Supreme Court allows vote revision in Bulacan gov tiff

By George Trillo

MALOLOS, Bulacan -- The Supreme Court has allowed the Commission on Elections to proceed with the election protest filed against Bulacan Gov. Joselito Mendoza by former governor Roberto Pagdanganan, his rival in the 2007 polls.

In a 24-page decision last week, SC justices unanimously voted to junk Mendoza’s petition seeking to stop Comelec proceedings on the complaint of Pagdanganan over alleged irregularities.
“In the context of our standard of review for the petition, we see no grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction committed by the Comelec in its deliberation on the Bulacan election contest and the appreciation of ballots this deliberation entailed,” the SC said in its decision penned by Associate Justice Arturo Brion.

In his petition, Mendoza alleged the Comelec violated his right to due process when it unilaterally conducted, without his knowledge, examinations, appreciation and proceedings relative to the ballots and other materials relevant to the case.

He also questioned the alleged “secret proceedings” at the Comelec in connection with the election protest and the orders last April 29 and May 26 of the poll body’s second division allowing the continuation of the revision of ballots, which are presently in the custody of the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET) pursuant to the election protest filed by Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III against Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri.

But the SC ruled that there was nothing wrong in the moves of the poll body, saying, “The Comelec is under no legal obligation to notify either party of the steps it is taking in the course of deliberating on the merits of the provincial election contest.”

The SC said the contested proceedings at the SET were no longer part of the adversarial aspects of the election contest that would require notice of hearing and the participation of the parties.
In the same decision, the SC also lifted the status quo order it issued last July 24 against the Comelec. It explained that the order was only issued because of initial finding that there was a genuine issue of due process in the petition.

In his electoral protest filed in 2007, Pagdanganan alleged poll irregularities in Meycauayan, San Jose del Monte City and Obando.

Besides seeking a recount of votes, Pagdanganan, who ran under the Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats, asked the poll body to set aside Mendoza’s proclamation as winner.

He alleged that “initial findings,” based on election returns obtained by his camp as the dominant majority party, showed that his votes were subtracted by five to 50 votes while those of Mendoza were padded by at least 10 votes in various polling precincts.

He also cited a low voter turnout in various parts of Bulacan where only 20 to 50 percent of the total number of registered voters was able to cast their ballots.

Pagdanganan got 348,834 votes, while Mendoza, a candidate of the Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino, got 364,566 – a difference of 17,732 votes.