Court junks poll protest vs. mayor

INOPACAN, LEYTE, Philippines — The election protest filed by a defeated candidate against the incumbent mayor of this town in Leyte was dismissed by the Regional Trial Court-branch 18 in this province.

In a 4-page order dated last July 29, RTC Judge Bethany Kapili cited lack of merit the poll protest (Case No. H-025) against Mayor Silvestre Lumarda filed by Dr. Maria Janice Lloren, who lost the mayoralty race in the May 2010 elections.

Lumarda won as mayor with 5,640 votes against Lloren's 5,131, but the latter filed a protest contending that there was considerable number of "double-shaded" ballots in seven barangays.

The barangays are Jubasan, Conalum, Poblacion A, Tao-taon, Tinago A, Tinago B and Marao.

In these places, a total of 941 double-shaded ballots were recorded; 899 of these were deducted from Lumarda's votes, reducing his votes of 2,361 per election returns to 1,463 per physical tally.

Lloren's votes, from the same barangays, have increased from 2,212 per election returns to 2,232 votes per physical tally.

Last June 22, the court ordered for the printing of the picture images of the contested ballots due to the big number of double shaded ballots found that the PCOS machines did not reject.

The court justified the order to print because, during the revision of ballots, the result of the canvass per election returns would not match with the manual canvass or physical tally.

The court further cited the open court demonstration, which showed that the contents of the ballot boxes can be removed without opening the padlock by simply turning it over upside down and removing the contents through the gap between the cover and the box.

However, when the picture image of the ballots in the seven barangays were printed, only 14 ballots were found to be double-shaded, not 941 as found during the revision.

In handing down the decision, the RTC believed that the results in the printing of picture images of the ballots confirmed the proclamation of Silvestre Lumarda as the winning candidate for mayor, because the votes from the 14 double-shaded ballots could not in any way alter the election results. - THE FREEMAN