HRET to hear protest vs Gwen

FORMER Pinamugajan Mayor Geraldine “Gaye” Yapha will attend a preliminary hearing of the election protest she filed against Rep. Gwendolyn Garcia of Cebu’s 3rd district scheduled by the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET) this Friday.

Yapha said both parties were required to appear before the tribunal or send a representative to the hearing of a petition to recover the ballots in selected precincts of Cebu’s 3rd district for a possible recount.

Yapha also has the option to pick either a 100 or 25 percent recount of the 434 clustered precincts in the district.

“There will be a recount, that’s for sure. The only question is regarding when it will happen. We are still hoping that I could make it because we could actually have the numbers after the recount,” she said.

Last July, Yapha filed an election protest before the HRET questioning the 41,858 stray ballots in Cebu’s 3rd district that were unaccounted for since they weren’t processed by the precinct optical scan (PCOS) machines.

Yapha said all the ballots should have been counted because she filed her election protest last May 31, which is still within the Comelec’s prescribed period for protests

Yapha also said massive electoral fraud took place in the district as part of a so-called “Operation Save the Queen” aimed at securing victory for Garcia and her allies.

A former mayor of Pinamungahan town, Yapha lost by a slim margin of 1,984 votes against Garcia who garnered 105, 424 votes.

She is allied with the Liberal Party (LP) Cebu chapter while Garcia ran under One Cebu with ties to the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA). Correspondent Peter L. Romanillos