Tension mounts as Pampanga mayor blocks ouster move

MAGALANG, Pampanga – Tension has heightened in this town amid demands from supporters of a defeated mayoral candidate in last year’s election for Mayor Lyndon Cunanan to yield to a court decision unseating him.

But Cunanan told The STAR yesterday that he would not turn over his post to businessman Romulo Pecson, as the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has yet to decide on his case which he appealed after the Angeles City regional trial court, after a revision of ballots, declared that he lost to Pecson by 1,139 votes in last year’s elections.

The RTC issued a writ of execution, which its sheriff attempted to serve to Cunanan last Tuesday.

“I rejected the writ because the case is still pending and is the subject of an injunction from the Comelec,” he said.

Violence almost erupted last Monday when Pecson’s supporters heckled the mayor’s men at the municipal hall.

Cunanan said Pecson’s supporters have frequently played Pecson’s political jingle on loudspeakers in front of the town hall.

Cunanan said the recount done by the RTC revealed that the number of votes surpassed by 2,000 the recorded total votes cast in the 2007 elections.

“That’s why I immediately appealed the case to the Comelec,” he said.

The two commissioners in the poll body’s second division were later divided in their opinions.

While Commissioner Rene Sarmiento upheld the RTC verdict, Cunanan said Commissioner Nicodemo Ferrer dissented, arguing that Pecson’s claim to victory was not clearly established and that a status quo should therefore be maintained so as not to disrupt operations of the municipal government.

Cunanan said he asked the Comelec as a whole to finally decide on the case even as he filed a petition against the implementation of the court’s writ of execution.

In last year’s elections, the local election board declared Cunanan winner over Pecson by mere 61 votes.

Pecson filed a protest before the Angeles RTC, which then ordered a revision of ballots from the town’s 209 clustered precincts.

The RTC revision showed that Pecson got 14,897 votes while Cunanan had 13,758 votes. 

Cunanan, however, said that when the votes of the losing third mayoral candidate were added, the total number of votes exceeded by about 2,000 the recorded number of actual votes cast in the local polls.            – With Ric Sapnu