Loser wants to replace Lucy Torres in Leyte

POLITICIANS ARE learning quickly that if they lose an election, they can still win it at the Commission on Elections or, in the case of congressmen and senators, at the House or Senate Electoral Tribunals. Each vote needed to win may be much more expensive than the votes needed on election day itself, but only a very few of them are needed to win at the Comelec or at the HRET or SET.

You will recall the election for mayor of Lucena, Quezon. Ruby Talaga won that election, but the losers filed an election protest at the Comelec, and now the Comelec commissioners want to replace the winner with somebody who did not even run for mayor but will succeed to the mayorship under the rules of succession, by a mere four votes of Comelec commissioners. Thus, the votes of four men in Manila, who never resided in Lucena, will replace the thousands of votes of Lucena residents.

The reason? Ramon Talaga, the three-term mayor of Lucena, filed his certificate of candidacy for a fourth term. He was disqualified. So his wife, Ruby Talaga, substituted for him. She won overwhelmingly in the election and was proclaimed and is now the incumbent mayor of Lucena.

But one of the losers would not give up; he filed an election protest, claiming that since Ramon was disqualified, there was no candidate to be substituted, and therefore Ruby’s substitution was not valid and therefore her votes should not have been counted. As the candidate with the second highest number of votes, the protester said he should have been the one proclaimed.

However, the Supreme Court had declared, in case after case, that second placers cannot be declared winners because a majority of the people did not vote for them. This prompted the vice mayor to file a petition-for-intervention, claiming that the rules on succession provides that in case of vacancy in the mayorship, the vice mayor succeeds to the position. Therefore he, the vice mayor, should be declared the new mayor. One commissioner agreed. He wrote a dissenting opinion in the decision of the Comelec 2nd division which affirmed the election of Ruby.

The losers filed a petition for an en banc decision, and the commissioner who wrote the dissenting opinion grabbed the writing of the decision for the en banc. He wrote a draft decision declaring the vice mayor the valid mayor of Lucena and is now asking the other commissioners to sign his draft decision.

There is a similar case in the fourth district of Leyte. Actor Richard Gomez filed his certificate of candidacy for the district but was disqualified. His wife, the beautiful Lucy Torres, substituted for him and was elected with 101,250 votes. She was proclaimed and is now the representative of the district in the House of Representatives. The loser, Eufrocino Codilla Jr., filed a protest with the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET).

He claimed that since Gomez’s certificate was denied due course or was cancelled by the Comelec, there was no candidate to speak of. Gomez was a non-candidate from the very beginning. Therefore, his wife Lucy Torres, could not have validly substituted for him as candidate for representative of Leyte as there was no candidate to speak of in the first place. If it is so, then the certificate of candidacy (COC) of then-substitute candidate Lucy Torres-Gomez was not valid. To put it another way, if Gomez’s COC was denied by the Comelec, then Lucy’s COC, who substituted for him, was also denied.

Lucy Torres filed a suit to prevent the HRET from hearing the case; it was denied. She then filed a petition to inhibit the Hearing Commissioner from hearing the case. It was denied again. Finally, she appealed to the Supreme Court. Denied again.

All in all, Lucy appealed eight times to different agencies (forum shopping?) to stop the HRET hearing. All for naught. It all resulted in the conclusion that the sole body to hear the election protest against her is the HRET, thus paving the way for the latter to start hearing the case against her.

This is a case again of technicality vs. substance. If the technicality of Gomez’s candidacy is denied, and therefore Lucy could not have validly substituted for him, should this have precedence over the substance of more than 100,000 votes of the fourth district of Leyte? The people overwhelmingly signified that they wanted her to be their representative to Congress. Should a few HRET members nullify their wishes?

Disqualification is a favorite method of bids and awards committees for government projects. Winning bidders are disqualified for one reason or another (and you can always find a reason to disqualify if you look for one) so that the bidder they want to win is left to get the award. This is now also being done in the election bodies.

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I received two surprise visitors last week. They were carrying new peso bills, of different denominations, issued by the Bangko Sentral. They showed them to me one by one. Then they produced a white handkerchief and rubbed one of the peso bills on it. Some of the color from the peso bill was rubbed off on the handkerchief. They tried it next with a white napkin. Same result. The ink of the new peso bill was being rubbed off!

What’s happening here? Is this normal? I don’t think so. This never happened before.

What does this mean? Was the ink used on the new peso bills of low quality? Was the printing process substandard? The peso bills were printed by international printing companies specializing in the printing of bank notes. Was there an oversight somewhere? What will happen if the peso bills are soaked in water? Will the ink run off? What if they are exposed for long periods to sunlight? Will the ink fade?

Try rubbing your new peso bills on white cloth or paper. See the ink left on them. Will the Bangko Sentral please enlighten us on this?