Comelec reverses ruling, declares Pichay is disqualified to run for office

Former Surigao del Sur First District Rep. Prospero Pichay Jr. (INQUIRER file photo / VINCE NONATO)

MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) overturned its initial ruling on the candidacy of former lawmaker Prospero Pichay Jr.

The poll body is now saying that he was not eligible to run for office in the 2022 elections.

In a resolution dated April 30, the Comelec en banc decided that Pichay’s certificate of candidacy (COC) for the 2022 local elections should be canceled after the Office of the Ombudsman found him guilty of grave misconduct.

Pichay was then gunning for the congressional seat of Surigao del Sur’s first legislative district.

According to the complainant, Rep. Romeo Momo Sr. — who won the elections for the district — Pichay committed material misrepresentation when he declared in his COC that he was eligible for the post when he has been perpetually disqualified from holding public offices.

The Comelec agreed with Momo’s view.

“It is undisputed that the decision of the Ombudsman is immediately executory and inclusive […] The Supreme Court in several cases affirmed, recognized, and upheld the validity of the immediate executory nature of Ombudsman decisions,” the Comelec en banc said in the resolution.

Comelec admitted that Ombudsman decisions could be reversed or held by higher courts, but they noted that for Pichay’s case, the Supreme Court (SC) had already issued a resolution affirming Pichay’s perpetual disqualification from public office.

“Respondent, having been meted the penalty of dismissal with the necessary accessory penalty of disqualification from public office — which accessory penalty forms part of the Ombudsman Decision, and is thus itself immediately executory — is not eligible to run for the position […],” the poll body noted.

“Decision can only be stayed by a restraining order by the Supreme Court, which is not obtaining in the case at bar,” it said.

“Finally, the Supreme Court has issued a resolution dated 11 November 2021 affirming the perpetual disqualification ruling of the Office of the Ombudsman against Respondent, which has since become final and executory on 17 August 2022,” it added.

Comelec was referring to the SC’s upholding of the Ombudsman’s decision in 2011, which barred Pichay from holding any public office due to complaints over a P780-million deal when he still headed the Local Water Utilities Administration (LWUA).

The High Tribunal’s First Division rejected Pichay’s claim that he was not given due process when the Ombudsman made its decision.

READ: Comelec urged to cancel Pichay’s COC for 2019 polls 

Similarly, SC thumbed down his consolidated petitions to void two resolutions of the Court of Appeals in 2013 and 2014 and the two subsequent orders of the Sandiganbayan in 2016 and 2017 that affirmed the Ombudsman’s decision to indict him for graft.

READ: SC affirms Ombudsman ruling to bar Pichay from holding any public office 

The en banc decision reverses a previous resolution of the Comelec’s former First Division, which was released last February 2022.

Additionally, the en banc directed the Law Department to conduct an investigation “for the possible filing of an election offense” against Pichay for material misrepresentation.

As early as 2019, a petition was also filed before the Comelec to cancel Pichay’s COC due to material misrepresentation.