Former Zamboanga del Norte Rep. Romeo Jalosjos . INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
The Supreme Court has ordered the “perpetual special disqualification” from public office of Dominador Jalosjos, a brother of convicted rapist Romeo Jalosjos, because of a prision mayor sentence that he received for a robbery conviction in 1970 that he never served.
Jalosjos, whose victory in the 2010 mayoral elections for Dapitan was voided by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) over the same robbery conviction, was aiming to run for governor of Zamboanga del Norte in the May elections.
The high court upheld the Comelec decision that Jalosjos was disqualified under the Local Government Code from running for mayor of Dapitan in 2010 because of his conviction for a robbery he had committed in 1969.
Ineligible candidate
“[Jalosjos] became ineligible perpetually to hold, or to run for, any elective public office from the time his judgment of conviction became final,” said the high court ruling penned by Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio.
Jalosjos successfully ran for mayor of Dapitan in the May 2010 polls but his candicacy was questioned by his losing opponent, Agapito Cardino, who said Jalosjos had made a false representation in his certificate of candidacy when he declared under oath that he was eligible to run for that office.
The Comelec found that Jalosjos had been convicted by final judgment for robbery and sentenced with prision mayor—a penalty of six years and one day to 12 years—by a Cebu City court in 1970 and that he had not served his sentence.
It was found that a certification of compliance of probation that Jalosjos had submitted had been fraudulently issued.
Jalosjos went to the high court after the Comelec denied his motion for reconsideration.
Cardino also went to the high court to question the same Comelec ruling as it said that under the Local Government Code, he could not succeed to the mayoral post. Christine Avendaño