CALLING it an "empty" petition, Pasig City mayor-elect Vico Sotto is asking the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to junk the election protest filed by rival Mayor Bobby Eusebio.
Sotto's camp said Eusebio's protest warrants an outright dismissal from the poll body as it is "utterly flawed, deficient, and defective, and patently insufficient in form and in content".
"In the case at bar, the election protest is founded on baseless claims and allegations, without even appending the relevant admissible documentary evidence and relying heavily on self serving affidavits of protestant's supporters, which are mainly figments of their imaginations," Sotto said in answer to Eusebio's protest.
"An examination of the affidavits of protestant's watchers easily show that they are all merely centered on speculations," he added.
In addition, Sotto said that Eusebio’s protest is insufficient in form and content since it does not make a detailed specification of the acts or omissions complained of as required under Comelec Resolution No. 8804 in filing an election protest.
"The allegations are too broad and general and no evidence to support these claims other than the mere affidavits of the loser’s supporters," said Sotto.
"The affidavits of Eusebio’s witnesses on allegations of malfunctions of vote counting machines and defective SD cards were obviously generated from a singular template only reworded and rephrased with font deliberately made varied, which are clearly insufficient to prove the existence of election fraud and irregularity in Pasig City," he added.
The mayor-elect also pointed out that the 29 clustered precincts being put into question by Eusebio are immaterial considering that Sotto won by 86,500 votes.
This is even in the event that all the votes from the allegedly "missing" clustered precincts will be counted in favor of Eusebio.
"Even assuming for the sake of argument that all the votes from the 29 clustered precincts were indeed missing and 100 percent of the votes therein were for Eusebio, this would only amount to 20,800 votes (placed at the national average of 270 voters per precinct) and would still not be enough to subdue my overwhelming 86,500 vote-lead,” Sotto stated.
Finally, the mayor-elect urged the Comelec to dismiss the case arguing that while it is the duty of the poll body to hear complaints of losing candidates, it is also its equal duty to protect legitimate and duly proclaimed election winners.
"An election protest is allowed to ascertain, not suppress, the true will of the electorate. It is not meant to save face, to keep pride for the loser. An election protest, which is not only divisive but also disruptive of the affairs of a political unit, cannot and should never be allowed to proceed on mere belief and suspicion of a losing candidate," said Sotto. (HDT/SunStar Philippines)