Comelec junks poll protest vs. Taguig mayor Cayetano

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has dismissed the electoral protest filed against Taguig Mayor Lino Cayetano by his rival in the 2019 elections due to lack of evidence.

In a 252-page order released on January 31, the Comelec said it did not find evidence to support claims of malfunctioning vote-counting machines (VCMs), vote buying, ballot shading, and distribution of sample ballots.

The protest was filed by Arnel Cerafica whom Cayetano defeated in the 2019 mayoral race.

In its order, the poll body presented observations and rulings of the eight revision committees that reviewed the ballots in 93 pilot protested precincts or 20% of the 467 protested precincts.

Comelec rules states that an electoral protestant should obtain substantial recovery in the pilot contested precincts for the protest to proceed with the review of the ballots in the remaining contested precincts.

The substantial recovery rule requires a protestant to produce a marginal increase equivalent to 20% of the total winning margin, the Comelec said.

In the VCM counting of the ballots cast in the pilot protested precincts, 33,557 votes were tallied for Cayetano while 25,463 votes were tallied for Cerafica.

Cerafica was credited with 82 additional votes but debited with 11 votes, gaining 71 votes; Cayetano, on the other hand, was credited with 70 more votes but debited with 15 votes, gaining 55 votes.

The Comelec said the results showed "negligible difference" in the votes counted in the 93 precincts. It added that Cerafica's recovery votes stood at only 16.

Cerafica is once again running for Taguig mayor in the 2022 elections against Taguig Representative Lani Cayetano, Lino Cayetano's sister-in-law and wife of Taguig-Pateros Representative Alan Peter Cayetano. —Joviland Rita/KBK, GMA News