Wednesday, October 24, 2007 Tomas sees BO-PK win in bets’ turf By Rene H. Martel Sun.Star Staff Reporter
TEARFUL supporters and leaders yesterday afternoon greeted Day-as, Cebu City Barangay Captain Michael Ocleasa after his trip to the Commission on Elections (Comelec) office.
He, too, was visibly sad.
Anybody would be, after learning that so many days of hard campaigning went for naught because he submitted the wrong certificate of candidacy (COC).
Ocleasa, who wanted a second term as barangay captain, ended up filing a COC for barangay councilor. His mistake was discovered only Monday afternoon when the Comelec started sorting the COCs.
His case is just one of the many situations the administration party Bando Osmeña Pundok Kauswagan (BOPK) has to contend with, as it worries that rival Kugi Uswag Sugbo (Kusug) is attempting a comeback in the Oct. 29 barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections.
For example, former city councilor Eugenio “Jun” Gabuya Jr. of Kusug is reputed to be a shoo-in in his attempt to wrest the Cogon Pardo barangay captain’s post from incumbent Lyndon Firmo.
Mayor Tomas Osmeña, though, believes their allies and supporters “can hold their own” come Monday next week.
“Of course it is. It’s going to make it difficult (for us)…if (Kusug allies get elected),” he said when asked if BOPK is not threatened that Kusug allies are joining the barangay and SK elections.
“(But) I think they will be able to hold their own because they also have supporters in their own barangays. They are not exactly helpless,” he said of the BOPK allies.
In a press conference, the mayor said he will not endorse any of the remaining six candidates for Day-as barangay captain after Ocleasa’s debacle.
Ocleasa owned up the mistake, saying he thought that the form he filled up was the one the barangay secretary brought after he sent the latter to the Comelec.
It turned out that somebody got the form for barangay captain from the barangay hall, for one of his opponents to use.
Thinking he was writing in the correct form, Ocleasa no longer scanned the document, and sent it to the Comelec last Oct. 17, the day before the deadline for the COC filing.
Except for the label, the COC form for barangay captain is exactly the same as that for the barangay council.
Appeal
Ocleasa will try to appeal for Comelec Manila to allow the correction of his COC. But for the last four days of the campaign period, he will ask constituents to vote for him as barangay councilor.
Supporters started tearing down yesterday his posters that identified him as a candidate for bara-ngay captain, and replaced these with new ones announcing his candidacy for barangay councilor instead.
Election Officer Marchel Sarno said that Ocleasa could ask for a correction straight from the Comelec Law Department in Manila, now that the elections are just days away.
Comelec 7 Director Rene Buac said they immediately checked previous rulings after discovering Ocleasa’s predicament, but could find no provision in any of their guidelines that the Day-as barangay captain could cite in filing a correction.
“This will be my fourth barangay elections. This is the first time I have met such a case,” Buac said in Cebuano. “We did our research. We found no legal remedy for this.”
In a separate interview, lawyer Julius Ceasar Entise said he was still “exploring for ways how to make the necessary correction considering that the deadline for the filing of COC already lapsed.”
Ocleasa, an Association of Barangay Councils official, sought him for legal advice before visiting the Comelec office yesterday.
“But I am not confident that it is still possible. It might be unlikely. I did not give him an assurance that it could be fixed,” Entise said.
Aside from Ocleasa, there are also over 20 candidates for SK, including a full slate each from Barangays Lusaran and Malubog, who signed COCs for barangay councilors instead of that for the SK, said Tessie Mercado of the Comelec north district.
In a telephone interview, Day-as SK chairperson Rafonzel Quijano, who is running for barangay councilor on her mother Suzette’s ticket, said she was sorry for Ocleasa.
Raffy and her mother belong to the opposition in Day-as and have tangled with Ocleasa several times already.
Ocleasa had filed complaints against them for alleged neglect of duty.
The younger Quijano, in particular, was suspended by the SK Federation for nine months following Ocleasa’s complaints.
She expressed no elation yesterday over the barangay captain’s woes.
“I feel sorry for him that he has made this mistake…(But) as for his supporters, I hope they will support my mama,” she told Sun.Star Cebu.
