular, the canvass of election returns is incomplete, and the COCs contain material defects, appear to be tampered with or contain discrepancies.

COCs can also be excluded if the election returns were prepared under duress, threats, coercion or intimidation, or were obviously manufactured, and when fraudulent election returns were canvassed.

Javier and Borra said the grounds raised by Garcia and Martinez like the use of unofficial padlocks, the absence of the signature of one of the watchers and the transporting of the COCs by the election officer alone, do not constitute violations.

They said these are just technical objections that do not necessarily invalidate the COCs.

They, however, admitted that these may involve violations of the rules on the preparation and delivery of COCs, although they do not affect the authenticity of the contested COCs as to warrant their exclusion from the canvassing.

Javier and Borra added that the questioned COCs do not show any signs of alleged threat, duress, intimidation and coercion.

Provincial election officer Edwin Cadungog, who is now the chairman of the board of canvassers, would have waited for one week before reconvening the board.

But Borra ordered the board to convene immediately to avoid a leadership vacuum at the Capitol.

Based on her camp’s tally, Garcia, daughter of outgoing Gov. Pablo Garcia, won by 7,529 votes over Martinez.

Martinez, however, claimed that he won over Garcia by more than 300 votes. — Freeman News Service