FORMER senator and losing Marikina congressional candidate Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III yesterday filed a 65-page petition asking the Supreme Court (SC) to stop the Commission on Elections (Comelec) from proclaiming former Marikina city mayor Marcy Teodoro as winner of the 2025 congressional race in the city’s first legislative district.
In his petition, Pimentel asked the SC to issue a temporary restraining order (TRO) as he questioned the poll body’s decision to allow Teodoro’s congressional run and his subsequent proclamation as the duly elected congressman of the first district.
Teodoro yesterday took his oath as congressman before Judge Romeo Dizon Tagra of Branch 273 of the Marikina regional trial court after the Comelec en banc issued a certificate of finality and Entry of Judgment in its ruling lifting the suspension of Teodoro’s proclamation and the reinstatement of his certificate of candidacy (COC).
“Now therefore, in view of the foregoing, the Resolution of the Commission (en banc) promulgated on 25 June 2025 is hereby declared immediately executory under the Comelec Rules of Procedure,” the poll body said, noting that no TRO has been issued by the SC within five days from the date of its ruling.
The Comelec en banc reversed the December 11 ruling of the Comelec First Division, which cancelled Teodoro’s COC on the basis of a petition filed by Pimentel.
The en banc had said that the reversal was warranted after Pimentel and his co-petitioners failed to provide adequate proof that Teodoro committed material misrepresentation with regards to his residency in Marikina’s first district.
PIMENTEL PLEA
Pimentel asked the SC to issue a TRO “immediately” to prevent the execution of the Comelec’s June 25 decision.
In the event that execution of the assailed order has already been effected, Pimentel asked the High Court to issue a status quo ante order prior to the issuance of the June 25 resolution.
He also asked the SC to conduct a hearing and reverse and set aside the Comelec resolution on the ground of abuse of discretion.
He also urged the High Court to reinstate the December 11, 2024 resolution of the Comelec’s First Division.
Lastly, he asked the SC to declare the votes cast for Teodoro in the May 12 elections as “stray” votes and to direct the poll body to constitute the City Board of Canvassers or a Special Board of Canvassers to proclaim the candidate with the second highest numbers of votes as the winning candidate in Marikina’s congressional race.
In his petition, Pimentel argued that the Comelec’s decision granting Teodoro’s consolidated motion for reconsideration, in effect junking his plea to cancel the latter’s COC, is “utterly without basis both in fact and in law, and is manifestly arbitrary, capricious, and whimsical, thus constituting grave abuse of discretion.”
He claimed that Teodoro “deliberately misrepresented” that he is a resident of Marikina’s first district for one year and one month, saying that the latter lived in the district for only less than a year, in violation of the 1987 Constitution.
He said that until now, Teodoro and his family continue to reside in Brgy. Tumana in the city’s Second District.
“Private Respondent’ self-serving claim to be now residing in District 1 is false,” he stressed, adding that, “assuming that he is indeed qualified to transfer his voter registration to Brgy. San Roque in District 1, owing to his lack of physical presence therein, nonetheless it will only amount to 7 months and 16 days which is less than the one-year residency requirement in the 1987 Constitution.”
He told the SC that Teodoro’s familiarity with the place where he ran, or the amount of votes that he garnered, “will not cure his ineligibility or render him immune from the consequences of his own actions.”
“Public respondent Comelec’s resort to Private respondent’s familiarity with the City of Marikina to compensate for his weak and insubstantial evidence of his residency in District 1 is unconstitutional hence, must be stricken down,” he said.
“It must be stated bluntly that Public Respondent Comelec’s resort to platitudes and indirect justification is in itself a tacit admission of not only the undeniable weakness of the evidence of the Private Respondent, but also of the fact that its decision rests on shaky ground,” he added.
The Comelec-Marikina late yesterday afternoon proclaimed Teodoro as the winner of the 2025 congressional polls.
In a Notice issued on Tuesday afternoon, Marikina City Board of Canvassers (BOC) chairman Dave Villarosa ordered the immediate convening of the city BOC.
“Please be informed that the Board of Canvassers is hereby requested to convene today, July 1, 2025, at 1:30 pm, at the Office of the Election Officer – 1st District, Marikina City, to discuss the certificate of finality and Entry of Judgment both dated 01 July 2025, issued by the Commission (en banc),” said Villarosa.
Prior to his proclamation and oath-taking, Teodoro threatened to take legal action against Marikina’s election officers for refusing to implement the Comelec en banc’s order to declare him as winner of the congressional race.
Teodoro said that he will file administrative complaints, and charges of grave abuse of discretion case against the local election officers before the Office of the Ombudsman. – With Christian Oineza and Gerard Naval
