Tuesday, October 23, 2007 Faelnar seeks dismissal of petition, P200T in damages from lawyer
THE camp of Eugenio Faelnar is asking the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to dismiss the petition filed against the Guadalupe barangay chief for lack of factual and legal bases.
Faelnar, through his lawyer Julius Ceasar Entise, is also asking for more than P200,000 in damages caused by the petition, which calls for the disqualification of Faelnar from seeking another term in the barangay and SK elections on Oct. 29.
Faelnar first ran and won as barangay captain in 1994. He was reelected in 1997 and 2002. The law states that those who served as village chiefs since 1994 and whose terms were uninterrupted can no longer run for the same position.
Not barred
The Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Cebu City had announced that Faelnar is not one of 27 Cebu City barangay captains who can no longer seek reelection as they are in their third term.
But this did not stop lawyer Salvador Solima from filing a petition last Friday before the Commission on Elections (Comelec) Provincial Office, seeking his disqualification.
Lawyer Entise furnished Sun.Star Cebu yesterday a copy of their answer with counterclaim.
He said Faelnar is still serving his second term as barangay captain of Guadalupe, which is contrary to the “hopes and erroneous belief of the petitioner.”
Solima alleged that Faelnar filed his candidacy “in defiance of the expressed mandate of the law.” But Entise insisted that Faelnar filed his candidacy only after receiving a “favorable opinion from the DILG.”
Conditions
Entise cited the Supreme Court’s two requisite conditions for the applicability of the three-term limit rule of local elective officials.
“One is that the official concerned has been elected for three consecutive terms in the same local government post and that he has fully served three consecutive terms,” he said.
He defended his client who won in the 1997 barangay elections but was not proclaimed, he said, as the winning candidate due to his pending criminal cases.
The highest-ranking Sangguniang Barangay member Alex Semilla acted as barangay captain until February 1998. For Entise, there was an interruption of Faelnar’s service between his terms 1994-1997 and 1997-2002.
“The delay in the proclamation of Faelnar’s victory as barangay captain, which was approximately after nine months, has prevented him from fully serving the 1997-2002 term. This makes it unmistakably clear that he is still serving his second term,” the lawyer said.
This prompted Faelnar to ask Comelec to dismiss petition and asked Solima of P100,000 for moral damages and P50,000 for exemplary damages, among others. (NRC)
