WHAT JUST HAPPENED. Comelec or Commission on Elections has dismissed a petition for disqualification against Cebu City Councilor Joel C. Garganera who won his fourth consecutive term in the 2025 election. The two reasons: “improper remedy and lack of merit.”
In a resolution released October 17, 2025 by Comelec’s first division, the election body ruled that Garganera didn’t fully serve his second term (2019 to 2022). Garganera is now serving his fourth term, uninterrupted from 2016: namely, 2016-2019; 2019-2022; 2022-2025; 2025-2028.
Comelec considered Garganera’s delay in assuming office for term #2 -- on July 17, 2019 instead of June 30, 2019 -- an “involuntary severance from office” and “an interruption of continuity of service.”
Thus, Comelec -- in the decision penned by Aimee Ferolino, presiding commissioner, and concurred with by Commissioners Ernesto Ferdinand Maceda Jr. and Maria Norina Tangaro-Cabingal -- said Garganera was qualified to run for the 2025 election and keep the City Council seat he won.
FILED OUT OF TIME. Petitioner Casmero Asefre Mahilum should’ve filed his disqualification within 25 days from October 8, 2024 or not later than November 24, 2025. Mahilum filed it only on April 3, 2025. Comelec could’ve dismissed the petition for “improper remedy” and “filed out of time.”
Comelec, noting that the three-term limit rule has been recognized by the SC as a disqualification under the Constitution, chose to “look beyond the procedural aspect” and decide the case on the merits.
THIS IS COUN. JOEL’S SECOND TERM, the three-term count having been deemed legally interrupted in 2019 and resumed a-fresh only in 2022. Counting anew, his new string of three terms would start with 2022-2025, then 2022-2025. He could still run for a third consecutive term as councilor in the next election.
If he’d run and win in 2028, Coun. Joel would have a total of five terms, instead of the three consecutive terms that the law and Constitution must mean and intend.
READY FOR APPEAL. The five-term-straight run assumes that the petitioner wouldn’t raise the Comelec ruling on appeal. “They can try,” Coun. Joel told me Friday, October 17, 2025, “nevertheless, we are ready for it. I happen to have a good election lawyer who’s also my daughter, Atty. Aliko Jasmine L. Garganera.
CORE ISSUE. Did Coun. Joel fully serve the 2019-2022 stint? And to determine that, was the delay in oath-taking for him to assume office, considered an “involuntary severance from office” and an “interruption to continuity of service?”
Comelec’s answer: No, Garganera did not fully serve the term. And yes, the delay constituted both a severance from office and interruption of service.
INTERPRETED FROM CONSTITUTION. Comelec, citing Lonzanida vs. Comelec, said the clear intent of the Constitution framers was (a) to bar any attempt to circumvent the three-term limit by voluntarily renouncing the office, and at the same time (b) to respect the people’s choice by giving him a full term.
Comelec said the Constitution expressly provides for the case of “voluntary renunciation,” from which the high court interpreted the “involuntary severance” part. “Conversely,” the SC had said in Lonzanida, “involuntary severance from office for any length of time short of the full term provided by law amounts to an interruption of continuity of service.”
COMELEC RIPS PETITION’S ARGUMENT. What had looked as the more forceful argument of petitioner Mahilum -- given address: V-One, Nasipit, Brgy. Talamban, Cebu City -- was that “in order for there to be interruption of term, a person must have first acquired title to the office since interruption requires loss of title to the office.” That was implied, Mahilom’s petition said, in Tallado vs. Comelec.
Mahilum, through his lawyers at Saligal Law Offices in Cebu City, argued, citing Aldovino Jr. vs. Comelec, that in loss of title to an office or a break from it implies that “one must have acquired title before it can be lost and interruption occurs.” There must be a severance from office before interruption of term.
Garganera assumed office on July 17, 2019, after the decision cancelling the COCs or certificates of candidacy of Sisenio Andales and Alvin Arcilla became final. In the 2019 election, Coun. Joel landed No. 10, moving, with Jerry Guardo, to the winning circle only after Andales and Arcilla were disqualified, interestingly also on the legal issue of term limit.
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WITH TERM ‘INTERRUPTION’: ‘SHORTENING.’ Garganera was delayed in acquiring title to his seat by only about 17 days. Thus his #2 term was shortened by only about two weeks.
Comelec conceded the gap was “relatively brief,” but that “does not negate the legal significance.” “The length of interruption is immaterial; what is controlling is the involuntary nature of the severance.”
Thus, Garganera’s 2019-2022 tenure cannot be considered as full term for him to become ineligible to run in the 2025 election and be disqualified for membership in the City Council.