SC invalidates proclamation of Romeo Jalosjos Jr. as Zamboanga del Norte rep

MANILA, Philippines — The Supreme Court has invalidated the proclamation of Romeo Jaloslos Jr. as the representative of Zamboanga del Norte's first district, more than a year after he was declared the winning candidate.

According to a statement on Wednesday, the High Court declared Roberto Uy Jr. as Zamoanga del Norte's 1st District representative, reversing the Commission on Election's order to proclaim Jalolos the winner in 2022.

The SC in 2022 issued a status quo ante order preventing Jalosjos from assuming office in Congress. 

This was after Uy protested the election results following the Comelec's decision to disqualify nuisance candidate Federico Jalosjos, whose number of votes were added to Romeo. Federico is not related to Romeo.

Comelec, however, greenlighted Jalosjos in taking the House seat after it decided to approve Jalosjos as the winning candidate after Federico was declared a nuisance candidate. This bumped up Jalosjos' total number of votes to 74,533, beating Uy by more than 4,000 votes.

The High Court however deemed that there were "irregularities" in the Comelec en banc's order. 

“The Court also found irregular that the COMELEC Chairperson intervened in the proclamation by calling directly the PBOC Chairperson to confirm the authenticity of the suspension order,” the statement read.

“The Court further ruled that the COMELEC's power to suspend the proclamation of a winning candidate is not available in proceedings to declare one a nuisance candidate. Thus, the COMELEC gravely abused its discretion when it suspended Uy's proclamation in SPA No. 21-224 (DC), a proceeding where Uy is not a party, and was thus denied the opportunity to be heard,” the statement added.

The SC also said that there is a noticeable difference in the names of Federico and Romeo Jalosjos, both of whom belong to different parties.