THE Court of Appeals (CA) has upheld the ruling of the Taguig City Regional Trial Court removing Lino Cayetano and his wife Fille from the official list of qualified voters in Barangay Ususan, Taguig.
Cayetano lost his bid in the May 12 elections to represent Taguig-Pateros’ 1st District in the House of Representatives to reelectionist Ricardo “Ading’ Cruz Jr.
Taguig Mayor Lani Cayetano and her husband, Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, backed Cruz in the recent midterm polls.
In a 15-page ruling promulgated on May 8, the appellate court’s 8th Division, through Associate Justice Eleuterio Bathan, junked the Cayetano couple’s petition for certiorari challenging the March 5 decision of Branch 153 of the Taguig City RTC removing them from the voters list in Ususan based on the complaint filed by Taguig residents Allen Noromor and Roger Laguardia.
The assailed ruling that Presiding Judge Mariam Bien penned held that Lino and his wife had not met the residency requirement in Ususan.
The Commission on Elections-Election Registration Board (ERB) also denied the couple’s request to transfer their voter registration from Barangay Fort Bonifacio to Ususan. In its ruling, the RTC held that the couple failed to prove that they had been residents of Ususan for at least six months before the elections.
The RTC said that while the couple claimed to have lived at the Pacific Residences Condominium in Ususan in 2022, documents proved that they moved to Essensa Condominium in Bonifacio Global City in 2023 and even voted in Barangay Fort Bonifacio during the last Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections.
Additionally, the RTC said the Cayetanos’ contract of sub-lease for Pacific Residences was dated only last December 2024.
The couple’s driver and security aide also confirmed that they had been residing in Essensa as of November last year.
The appellate court said it found the couple’s petition devoid of merit.
“The petitioners argue that the RTC gravely abused its discretion, amounting to a lack or excess of jurisdiction, when it acted on the private respondents’ record on appeal and when it excluded the petitioners from the permanent list of voters. We are not convinced,” read part of the CA ruling.
“In the case at bench, the petitioners palpably failed to demonstrate that the public respondent judge had no jurisdiction to render the assailed decision. Neither was there any showing that the public respondent judge acted with grave abuse of discretion amounting to a lack or excess of jurisdiction. On the contrary, what is glaring is that the petition raises errors of judgment or alleged mistakes in the interpretation or application of the law or factual findings, which are clearly not within the purview of the petition for certiorari; hence, it should result in its outright dismissal,” the CA added.
The appellate court also gave credence to the testimony of the couple’s driver that they are residents of Essensa Condominium.
“We find that such confirmation is conclusive proof that the petitioners are actual and legal residents of Barangay Fort Bonifacio,” the CA further said.
