Comelec junks recall petition vs Santiago City mayor

SANTIAGO CITY — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) junked the recall petition filed against the mayor of this Isabela city after its proponents failed to muster the required number of signatures.

Jerbee Cortes, city election officer, issued yesterday a certification to the Comelec central office, attesting that the number of qualified signatures required for a recall election against Mayor Amelita Navarro had not been attained.

This, after the poll body nullified almost 18 percent of the total number of signatures in the recall petition since the signatories are not registered voters.

Some of the signatories were also found to have either withdrawn their support for Navarro’s recall or had signed the petition more than once.

Of the 13,831 original signatures in the recall petition, only 11,359 were found to be qualified by the Comelec verification committee.

The Comelec said the recall proponents should have gathered 12,739 qualified signatures, or 20 percent of the city’s total registered voters.

Last month, the recall movers, led by lawyer Alfredo Dirige, filed their petition with the Comelec office here. Dirige is a known political ally of former city mayor Jose Miranda.

They claimed that Navarro has lost the trust and confidence of the city’s more than 60,000 residents allegedly due to graft and corruption, mismanagement and failure to deliver basic services.

Navarro has dismissed the allegations as "baseless" and "unfounded," saying that those behind the recall move were those affected by the "pro-poor, pro-development and graft and corruption-free" programs which she initiated last year.

She said those who wanted to unseat her "cannot accept their defeat" in last year’s elections, obviously referring to Miranda.

Miranda, who served as mayor here for more than 15 years, lost to Navarro by more than 5,000 votes, almost the same margin of votes he had when he defeated her during their first encounter in the 2001 elections.

Earlier, Miranda, founder of the local political party Kalikasan (Kalipunan ng mga Nagkakaisang mga Santiagueño), denied having a direct hand in the recall move, saying, "I am only restating that it’s the people who wanted an immediate change in the city leadership."

"Those who worked for the recall should have instead concentrated their efforts on helping our constituents, especially the poor," Navarro said.