Cabanatuan to hold plebiscite

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has scheduled a January 25, 2014, plebiscite for the upgrading of Cabanatuan into a highly urbanized city, which has drawn opposition from Nueva Ecija provincial officials.

Proclamation No. 418 issued by President Aquino on July 4, 2012, decrees the city’s conversion but it requires the affirmation of residents through a plebiscite originally set on December 1, 2012.

The proclamation was challenged by Governor Aurelio Umali and a resident of Laur town in Nueva Ecija province.

But the Comelec, in an en banc ruling, allowed the referendum to proceed, citing a December 5 memorandum issued by Bartolome Sinocruz Jr., deputy executive director for operations, that addressed the request of Cabanatuan Mayor Julius Cesar Vergara.

The Comelec resolution, which set a new plebiscite schedule, was issued by Comelec Commissioners Lucenito Tagle, Elias Yusoph, Christian Robert Lim, Maria Gracia Cielo Padaca, Al Parreño and Luie Tito Guia.

Vergara, in a letter to the Comelec, said the 20-day temporary restraining order on the plebiscite, which was imposed on Oct. 19, 2012, by a regional trial court in Palayan City, had lapsed.  Armand Galang, Inquirer Central Luzon