Recall petition reignites feud of San Juan power clans

Old wounds are being reopened in the local politics of San Juan City, where supporters of defeated mayoral candidate Francis Zamora are demanding a recall election.

They hurled various allegations against Mayor Guia Gomez, who in turn dismissed the move as being funded by a family “delirious with the power of their wealth.”

Carrying binders purportedly containing the signatures of 30,000 disgruntled San Juan residents, the pro-Zamora camp led by defeated city council candidate Sophia Gil and three co-signatories filed a recall petition in the local Comelec office on Wednesday.

Gil said the signatures took 10 months to gather and that the petition stemmed from Gomez’s alleged acts of “graft and corruption, incompetence, abuse of power and dereliction of duty.”

In an earlier interview, Zamora said his supporters initiated the petition out of their own “free will.”

“This is not anymore about the Zamoras against the Estradas. It has become the people of San Juan versus the Estradas. A lot of people want to see change in San Juan and their sentiments remain the same. They are now moving on their own to achieve change,” said Zamora, who was Gomez’s vice mayor before challenging her last year.

Under amendments made by Republic Act 9244 in the Local Government Code, recall elections can be initiated through a petition involving 20 percent of the registered voters during the election in question. This applies to cities or municipalities with 20,000 to 75,000 voters.
San Juan had 71,225 registered voters in 2016, which means the Zamora camp needs at least 14,245 verified signatures for the petition.

In a press statement issued from abroad, Gomez dismissed the petition as the Zamoras’ “desperate effort to lord it over San Juan.”

They are “going delirious with the power of their wealth that they think they can buy the dignity and soul of the residents of San Juan,” she added. “This is only meant to derail the progress that our residents are experiencing.”