Eastern Samar mayor won’t vacate post despite court order
[wpgmappity id=”1495″]
TACLOBAN CITY, Philippines — The mayor of a town in Eastern Samar has been ordered by a court to vacate his post after a recount of votes showed that he actually lost the May, 2013, local election by 106 votes, but the mayor said he would appeal the ruling.
In a 40-page decision issued on June 30, 2014, Judge Juliana White of Regional Trial Court Branch 5 based in Oras, also in Eastern Samar, directed Mayor Conrado Nicart III of San Policarpio to step down from his post as she declared Virginia Acol the town’s “duly elected mayor.”
But Nicart refused to heed the court order, saying he would take the matter up to the Supreme Court.
Based on the recount of the votes involving 18 clustered precincts, the court declared that Acol had actually garnered a total of 3,773 votes against Nicart’s 3,667 votes or a margin of 106 votes.
On May 14, 2013, the members of the elections board of canvassers proclaimed Nicart the winner with 3,945 votes against Acol’s 3,857 votes or just a difference of 88 votes.
Nicart, who was on his third and last term as mayor, is the son of Eastern Samar Governor Conrado Nicart, Jr. and ran under the banner of Liberal Party. Acol, a businesswoman, ran under the Nacionalista Party.
Acol, in her petition to the court, claimed that the election in their town was marred, among others, by fraud and that the results were not reflective of the actual votes cast due to irregularities and errors that attended the counting and canvassing of votes. She added that ballots containing her name were “rejected” by the PCOS (precinct count optical scan) machines although when counted manually, were found out to be valid in her favor.
Nicart, however, refused to accept the adverse ruling of the court, saying he would contest it up to the Supreme Court, if necessary.
In fact, he said, he would file an appeal with the Commission on Elections in Manila as he believed he was real winner of the race for mayor of one of Eastern Samar’s poorest towns.
San Policarpio, with a population of about 20,000 people has an income of P43 million, mostly from its share of the internal revenue allotment, as its own locally generated income amounts to only about P2 million.
“I will not give up my seat as I strongly believe that I was the real winner and I was duly proclaimed by the Comelec,” Nicart said, adding that stepping down would do injustice to the people of his town who put him in office.
Nicart said he would step down only if there is an order from the Department of the Interior and Local Government directing him to do so.
The regional office of the Department of the Interior Local Government said it had yet to receive a copy of the court’s ruling.
Since July 18, Nicart has not left his office on the second floor of the municipal hall. Several of his supporters, mostly employees of the local government units, have been camping at the entrance of the building to show their support for the 30-year-old mayor.
Inspector Mark Lester Uminyad, the town’s police chief, said that a team of 16 policemen from the provincial police headquarters has been deployed to beef up the town’s 21-strong police force.
“We will ensure that peace and order in San Policarpio will be maintained and whoever will be eventually declared as the real, we will abide. We’ll remain neutral,” Umiyad said.
Acol, meanwhile, could not be reached for comment.
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