THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) Second Division has dismissed the election protest filed by former Cebu City mayor Michael Rama against incumbent Mayor Nestor Archival, saying the petition lacked the required form, substance, and specificity to prosper.
In an order dated Aug. 27, 2025, the poll body ruled that Rama’s protest failed to comply with Section 7(g), Rule 6 of Comelec Resolution 8804, which requires a detailed specification of the alleged irregularities in the contested precincts.
In its 10-page ruling, the Comelec Second Division found Rama’s protest insufficient “in form and in substance.”
Archival’s legal counsel, Amando Virgil Ligutan, said in a press conference on Friday, Aug. 29, the ruling only confirmed what the results had already shown.
“There is a famine of facts in the election protest. It is heavy on suppositions and unfounded personal imaginations,” said Ligutan.
The Commission said Rama’s claims were general, unsubstantiated, and insufficient to warrant a manual recount.
Allegations
Rama, who placed third in the May 12 midterm elections, had asked Comelec to annul Archival’s proclamation and deduct what he described as “illegal and invalid votes” from Archival and fellow candidate Raymond Alvin Garcia.
On May 22, Rama filed a formal protest before the Comelec, questioning the integrity of the electoral process and seeking a manual recount of votes. Rama alleged irregularities and discrepancies in the automated vote count that he claimed distorted the results.
Rama alleged several irregularities, including malfunctioning automated counting machines (ACMs), ballot shortages, voter transfers, irregularities in ballot allotment, anomalies in ballot transportation, vote-buying, and questionable voter turnout.
But the Comelec found that these allegations covered only eight clustered precincts out of 790 in Cebu City, and in some cases, no specific precincts were even identified.
The Commission also noted that Rama submitted only five affidavits to support his protest, four of which mentioned just a handful of clustered precincts. One affidavit even pertained to an unrelated disqualification case, which the poll body said had no bearing on the protest.
The ruling emphasized that “bare allegations of massive fraud or irregularities without specification and substantiation cannot suffice,” reiterating established jurisprudence that prohibits election protests from being used as “fishing expeditions” or as a tool for losing candidates to uncover irregularities only after the fact.
Archival, through his counsel, earlier argued that the case should be dismissed for failure to meet the mandatory requirements, stressing that the issues raised by Rama were not extraordinary and were already addressed by election procedures.
Exclusion
The Comelec also ordered the exclusion of Garcia from the case, saying he was not a party-in-interest since he was not the proclaimed winner of the mayoralty race.
“There can be no election protest between two losing candidates,” the Commission said.
Archival was proclaimed mayor on May 13, after garnering 256,197 votes, while Garcia placed second and Rama trailed in third with 120,124 votes, a margin of more than 136,000.
Reached for comment, Rama downplayed the Comelec decision, noting that he had not yet received an official copy of the ruling.
“The lawyers will take care of it. Besides, I have no copy yet. I’ll be calling them. Thank you for the info,” Rama said in a text message.
As a result of the ruling, no ballot recount will take place, effectively affirming Archival’s mandate as the duly elected mayor of Cebu City. / CAV