Atienza loses protest vs Lim

MANILA, Philippines - The election protest filed by defeated mayoral candidate and former environment secretary Lito Atienza against Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim was dismissed by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for lack of merit, the Manila mayor’s chief of staff said yesterday.

In a statement, Ric de Guzman said the copy of the Comelec resolution dated Sept. 13, 2011 dismissed the election protest filed by Atienza.

The dismissal is contained in a 19-page order issued by the Comelec’s First Division led by Commissioner Rene Sarmiento and Commissioners Armando Velasco and Christian Robert Lim citing Atienza “has failed to establish the merit or legitimacy of his election protest from his pinpointed pilot clustered precincts.”

“We find no more need to proceed with the recount of the rest of his protested clustered precincts,” the Comelec said in its resolution.

“Even if the commission accepts Atienza’s submission in its entirety, he is still unable to overcome the lead of Lim,” it said.

Lim defeated Atienza in the May 2010 elections with a total of 395,910 votes against opponent’s 181,094 votes, or a lead of 214,816 votes.

Lim also consistently had huge vote leads over Atienza in each of the city’s six districts.

Based on the outcome of the recount of the ballots which Atienza himself chose, De Guzman said the Comelec had stated it was “mathematically impossible” for Atienza to overcome the lead of Lim, adding that the mayor still had some 200,000 votes “even under the best scenarios for protestant Atienza.”

Atienza protested the election results, in which the Comelec required him to submit the lists of the designated pilot precincts constituting at most 20 percent of the total number of the protested clustered precincts or 200 clustered precincts.

In the contested ballots, Atienza got only 20,130 votes against Lim’s 64,989 votes or a lead of 44,859 in favor of Lim.

“With the order, it is clear that the Comelec, in determining the possible maximum votes for Atienza and the possible minimum votes for Mayor Lim based on the pilot clustered precincts, or if it is feasible for Atienza to overcome the lead of Mayor Lim or at least tie his votes, found Atienza’s claims to be ridiculous, to say the least,” De Guzman said.

The Comelec said the above calculations showed that even if all of Atienza’s claims were granted and all his objections to Lim’s ballots were rejected, Lim would still be leading by 42,672 votes, according to De Guzman.

“This is a very far cry from tying, let alone exceeding, Lim’s votes. Thus, we are left with no other conclusion than that the protestant (Atienza) has not made a reasonable recovery in his pilot clustered precincts,” De Guzman said, quoting the Comelec order.