Newly proclaimed Isabela mayor assumes post

RAMON, Isabela — Amid threats of another election protest, the newly proclaimed winning mayoral candidate in the 2004 elections here formally assumed the town’s highest post yesterday.

Wilfredo Tabag, of the Partido ng Demokratiking Pilipino Laban, formally assumed the mayoralty post following his proclamation last Friday as the winning candidate in the three-way mayoralty race in the 2004 elections.

After almost a week of re-canvassing elections returns, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) proclaimed Tabag as the winning candidate amid protest of alleged election irregularities by the camp of losing mayor Raymond Espidol.

Tabag obtained 8,228 votes against Espidol’s 6,916. Former mayor Renato Vizcarra got only 2,275 votes.

Santiago City election officer Anthony Jerbee Cortez, who was designated by the poll body to oversee the re-canvassing of votes, along with the members of the town’s municipal board of canvassers, proclaimed Tabag amid the protests of Espidol’s lawyers, who claimed that some re-canvassed elections returns were ‘spurious.’

Espidol, who claimed that some votes cast for him were credited to Tabag, vowed to contest the result in court.

The Comelec-sanctioned re-canvassing of votes here was in compliance with an earlier order of the Supreme Court (SC), which upheld the Comelec en banc’s ruling last year voiding the proclamation of Espidol as the winning candidate.

The SC order dated Feb. 8, 2006 also paved the way for Vice Mayor Mercy Vizcara to take over the reins of the town leadership in an acting capacity until the Comelec resolved the election protest filed by Tabag.