After declining the offer of
President Aquino to become a commissioner of the Commission on Election, a
lawyer sought the inhibition of Commissioner Grace Padaca on behalf of his
client, Isabela Gov. Faustino Dy.
In an eight-page petition, Dy’s
lawyer Maria Bernadette Sardillo said Padaca should not take part in the
electoral protest case that she filed against Dy in connection with the 2010
gubernatorial race.
Sardillo said the case is pending
with the Comelec’s Second Division where Padaca belongs.
“Clearly, Commissioner Padaca cannot sit in
the division where her own election protest is pending. This is a clear case of
conflict of interest,” she said.
Sardillo declined the Comelec
post last March 9 and rumors had it that Padaca had allegedly blocked her
appointment with the help of Justice Secretary Leila de Lima.
Sardillo was also the lawyer of
former governor Benjamin Dy who unseated Padaca as Isabela governor in the 2007
polls. De Lima was then the lawyer of Padaca.
In the 2010 elections, Padaca ran
for governor of Isabela but lost to Faustino Dy. She questioned this by filing
an electoral protest with the Comelec.
According
to Sardillo, Padaca “cannot be the judge in a case where she has a personal and
vested interest in as shown by her vigorous opposition to the withdrawal and/or
dismissal of the instant electoral protest case.”
“To
avoid any appearance of impropriety and remove any cloud of bias, Commissioner
Padaca must inhibit herself from the instant election protest,” her petition
stated.
Asked
about this, Padaca just replied in a text message that “I have already signed
with the word ‘inhibit’ (in) an en banc order to transfer records to the First
Division. I did that earlier... their motion for inhibition.” She refused to
elaborate.
In
a telephone interview, Sadillo said they have given Padaca “the opportunity to
inhibit from the case” but this did not happen.
Sardillo
denied that the filing of the petition was meant to get back at Padaca, who
became Comelec commissioner in October 2012, for blocking her appointment to
the Comelec.
“She denied that, right? And I
have not issued any statement also about that. I’m just doing my job as a
lawyer for my client,” she said.
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