INQUIRER.net Eleksyon 2007

Opposition lawyer seeks full list of destroyed ballot boxes

INQUIRER.net

Erwin Oliva

MANILA, Philippines -- The Commission on Elections has been asked by a lawyer from the opposition for a list of the ballot boxes that had been destroyed in a fire at the old building of the Comelec in Manila.

The Comelec said Monday that among those that had been lost were those with pending election protest cases.

Opposition lawyer Sixto Brillantes, who went to the Comelec Tuesday to ask for a complete list, said that based on the one initially released to him, the ballot boxes that had been destroyed included those involving a protest case filed in 2004 by Jose Francis Yatco, who Brillantes said was the son-in-law of Chairman Benjamin Abalos, against Mayor Hermes Perez of Biñan town in Laguna province.

Comelec spokesman James Jimenez confirmed Yatco’s relationship to the Comelec chairman.

Brillantes said the electoral protests in the towns of San Pascual and Lemery, in Laguna, were also found missing after the fire.

Brillantes said he last saw the questionable ballot boxes in November 2006.

Yatco won his case against Perez after a regional trial court ruled in his favor. But Perez secured a “status quo” order from the Supreme Court, denying Yatco the mayoralty position.

In a briefing, Jimenez confirmed that the ballot boxes involved in Yatco's case had been destroyed in the fire. “That case is not yet up for resolution, so that means that's it for him,” he said.

But Abalos said that most of the ballot boxes with pending election cases had been transferred to another building called “Maxilite” from the old Comelec building before the fire happened.

These are:

• Jose Villarosa vs. Josephine Sato, for governor of Occidental Mindoro;
• Elizabeth Masangkay vs. Jaime Fresnedi, forcity mayor of Muntinlupa City;
• Rashidin Matba vs. Sadikul Sahali, for governor of Tawi-Tawi;
• Efren Angeles et al. vs. Ferdie David Marco et al., for city councilors of Marikina City;
• Sonia Aquino vs. Alfredo Corona, for city mayor of Tanauan City, Batangas;
• Leonardo Byron Perez vs. Ma. Luisa Lloren Cuaresma, for governor for Nueva Vizcaya;
• Eligio Lagman vs. Oscar Rodriguez, formayor of San Fernando City, Pampanga;
• Mark Allan Jay Yambao vs. Canuto Oreta, for city mayor of Malabon City;
• Jose Enrique Garcia III vs. Melanio Banzon Jr., for city mayor of Balanga, Bataan; and
• Jose Montilibano vs. Carlo Gamban, for city mayor of Silay City, Negros Occidental.

Jimenez said most of these ballots boxes had been labeled “revised,” meaning they had been opened, studied, and were up for resolution.

Jimenez said the ballot boxes that had been burned would not affect the pending cases.

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