DQ case heats up Nueva Ecija polls

CABANATUAN CITY—The wife of Mayor Julius Cesar Vergara, who is seeking a congressional seat in Nueva Ecija, is facing a disqualification complaint filed by a local broadcaster on Nov. 6 and accused the province’s governor of being behind the move as part of harassment aimed at preventing her from running.

Rossana “Ria” Vergara is running against outgoing Nueva Ecija Gov. Aurelio Umali in the third congressional district race in next year’s elections.

Mrs. Vergara said the complaint, filed at the Commission on Elections’ (Comelec) law department by Philip Piccio, would allow Umali to get the congressional seat “by giving voters no choice.”

She said she and her husband had sued Piccio for libel in 2013, also for questioning the mayor’s citizenship. The libel case is pending in a local court.

In a statement issued in Manila by her lawyer, former Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal, Mrs. Vergara described the disqualification case as “nothing more than personal and political vendetta.”

“I am fully confident that the law is on my side. I am a natural-born Filipino citizen. I have been a registered voter in Cabanatuan since 1994, and as such, have been a resident thereof at least since that time. I am more than qualified and, more to the point, competent to run as and be the representative of the third district of Nueva Ecija,” she said.

She also sued Piccio for libel for alluding that the Cabanatuan Electric Corp. and its power supplier, First Cabanatuan Ventures Corp., were involved in electricity price manipulation and in tax evasion. Vergara is a top executive of these power firms.

Aside from Cabanatuan, the third district covers Palayan City and the towns of Bongabon, Gabaldon, General Mamerto Natividad, Laur and Santa Rosa.

The district’s outgoing representative is Umali’s wife, Czarina, who is seeking to replace her husband as governor. Her husband served as representative of the third district from 2001 to 2007.

In a Monday news conference that was joined by Umali, Piccio said he challenged Mrs. Vergara’s candidacy after he discovered that she is supposedly an American citizen.

Umali said Mrs. Vergara could not benefit from Republic Act No. 9225 (Citizenship Retention and Re-acquisition Act of 2003), which makes citizenship of Filipinos permanent after they acquire foreign citizenship.

Umali said the petition was not meant to harass Mrs. Vergara. Armand Galang, Inquirer Central Luzon; and Jerome Aning in Manila