Supreme Court upholds win of Mitra as governor of Palawan

MANILA, Philippines - The Supreme Court (SC) yesterday upheld the election of Abraham Kahlil Mitra as governor of Palawan in the May 10 elections.

Voting 12-2, the SC nullified an earlier decision of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) disqualifying Mitra in the gubernatorial race over the residency issue.

SC spokesman Jose Midas Marquez told reporters that the SC granted Mitra’s petition and “recognized the transfer of his residency,” which was the basis for his disqualification.

Mitra was allowed to join the gubernatorial race after securing a status quo ante order from the SC.

He won against his closest rival, businessman Jose “Pepito” Alvarez, a self-made billionaire and a known holder of the biggest logging concession in Palawan for the past two decades.

In a ruling penned by Associate Justice Arturo Brion, the SC bought Mitra’s argument that his transfer from Puerto Princesa City to a lowly room in a farmhouse in Aborlan town should not be ground for his disqualification. Eleven other justices agreed.

Chief Justice Renato Corona and Justice Presbitero Velasco Jr. dissented.

In seeking to void the Comelec decision, Mitra argued that the poll body erred in claiming that his declared residency in a lowly room in a farmhouse would not qualify as compliance with the law’s residency requirements for candidates.

“The intimacy of the living conditions of the dwelling chosen is not required by law or jurisprudence to determine compliance or fulfillment of the residential requirement,” he argued through lawyer former Senate President Jovito Salonga.

“Neither does the law require that the location of one’s residence be commensurate to his personal status to determine if he has transferred his residence therein,” he added.

Salonga said the Comelec First Division’s conclusion that Mitra could not have resided in the “small, sparsely furnished room on the second floor of a farmhouse” is not a sufficient legal basis for his residency compliance.

“The determination of whether a person has changed his residence is primarily a question of his intention and not of the suitability of the living conditions,” Salonga said.

“The evil that the residence requirement was designed to prevent is not present in this case and the rule on residency must be liberally construed in favor of Mitra, and any doubt as to his residency qualification to run for governor of Palawan, resolved in his favor,” he added.