Taguig poll protest ruling out by Sept.

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has completed the  decryption of the election results in Taguig City and will soon bring to a close the lengthy poll protest filed by defeated mayoral candidate Dante Tiñga against incumbent Mayor Ma. Laarni Cayetano.

The poll body’s First Division under Commissioner Rene Sarmiento is expected to come up with a decision on the matter within two weeks, according to Comelec Chair Sixto Brillantes Jr.

“The decryption is already finished… the results will come out by the end of the month or the first week of September so we will see who really won the elections,” he told reporters in an interview.

Tiñga, a former Supreme Court associate justice, filed an electoral protest against Cayetano after the latter beat him in the 2010 mayoral race by a mere 2,420 votes.

Earlier this month, the First Division ordered the decryption of the poll results after Cayetano’s camp repeatedly refused to turn over the ballot boxes to the Comelec for a recount.

As a result, the poll body had to make do with the picture image of the ballots instead of the actual ballots.

Brillantes said that Comelec would push through with the recount of the rest of the ballots by decryption should the First Division find enough basis to do so. “But should it show that the difference cannot materially affect the results, the protest will be dismissed,” he added.