MANILA, Philippines — The camp of Camarines Norte Gov. Edgardo Tallado has lauded the ruling of the Supreme Court en banc reversing the Commission on Elections’ (Comelec) decision that disqualified him from joining the recent gubernatorial election in the province during the May midterm polls.
“We would like to thank the Supreme Court for letting justice prevail,” said laywer George Garcia, Tallado’s counsel, in an interview.
Term limits
The decision of the high court was released after an 8-6 affirmative vote was made during an en banc session held on Sept. 10.
The Comelec said it had yet to officially receive a copy of the court’s decision.
“We will be holding off commenting until such time that we receive a copy of the Supreme Court’s resolution of the case,” said Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez.
The Comelec earlier disqualified Tallado to run due to questionable years of service as governor of Camarines Norte. The law limits governors to only three consecutive terms.
The Comelec granted the petition for Tallado’s disqualification, saying that the pendency of Tallado’s petition for review before the Court of Appeals on his suspension order meted by the Ombudsman meant that he did not vacate the office of Camarines Norte governor.
The cancellation of Tallado’s certificate of candidacy stemmed from the petition of Norberto Villamin and Senandro Jalgalado on the ground that the midterm elections would be his fourth term.
When Tallado was disqualified by the Comelec en banc, he was able to secure a status quo ante order from the Supreme Court en banc, which gave him initially the green light to run in the May 2019 polls.
Tallado obtained 149,002 votes while his opponent Cathy Barcelona-Reyes got 104,635 votes.
Interruption to office
Garcia said that the high court had spoken already and ruled that there was an interruption to office of Tallado when he was dismissed from the service by the Office of the Ombudsman.
He said that this interruption to office was immediately executory and affected the office and the electorate who voted him for governor.
“The high court took into consideration the dissent of Commissioner Al Parreño and the arguments of Solicitor General Jose Calida that Governor Tallado failed to complete his three full terms,” Garcia said.