ER Ejercito son’s bid to stop Comelec from printing ballots denied

The Supreme Court on Tuesday denied the bid of the son of ousted Laguna Governor Emilio Ramon “ER” Ejercito to stop the Commission on Elections’ (Comelec) printing of ballots for the upcoming May 9 elections to delete his name following his withdrawal from the gubernatorial race.

Instead, the high court ordered the Comelec to respond to the petition filed by Jorge Antonio Ejercito within a non-extendable period of 10 days.

READ: SC asked to compel Comelec to drop ex-Laguna gov son from ballot

The young Ejercito, in his petition, said the poll body failed to act on his motion to withdraw and cancel his certificate of candidacy (COC) and that Comelec still printed his name in the ballots as one of the candidates for governor of Laguna.

He said the “non-deletion of his name from said ballots would cause confusion among the voters of Laguna which may lead to their disenfranchisement because of similarity of surnames” since his father, ER Ejercito, is also running for governor under the surname “EJERCITO” and some voters would still vote for him (Jorge) thinking he is still a candidate.

“Despite a timely withdrawal of his Certificate of Candidacy for said position, specifically on February 1, 2016, Comelec, with grave abuse of discretion denied petitioner’s said request for deletion of his name without any valid and legal ground except to say that the denial was ‘due to tight timelines’ in Comelec’s preparation for said elections,” the petition said.

Ejercito said that when the poll body failed to act on his withdrawal of candidacy, he filed a motion to delete his name on February 18, however, last March 18, he received a copy of a resolution of the Comelec denying his motion “due to tight timelines.” RAM