Friday, October 24, 2008 Poll body reviews recall petition vs Panlilio
AN OFFICIAL of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said the recall petition against Pampanga Governor Eduardo Panlilio will be forwarded to the en banc early next week.
Deputy Executive Director for Operations (Dedo) Bartolome Sinocruz said they are in the process of reviewing the documents of the petition, and after the evaluation, they are looking to submit it to the Commission en banc.
"Maybe by Monday we can already submit it to the commission en banc so that they can issue a ruling on it," he said.
On Tuesday, the Comelec main office in Manila received the petition from their provincial office in Pampanga.
Sinocruz said they are now checking the authenticity of the signatures of people, who are pushing for the recall polls, if the names contain in the petition are real registered voters of Pampanga.
Last week, supporters of the defeated gubernatorial candidate Lilia Pineda filed a recall petition at the local Comelec office, claiming they have already gathered almost 20,000 signatures.
Panlilio took a leave from his vocation to be able to run for governor of Pampanga.
The victory was widely acknowledged as a "miracle run" since he had won over two well-known politicians in the province, Pineda and Mark Lapid, who was then the incumbent governor.
The Comelec official said in the event that the Comelec en banc rules that the petition is sufficient in form, the petition will be returned to the Pampanga office for the verification of the signatures before scheduling the recall elections. (FP/Sunnex)
