THE Supreme Court has declared Roberto “Pinpin” Uy Jr. as the winner of the 2022 congressional elections in the first district of Zamboanga del Norte and annulled the proclamation of Romeo Jalosjos Jr. by the Commission on Elections (Comelec).
The August 8 SC en banc decision set aside Comelec’s order dated May 12, 2022 and resolution dated June 7, 2022 for being issued with grave abuse of discretion.
Elections chairman George Garcia said the poll body will abide by the High Court’s ruling.
Uy, Jalosjos, Richard Amazon and Frederico “Kuya Jan” Jalosjos competed in last year’s polls to represent the first district of Zamboanga del Norte at the House of Representatives.
Romeo Jalosjos is the son of former congressman and convicted child rapist Romeo Jalosjos.
On November 6, 2021, Romeo Jalosjos filed a petition to declare Federico Jalosjos a nuisance candidate and to cancel his certificate of candidacy on the ground of lack of bona fide intention to run for public office.
Romeo Jalosjos claimed that Federico Jalosjos only used the nickname “Kuya Jan” for the elections. The monicker, he said, sounds similar with his nickname “Kuya Jonjon.”
The poll body ruled in favor of Romeo Jalosjos on April 19, 2022 and declared Federico Jalosjos a nuisance candidate, which the latter appealed.
In the May 9 congressional elections, Uy got 69,591 votes; Romeo Jalosjos, 69,109 votes; Federico Jalosjos, 5,424 votes; and Amazon, 288 votes.
Romeo Jalosjos then filed a motion seeking the suspension of the proclamation of Uy and asked that the votes of Federico Jalosjos be credited to him.
On May 12, 2022, the Provincial Board of Canvassers (PBOC) suspended Uy’s proclamation after receiving a copy of the Comelec en banc order which was issued motu proprio.
Uy then lodged before the Comelec an urgent plea asking that he be proclaimed as the winning candidate, by virtue of having garnered the highest number of votes.
He likewise filed before the SC a petition for certiorari, prohibition and mandamus ex abundanti ad cautelam, arguing that the PBOC has the ministerial duty to proclaim the candidate with the highest votes.
However, the Comelec proclaimed Romeo Jalosjos as the winner in the congressional race after it denied Federico Jalosjos’ motion for reconsideration for being filed out of time and ruled that the votes he received should be credited to the former as the legitimate candidate with the same surname.
But the SC decision, penned by Associate Justice Mario Lopez, ruled that “public policy dictates that candidates receiving the highest votes should be proclaimed without unnecessary delay.”
It also stressed that the PBOC is a ministerial body, with powers limited to the mechanical function of adding or compiling the votes cast for each candidate.
Likewise, the High Court emphasized that Romeo Jalosjos had not yet assumed office in view of the status quo ante order (SQAO) it has earlier issued, stressing that the SQAO did not permit any proclamation during the pendency of the case, thus rendering Romeo Jalosjos’ proclamation ineffective.
The SC also noted there were several irregularities in the Comelec en banc’s suspension order, with the copy sent by electronic mail to the PBOC in advance, undated, and lacking the complete signatures of the poll body’s commissioners, as well as a certification and a notice signed by the Comelec clerk of court.
It also found as “irregular” that the Comelec chairman intervened in the proclamation by directly calling the PBOC chairperson to confirm the authenticity of the suspension order.
The SC further held that the suspension of Uy’s proclamation relied not only on whether Federico Jalosjos being a nuisance candidate but also on the statistical probability of affecting the outcome of the elections.
It noted that the suspension order was issued based on Romeo Jalosjos’ bare allegations, who did not even submit any document or certification from the PBOC to support his prayer to suspend the proclamation.
In the same ruling, the SC ruled in favor of Federico Jalosjos, saying the Comelec solely based its ruling that he is a nuisance candidate on the alleged erroneous use of a nickname without considering his membership in a political party, the importance of a certificate of candidacy, the preceding campaign period, and the dissimilarities in the names appearing on the ballots.
It stressed that the automated elections system (AES) ensured sufficient identifiers on the entries appearing on the ballots, with the candidates’ complete names and political parties now printed as submitted by the candidates.
“Thus, the striking difference in the names of ‘Jalosjos, Kuya Jan (NUP)’ and ‘Jalosjos, Jr., Romeo (NP)’ on the ballots, which refer to Federico Jalosjos and Romeo Jalosjos, respectively, are more than enough to distinguish the entries in the ballots despite the similarity in the surnames,” it pointed out.
Lastly, the SC said the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET) has no jurisdiction over the case since it can only acquire jurisdiction when all of the following requisites are met: a valid proclamation, a proper oath-taking, and assumption of office.
It said that in the case of Romeo Jalosjos, he did not take an oath of office before the Speaker of the House in open session, which bars him from performing his functions.
“Neither has Romeo Jalosjos assumed office. Thus, the requisites that vest HRET jurisdiction are not present,” the SC ruled.
Garcia, reacting to the SC ruling, said: “The Commission will always abide by the SC decision.”
Aside from following the SC directive, Garcia vowed the poll body will work to resolve all cases involving nuisance bets ahead of Election Day to avoid a repeat of incidents involving delayed declarations of nuisance candidates which affect the results of poll exercises.
“It is our commitment that, from now on, all nuisance cases will be resolved before the election in manual elections or before the printing of the ballots in automated elections to avoid this situation,” said Garcia. — With Gerard Naval
