After 21 yrs in office, mayor gives up seat but…

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO— For 21 straight years, Marino “Boking” Morales has served as mayor of Mabalacat City in what his rivals regard as the longest reigning local chief executive in the country.

He changed his mind after he filed his certificate of candidacy (COC) for reelection, withdrawing it on the heels of a disqualification case filed against him by one of his six rivals. But not really, as he will field his wife, Ninia, in his stead.

Morales said he and the provincial political party Kambilan would file on Oct. 28 a document authorizing his wife to substitute for him in next year’s mayoral race in Mabalacat, a component city with a population of nearly 220,000 as of 2010.

Kambilan is headed by Gov. Lilia Pineda.

Last week, former Vice Mayor Noel Castro asked the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to cancel the COC of Morales for “committing a deliberate false material representation on his COC by stating under oath that he is eligible for the office [to which he sought reelection].”

Lawyer Romulo Macalintal, counsel of Morales, said his client was eligible for reelection since Mabalacat was converted into a city in 2012 following an increase in income, population and land area.

Morales was first elected mayor in 1995. He was reelected in 1998, but his rival, the late businessman Anthony Dee, asked the court for a vote recount.

On April 2, 2001, the Angeles City Regional Trial Court (RTC) ruled that Dee won the 1998 mayoral contest and ordered Morales to vacate his post. But the litigation took long and the court’s decision became final and executory only on Aug. 6, 2001, or three months after Morales won the 2001 mayoral contest.

The decision allowed Morales to seek two more terms, in 2004 and 2007, having concluded that Dee was the rightful mayor from 1998 to 2001. But Dee never had the chance to actually serve and perform his duties as mayor.

In 2004, after Morales filed his candidacy, his political opponents pursued his disqualification at the Comelec, arguing that the mayor had just completed his three consecutive terms. They pointed out that Dee never occupied the mayor’s office as directed by the Angeles RTC.

At first, the Comelec second division ruled in favor of the petitioners, saying Morales could not run for a fourth term. But the Comelec en banc allowed him to file his COC and reversed the division’s resolution.

The only breaks in Morales’ mayoral rule took place when he and then Gov. Manuel “Lito” Lapid were suspended by the Ombudsman for six months over a quarry-related case in 1999, and when he turned over his seat to his vice mayor for a month and a half before the 2007 elections. Reports from Tonette Orejas and Jun Malig, Inquirer Central Luzon