Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 9) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday declared Roberto “Pinpin” Uy Jr. as the winner of the Zamboanga del Norte 1st District congressional race in the 2022 elections, effectively invalidating the proclamation of Romeo Jalosjos, Jr.
The court ordered the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to proclaim Uy as district representative.
The decision penned by Justice Mario Lopez also set aside the previous decisions of Comelec to proclaim Jalosjos as winner because they were issued with “grave abuse of discretion.”
Petitioners questioned Comelec for proclaiming R. Jalosjos as the winner of the elections on June 23 after the poll body declared a certain Frederico “Kuya Jan” Jalosjos as a nuisance bet and credited all his votes to R. Jalosjos, whom it deemed as the legitimate candidate.
Uy was originally ahead of R. Jalosjos in the May 9 race with a slim margin of 482 votes. However, with the Comelec issuing a final and executory ruling, the 5,424 votes that F. Jalosjos received during the polls were credited to R. Jalosjos.
SC rejects nuisance candidate tag
The high court said it found that Comelec declared F. Jalosjos a nuisance bet solely based on the alleged erroneous use of a nickname without considering that he is a member of a political party and there is a clear difference in their names in the printed ballots.
R. Jalosjos, in his petition to declare F. Jalosjos as a nuisance candidate, claimed his election rival was never known to be “Kuya Jan,” which he said sounded similar to his own nickname “Kuya Jonjon.”
“The Court held that the automated elections system (AES) ensured sufficient identifiers on the entries appearing on the ballots… The striking difference in the names of ‘Jalosjos, Kuya Jan (NUP)’ and ‘Jalosjos, Jr., Romeo (NP)’ on the ballots are more than enough to distinguish the entries in the ballots despite the similarity in the surnames,” the SC press release read.
It also said Comelec gravely abused its discretion when it suspended Uy’s proclamation. It noted several irregularities in the Comelec En Banc’s suspension order which it said was sent to the Provincial Board of Canvassers (PBOC) — which proclaims the winners — in advance, undated, and without the signatures of the poll body’s commissioners.
The Supreme Court also said it was irregular that then-Comelec Chairperson Saidamen Pangarungan intervened in the proclamation of Uy by directly calling the PBOC chairperson to confirm the authenticity of the suspension order.
“The Court further said that the suspension of proclamation of a winning candidate is not a matter which the Comelec can disclose of motu propio,” the press release said.
Comelec chairman George Garcia said the commission will abide by the SC decision. He added it is committed to resolve cases on nuisance candidates before the election in manual elections or before the printing of the ballots in automated elections to prevent a similar problem.
