CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—The unseated mayor of Magalang, Pampanga, will likely be reinstalled in office.

This, after the Commission on Elections en banc on May 21 issued a preliminary injunction against the order of a judge to a court sheriff to install businessman Romulo Pecson to replace Mayor Lyndon Cunanan in March.

In a 13-page resolution, the Comelec said the “(regional) trial court (branch 56) acted with grave abuse of discretion in excess of jurisdiction in issuing the assailed order dated Dec. 3, 2007.”

The resolution was penned by Commissioner Romeo Brawner and agreed upon by Comelec Chair Jose Melo and Commissioners Nicodemo Ferrer and Moslemen Macarambon.

Commissioner Rene Sarmiento, who earlier upheld the election victory of Pecson, dissented.

“The execution of a decision pending appeal is employed as a measure against the ‘grab-the-proclamation-prolong-the protest’ technique used by wily politicians in the past to perpetuate their hold to an elective office,” Sarmiento said in his six-page dissenting opinion. Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon