MANILA, Philippines—The election protest filed by Taguig City mayoral candidate Dante Tiñga against incumbent Mayor Lani Cayetano is again “back to square one,” a member of the Commission on Elections said Saturday.
Election Commissioner Rene Sarmiento said the Comelec’s first division will review the order of the poll body’s second division, which previously handled the case, to retrieve 373 contested ballot boxes currently under the custody of the Taguig city treasurer.
He said the first division decided to do this after complaints from the mayor’s camp that the case was being “prioritized.”
“Well, (it’s) back to square one in the sense that should we follow the second division order for retrieval or should we put it on hold?” Sarmiento said.
“We will look into the arguments of Cayetano asking why we were prioritizing (the case). So, the first division will weigh the pros and cons,” he said.
“We have to be Solomonic so both parties will be happy.… We have to be Solomonic in the resolution in this case of Taguig, which is a very controversial one,” he added.
The case was transferred to the first division, which Sarmiento chairs, after the Cayetano camp questioned the impartiality of second division’s chair, Elias Yusoph, due to his purported links to a powerful politician from the Tiñga side.
Another commissioner from the second division, Lucenito Tagle, also earlier voluntarily inhibited himself from the case.
“To prevent further imputations of dubious character as to the impartiality of whatever ruling of this commission as regards to the case at bar resulting in the smearing of the integrity of this august body, the Commission hereby resolves to re-assign the… case to the first division,” said the Comelec in a resolution earlier this week.
Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes said the transfer of the case did not mean that the retrieval order would be recalled.
Sarmiento said the first division would take Brillantes’ statement into consideration in their review of the second division order.