SC overturns Comelec’s junking of disqualification case vs governor
THE SUPREME Court (SC) has ruled that the Commission on Elections (Comelec) abused its discretion by dismissing a petition for the disqualification of Cagayan gubernatorial candidate Manuel N. Mamba during the 2022 elections on the grounds of the “timeliness” in filing the petition.
The decision, penned by Justice Jhosep Y. Lopez, found that the Comelec en banc’s junking of the petition filed by Mr. Mamba’s rival for the elective post, Ma. Zarah Rose De Guzman-Lara, was unjustified.
Ms. De Guzman-Lara filed her petition through e-mail on May 10, 2022, bidding to disqualify Mr. Mamba “on the grounds of massive vote-buying and unlawful disbursement of public funds.”
The Comelec Second Division issued a resolution that disqualified Mr. Mamba after finding he violated a section of the Omnibus Election Code, prohibiting the “unauthorized release, disbursement, or expenditure of public funds during the campaign period.”
However, the Comelec en banc reversed the resolution, citing grounds on the timeliness of Ms. De Guzman-Lara’s filing of the petition.
In ruling that the Comelec had abused its discretion in this case, the SC cited that: “Under Section 3, Rule 25 of the COMELEC Rules of Procedure, disqualification petitions shall be filed any day after the last day for filing of certif-icates of candidacy (COCs) but not later than the date of proclamation. A petition for disqualification can be filed even after the exact time of the proclamation of a candidate, so long as it was filed within the same day.”
Since Mr. Mamba was proclaimed on May 11, 2022, at 1:39 a.m., the petition e-mailed by Ms. De Guzman-Lara the day before, was found valid by the High Court.
“Practicable realities borne by technological advances must likewise be considered, such as those resulting from filings made through email. Actual receipt of pleadings by email is not limited to the physical structures of an agency, which remain open during certain hours of the day,” the SC decision read.
As a result, the High Court ordered the Comelec en banc to exercise “proper disposition of Ms. De Guzman-Lara’s petition for disqualification” against Mr. Mamba.
In a Viber message to BusinessWorld, National Union of Peoples’ Lawyer President Ephraim B. Cortez explained that “the SC did not rule on the merits of the disqualification but only on whether the disqualification was filed out of time or not.”
“It remanded the case to the Comelec en banc to rule on the questions raised by Mamba on the Decision issued by the 2nd Division of the Comelec. So the merits are still under contention,” he added. — Chloe Mari
