Unseated Imus mayor concedes but vows to appeal case

IMUS, Cavite, Philippines—The municipal hall was back to normal Thursday with a new mayor in office after unseated Mayor Homer Saquilayan conceded to rival Emmanuel Maliksi of President Benigno Aquino’s Liberal Party.

Tension eased at around 5 p.m. Wednesday  when supporters of Saquilayan, numbering about a thousand, decided to leave the town hall where they had held ground since Tuesday night to prevent Maliksi from taking over.

But Saquilayan, through his brother, declared that the ousted mayor’s fight did not end with his supporters departure from the municipal hall.

“We will return. But for now, we will have to leave peacefully. We ask the police to give us two hours for everyone to leave and take our things out,” announced Saquilayan’s brother, Edgardo, on the microphone, before they left Wednesday.

Edgardo, who also happens to be the chairman of Barangay Bucandala here, talked on the phone with his brother, Homer.

Saquilayan had left the municipal hall in the morning. He held a press conference at the Island Cove resort in Kawit town around 3 p.m. to announce that he was vacating the mayor’s office but would be elevating to the Supreme Court the Regional Trial Court ruling that had declared Maliksi the true winner of the 2010 mayoral election.

Maliksi, on the other hand, arrived at the town hall shortly after 5 p.m. with a thousand of his supporters for a Thanksgiving Mass at the town plaza.

Maliksi said the Department of Interior and Local Government had also issued a statement recognizing his assumption of the Imus mayoralty.

Earlier on Wednesday, all the gates of the town hall were padlocked except for the front gate that remained open but was heavily guarded by Saquilayan’s supporters.

Maliksi went on to take his oath of office at the Regional Trial Court Branch 22 in Imus accompanied by his family, including his father, former Cavite governor and incumbent Imus Representative Erineo “Ayong” Maliksi.

Senator Panfilo Lacson, with whom the Maliksis are known to be closely allied, administered the oath.

From the RTC, Maliksi and his supporters, wearing yellow clothes, proceeded  to Maliksi’s home, locally known here as the “White House” in Barangay Bayang Luma where the younger Maliksi announced he was giving Saguilayan’s and his supporters enough time to leave the municipal hall to prevent violence.

Truckloads of policemen, some with truncheons, and a Special Weapons and Tactics team, stood around the town hall as the court sheriff served the writ of execution shortly after noon Wednesday.

Saquilayan (Nacionalista Party), had earlier refused to step down, insisting that a 60-day temporary restraining order issued on December 20 by the Commission on Election’s First Division, headed by Commissioner Rene Sarmiento,  prevented RTC Branch 22 from installing Maliksi.

However, in the cited Comelec ruling dated December 20, Commissioners Armando Velasco and Christian Robert Lim of the Comelec First Division had affixed their handwritten dissenting opinion that in turn invalidated the issuance of the TRO.

This allowed the RTC to implement its November 15 ruling that declared Maliksi as the rightful winner.

Saquilayan left the municipal hall hours before court sheriff Elmer Ascueta arrived at noon to serve the writ of execution. Saquilayan’s legal counsel, lawyer Charles Mercado, received the court order in behalf of the unseated mayor.