Tuesday, November 13, 2007 RTC issues ruling on El Salvador dispute By Danilo V. Adorador III
A LOCAL court Monday voided the May 14 election result for the mayoralty race in the Misamis Oriental town of El Salvador, stripping Mayor Amelita Almirante of the mayorship and declaring closest rival Nilo T. Pates as winner.
Judge Jeoffre W. Acebido of Regional Trial Court Branch 41 said Pates, an outgoing village chairman, garnered a plurality of 52 votes after the court invalidated a number of votes cast in some 148 contested precincts.
The court also denied the claims of both parties for damages and attorney's fees for "lack of evidence," while the costs of the protest were ordered assessed against the protestee.
"The court found that there were clear and glaring proof for some questioned ballots to be invalidated. After removing the invalid votes, it came out that the protestant led by 52 votes," Judge Acebido told Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro.
Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro was only furnished the dispositive portion of the court's decision, as copies had yet to be distributed to the relevant parties as of press time.
Almirante, a reelectionist, led by a slim margin of 211 votes when she was declared winner by the Commission on Elections (Comelec).
An assistant who answered Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro’s call to Almirante’s office said she was attending an official function and could not immediately be reached.
Among the anomalies found in a number of rejected ballots, the court said, were the "impertinent, irrelevant, unnecessary and derogatory expressions, figures, numbers, names, written, either at the top or bottom spaces not provided for any office, names or prominent personalities not in any way connected with the elections, repetition of names of candidates for more than twice.
Some ballots were also rejected "as the intention of the voters to vote for the protestee is not clear as what is written is not the same of the protestee or only initials or the entries had been erased," it added.
Almirante has five days to appeal the decision to the Comelec or to the Supreme Court, while Pates has the same period to file a motion for execution to effect the court's order, the magistrate said.
In his election protest filed immediately after the May elections, Pates alleged that Almirante's camp was "engaged in massive cheating by way of filing up fake or spurious ballots in her favor, surreptitiously placed inside the ballot boxes or discreetly giving it to the Board of Election Inspector (BEI)."
