[] Cortes and Rama lost in the last election but are likely to run again in 2028 unless capped figuratively in the knee with legal disqualification. Thus, the continuing fuss over the issue.
NEXT ELECTION IS YEARS AHEAD. Two years, four months and two days from today, January 6, 2025. Though visible preparations are expected to start in midyear 2027.
Yet this early some people already post in social media possible team-ups for the May 8, 2028 race, which is also a presidential derby.
Like pubmats on the Raymond Garcia-Jun Alcover pairing, formatted poster-style, for Cebu City’s top posts. Or the Leni Robredo-Risa Hontiveros duo for president and vice president.
THEY’RE SHOOTING DOWN the possible return of Jonas Cortes in 2028 by circulating the news that the Comelec has already perpetually disqualified him.
An anti-Cortes sector is circulating a Comelec resolution dated December 18, 2024 granting two residents of Barangay Casuntingan their petition to cancel Cortes’s COC or certificate of candidacy in the 2025 election. And former mayor Jonas complained Sunday, January 4, 2026, that news of the Comelec ruling “fake news” that misleads.
OLD NEWS? Whatever, the story is accurate in substance but not given context and explanation for the reader’s benefit.
If the date in the news is correct, the resolution was issued close to the 2024 year-end, just before the May 2025 elections. And yet it’s being spread only this week?
The 2025 elections were held last May yet. Cortes took part and failed to get reelected, not because Comelec had stripped him of his COC in a September 4, 2024 resolution (#11044-A) but because he lost in the votes for Mandaue City mayor (94,448 or 39.88% against Jonkie Ouano’s 101,549 or 42.87%). In Cebu City. Rama placed third to winner Nestor Archival.
Jonas Cortes -- along with Albay governor Noel Rosal and Cebu City mayor Mike Rama the three being all former officials -- was benefited by the Supreme Court TRO or temporary restraining order issued on Oct. 22, 2024. The TRO “temporarily stopped” the Comelec from cancelling COCs of Cortes, Mike Rama and the Albay governor and ordered consolidation of petitions from the three politicians.
CERTIFICATE OF FINALITY FOR CORTES. On December 27, 2024, Comelec en banc denied Cortes’s motion for reconsideration, stating in its certification dated January 3, 2025 that the cancellation of his COCC was FINAL and executory under Comelec rules of procedure.
The same Comelec en banc certificate stated the its resolution en banc shall become final and executory after five days from its promulgation, “unless restrained by the Supreme Court.”
But the SC had already issued a TRO on October 22, 2024. Thus, when Comelec certified that Cortes’s disqualification was already final and executory, it was already restrained by the high court. Still it proceeded with the certification but qualifying it with the acknowledgment of the SC’s authority.
WHAT WE CAN BE SURE OF. There were enough details in the story to confuse but on these one may be fairly certain:
[1] The issue of disqualification against Cortes and Rama is long moot, as far as it concerns the 2025 elections, except when an election protest is decided in their favor. (Comelec required in June 2025 Jonkie Ouano to answer Jonas’s protest while it dumped in August 2025 Mike’s protest.)
[2] The question of enforcement of the Ombudsman’s dismissal order was no longer relevant as Cortes and Rama had been evicted from office long before the 2025 elections. On the Comelec case in the 2025 election, the question shifted to the right to run in that election and to assume or keep the office if they won.
[3] The issue of qualification will recur if Jonas and Mike will decide to run again in the next election in 2028. Are those cases not decided yet? They’ve been decided by Comelec but they’re still on appeal.
NO DOUBT THE DISQUALIFICATION ISSUE WILL BE USED by rivals of Cortes and Rama. It has been used and will continue to be used.
What may give it some rest is if the Supreme Court would reverse rulings of the Ombudsman and/or Sandiganbayan and declare the dismissals, which carries the D penalty, wrongful and undeserved.
LEGALLY, CORTES AND RAMA FATE RESTS ON SUPREME COURT. But the arbiter won’t just be the courts. Jonas and Mike were allowed to run in the 2025 elections but the voters rejected them, or so the election results showed and would stand unless refuted under the process provided by law.
Not only must the gods at Padre Faura smile on Cortes and Rama but the voters must vote for them.