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Ifugao poll officials answer judge’s contempt order over sangguniang kabataan protest
By Dan B. Codamon

LAGAWE, Ifugao -- The board of election supervisors here who conducted the sangguniang kabataan provincial election on Dec. 17 at Lamut town replied to the contempt order issued by Judge Frederick Cabbigat of the 1st Municipal Trial Court (Banaue-Hungduan-Mayoyao) on their alleged non-enforcement of his temporary restraining order over an election controversy.

The controversy stemmed from an election protest filed by losing municipal SK candidate of Hungduan town Maureen Himmiwat to the MTC against Julian Hambon immediately after Hambon was proclaimed the winner.

Because of this, an injunction was issued by the MTC against Hambon and the BES to disallow him from participating in the SK election representing Hungduan pending the resolution of the election protest.

Himmiwat, alleged that during the municipal SK election, she garnered four votes as against five of Hambon but after recount, the votes were tied because one of the votes in favor of Hambon was questioned and nullified resulting to a tie.

A toss coin was proposed to determine the winner but petitioner Himmiwat refused the proposal.
Respondent Hambon was proclaimed winner as the committee on election of the municipality denied the recount of the votes that caused the tie.

The TRO was received by acting secretary of the provincial BES Isabel Bulayungan on Dec. 17, 2007, the day of the election.

The BES composed of Rosario Dumelod of the Dept. of Interior and Local Government as chairman, Miguel Dimalnat Jr. and provincial election supervisor Ricardo Bulintao as members allegedly disobeyed the order.

As a result, the BES was asked by the MTC to explain in writing within five days from receipt of the contempt order why they should not be held in contempt for disobeying the order which was received by the BES on Jan. 8.

Failure to answer within the period stated would force the court to proceed with its investigation and may impose the penalty of imprisonment not exceeding one month or a fine of P5,000.00 or both.

In their reply, the BES through their lawyer Jerome Bantiyan said during the SK election, the BES received two copies of the subject TRO that were served to it by the mother of the petitioner herself one after the other at an interval of ten minutes.

In the first copy of the TRO, it was clearly intended by the court to be served to respondent Julian Hambon because of the words “for respondent” that was handwritten in the upper right corner of the paper while the second received copy was the original copy intended for the petitioner as it was also marked in handwriting “for petitioner” at the same right upper portion but which was crossed out and replaced by the word “For BES”.

This led the BES to assume that such copy was originally intended by the court as the copy for the petitioner and not for the BES.

Although BES said they innocently believed that the order of the court in the TRO was specifically directed only to defendant Hambon who was under election protest and not sure whether the copy was directed to the BES, they still enforced the TRO by calling the attention of Hambon and explained to him that the injunction directed to him not to participate in the election otherwise he will face contempt proceedings with possible penalty of imprisonment.

However, after respondent Hambon was fully informed and warned of the possible consequences of disobeying the TRO, he reportedly decided to participate in the election.

The BES said in their explanation that they can only enforce the TRO to the extent mentioned earlier because they do not want also to violate the provision of the DILG memorandum circular regarding the implementing rules and guidelines on conduct of the SK election at all levels which provides “In case of pending election protest in any of the proper forum and no final decision has been rendered yet, the SK official proclaimed by the committee shall be recognized during the federation election and shall be allowed to vote and be voted upon.

The guidelines prompted the BES to respect the decision of Hambon whose election was protested to participate as he did in fact participate in the provincial SK election.

The BES said they did not disobey and never intended to disobey the TRO as they enforced it to a certain extent in order to harmonize the same with the mandates of the rules and guidelines implementing the conduct of the SK Election at all levels that allows an SK federation official under protest to participate in the election.

The BES is now awaiting the or decision of the MTC judge regarding their explanation submitted Jan. 10.