Friday, November 23, 2007 Lahug SK bet protests loss; court takes contested ballots
THEY may be young but they go at it like old pros.
A Cebu City candidate who lost in the recent Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) election has filed a suit protesting the defeat.
Maria Charisse Menchavez, assisted by her father Rodney Menchavez, cited irregularities in the way votes were cast, appreciated and eventually counted in favor of the eventual chairman of the SK in Barangay Lahug, Jeramae Cabaral.
In response, the Municipal Trial Court in Cities (MTCC) has given the suit due course.
The court yesterday took custody of all ballot boxes, list of voters and voting records, the book of voters and all other documents or paraphernalia involved. It set the case for preliminary conference on Nov. 28.
Menchavez, based on the complaint dated Nov. 8, got 263 votes from the four SK precincts of Barangay Lahug last Oct. 29.
Cabaral earned 265 votes. A third candidate, Maria Ernestine Sacmar, only got 45.
But Menchavez believes that a few votes counted in favor of Cabaral were irregular.
Two persons, she said, voted for one name in the voters list.
Also, a few votes were credited to Cabaral even though the ballot listed his name in the slot for councilor.
Likewise, in one precinct, a teacher who was a member of the Board of Election Tellers allegedly filled up entries in the ballots left blank by the voter.
And lastly, some of the ballots used in one of the four SK precincts were for barangay officials.
She wants the court to annul Cabaral’s proclamation and install her instead.
While not accusing Cabaral of perpetuating the irregularity, she wants him to shoulder the cost of the court proceedings.
Menchavez she wants the court to order a recount and re-examination of the ballots “in order to determine the correct and actual number of votes the protestant and the protestee may have obtained.”
The recount, she said, will “not only to serve the ends of justice but likewise to set an example for the common and erase from the minds of the youth the dirty impressions of traditional politics.” (KNR)
