Phillip Salvador removed as Bulacan voter

CITY OF MALOLOS—A judge has ordered the removal of actor and vice gubernatorial candidate Phillip Salvador from the list of registered voters of Marilao town, making the actor ineligible to vote in the May 9 elections.

In a 20-page order issued on Feb. 15, acting Executive Judge Albert Fonacier of the Bulacan Regional Trial Court (RTC) directed the Commission on Elections to exclude the name of Salvador from the list of registered voters of Precinct No. 275D in Barangay Sta. Rosa 2 in Marilao.

Fonacier had reversed and set aside the Jan. 25 resolution of the Marilao Municipal Trial Court which concluded that the actor was a legitimate voter of Marilao.

The MTC upheld a Nov. 24, 2015 resolution of the Comelec Marilao office which granted Salvador’s application to transfer his voter’s registration there.

Salvador’s application was contested by six Marilao residents who claimed that the actor had never been seen in their neighborhood.

But the actor said he resides there with his wife but has been shuttling to Manila to work. The chair of Sta. Rosa 2 also testified that Salvador is a long time resident of the village.

Fonacier said Salvador failed to prove that he had been living in a rented apartment in Marilao for the duration required to become an eligible voter of the place. He also said the lease contract establishing that Salvador had rented the apartment was flawed.

“There is no dispute that the contract of lease is not notarized. Worse, not one of the parties came forward [to] vouch for the validity and authenticate the same during the hearings in the election registration board and the MTC. Being a private document, its presentation as evidence should not have been admitted for being hearsay and self-serving,” the judge said in his order.

Fonacier said Salvador was absent during an inspection conducted when the Comelec ERB was hearing the actor’s application.

He also doubted Salvador’s claim that he had been staying at the Marilao apartment since 2012, after observing that the lease contract’s date of execution was January 2015. Carmela Reyes-Estrope, Inquirer Central Luzon