Pampanga poll protest decided in ‘record time’

SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga, Philippines – For veteran election lawyer Romulo Macalintal, it’s the “fastest decision ever on a local protest in the history of Philippine elections.”

This, as an election protest involving the mayoral post in Candaba, Pampanga was decided in just 14 days by a regional trial court (RTC) judge here.

In a seven-page order last June 10, Judge Divina Luz Aquino-Simbulan of RTC Branch 41 dismissed for “insufficiency in form and substance” the election protest filed on May 27 by losing candidate Reynaldo Sagum against Candaba mayor-elect Rene Maglanque.

In the recent polls, Maglanque was credited with 14,730 votes as against Sagum’s 14,039, or a margin of 691 votes. Sagum later protested the results in all the 92 clustered precincts in Candaba.

Maglanque, through his lawyers, Macalintal and Antonio Carlos Bautista, filed a motion to dismiss Sagum’s protest, arguing that it was based on “bare, general and scattershot allegations of election fraud and irregularities.“

“An election protest must state a detailed specification of the acts and omissions complained of showing the electoral frauds, anomalies or irregularities in the protested precincts,” the lawyers argued.

In his complaint, Sagum alleged that “concerted acts of electoral fraud and illegal acts were employed by Maglanque, his supporters and followers during the voting and counting of ballots which resulted in the methodical reduction of his votes and the corresponding significant increase of Maglanque’s votes.” 

Sagum also alleged that hundreds of ballots for him were “misread, miscounted or rejected by the PCOS (precinct count optical scan) machines” in all the 92 clustered precincts. 

Simbulan, however, ruled that “considering that some of the grounds invoked by the protestant appear to be election offenses, there is no showing that protestant filed the corresponding election offenses against the perceived erring members of the Boards of Election Inspectors and other possible liable individuals.”

Macalintal said the case is not only the first poll protest decided in connection with the 2013 elections, but “also the first election protest ever in our electoral history to be resolved in record time of only 14 days from its filing.”

“I hope that this prompt and speedy administration of justice demonstrated by Judge Simbulan would serve as a model of judicial concern in insuring political stability which is always threatened after an election because the results are oftentimes protested by politicians who cannot accept defeat in good grace,” he said.