Coin toss breaks tie in mayoral race in Oriental Mindoro town

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CALAPAN CITY, Philippines—Heads, you win; tails, you lose.

In San Teodoro, a fourth-class municipality in the north of Oriental Mindoro, election officers resorted to the tossing of a coin to break a tie between two candidates in the mayoral race who each garnered 3,236 votes.

Marvic Feraren of the Liberal Party was declared winner over rival Salvador Py of the Nationalista Party when the coin landed “heads” three times out of five tosses.

Rene Pagilagan, the local election officer, said in a telephone phone interview that  Comelec Resolution 9648 provides for a “drawing of lots” in case of ties. He said canvass officials solicited suggestions in an open session on how to break the tie. “There was no objection to the toss up of a coin as a way of drawing lots,  so we proceeded.”

Pagilagan recalled that in a previous electoral exercise in Puerto Galera town,  when manual counting was still the norm, a tie was broken by the tossing of a coin.

Feraren is the brother of incumbent San Teodoro Mayor Apollo Feraren,  who ran for the Provincial Board representing the province’s first district.