THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Friday dismissed the poll protest filed by losing mayoral candidate Romulo Peña Jr. against Makati City Mayor Mar-Len Abigail Binay.
In an 11-page resolution, the Comelec First Division cited Peña’s failure to cite specific allegations of acts of electoral fraud in junking the complaint.
The poll body said the election protest is insufficient in form and in content.
“The Comelec’s First Division cannot sanction the emergence of question to the integrity of the assumption of a public official without showing that there are causes for such question. These causes must be stated with utmost particularity as to disturb the very results of the elections this Comelec considers sacred,” the resolution said.
The election protest, according to the Comelec, did not indicate where the alleged offense happened.
“The protestant did not indicate the particular precincts where errors in the scanning of the ballots or appreciation thereof by the vote-counting machine took place,” it pointed out.
It noted that the allegations that votes cast do not accurately reflect the election receipts, vote-buying, harassment and intimidation allegedly done by Binay’s camp, as well as vote-shaving were mere general statements.
Under its rules, the Comelec may summarily dismiss an election protest on the ground of being insufficient in form and content as required.
“The reasons required by the rule must specifically show how and where the electoral fraud, anomalies or irregularities took place. The commission’s First Division is not convinced,” it added.
In May Peña asked the Comelec for a manual recount of votes in the polling precincts in District 2 of Makati City, after claiming that the results in the said precincts are not reflective of the actual votes cast owing to the presence poll irregularities.
The Comelec proclaimed Binay as the winner in the Makati race after garnering 160,320 votes against Peña’s 142,257.