Poll protest vs Chato junked

The House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET), the constitutional body handling protests involving congressmen, has thrown out the electoral protest filed against Camarines Norte Rep. Liwayway Vin-zons-Chato.

The HRET ruled that it had no other choice but to dismiss the case after the complainant himself, former congressman Renato Unico Jr., filed a motion to withdraw his protest.

Unico lost to Chato, a former commissioner of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, in the May 2007 polls.

The HRET declared that it “found no reason to continue after the protestant Unico expressed, through his motion to withdraw his election protest, that he was no longer interested in pursuing the case.”

The HRET resolution (08-105) was signed by the tribunal’s secretary, lawyer Daisy Panga-Vega.

Vinzons-Chato, a lawyer by profession, said the dismissal only proved that Unico’s election protest was “without merit from the very start.”

She also thanked Unico for “realizing that his election protest was without merit.”

“The voluntary withdrawal of the case has saved the parties and the state much-needed resources,” she said.

The resolution was signed by Supreme Court Associate Justice Consuelo Ynares-Santiago, HRET chairwoman, and fellow Associates Justices Ma. Alicia Austria-Martinez and Conchita Carpio-Morales, and Reps. Mauricio Domogan of Baguio, Roberto Cajes of Bohol, Solomon Chungalao of Ifugao, Florencio Miraflores of Aklan and Justin Marc Chipeco of Laguna, all HRET members.