Isabela's Dy wants Padaca to inhibit from hearing poll protest case

(Updated 4:58 p.m.) Isabela Governor Faustino Dy III on Wednesday asked Elections Commissioner Grace Padaca to inhibit herself from the hearing of the electoral protest she earlier filed against him. The case is pending before the Comelec second division, of which she is a member. 

 

In an eight-page urgent ex-parte motion for inhibition filed through lawyer Maria Bernadette Sardillo, Dy said Padaca took her oath as a member of the Commission on Elections on October 8, 2012. She was also designated as member of the second division.

 

Dy filed on October 3 an urgent ex-parte motion to consider the election protest filed by Padaca as abandoned or withdrawn. But in a text message to GMA News Online, Padaca said she already inhibited from the case which has also been transferred to another division.

 

In seeking the inhibition of Padaca, Dy cited Rule 4, Section 1 of the Comelec Rules of Procedure as ground for disqualification or inhibition of members.

 

The provision states that “no member shall sit in any case in which he or his spouse or child is related to any party within the sixth civil degree of consanguinity or affinity…or in which  has publicly expressed prejudgment as may be shown by convincing proof…”

 

In 2010, Padaca claimed there was massive vote buying in Isabela. She filed an election protest that same year.

 

She was defeated in the gubernatorial race by Dy, a member of a known political clan in the province who ran under the administration party, by a margin of around 3,400 votes.

 

Padaca filed her comment on Dy’s motion on October 14, when she was already a member of the Comelec.

 

“In summary, Commissioner Padaca vigorously opposed the motion filed by protestee Dy. Commissioner Padaca hinged her arguments on the allegation and categorical statement that ‘if at the end of the electoral protest Dy is found to have cheated, he needs to step down’,” Dy said.

 

He added that Padaca, a member of the poll body’s 2nd division, still believes that she is the rightful winner in the May 2010 gubernatorial elections in Isabela.

 

He further said that Padaca, despite her appointment, still intends to pursue her election protest and her opposition on the motion showed her unwavering interest in the case.

 

Dy said the commissioner cannot sit in the division where her own election protest is pending as it is “a clear case of conflict of interest.”

 

The motion filed by Dy was yet to be resolved by the poll body five months after it was filed.

 

Sardillo, Dy's counsel, was appointed by President Benigno Aquino III to be one of the poll commissioners. Sardillo, however, declined the appointment due to the health concerns of one of her family members. Padaca, a Ramon Magasaysay awardee for good governance, received praise when she ended the Dy clan’s three-decade monopoly in the province by defeating Faustino III’s brothers, Gov. Faustino Jr. and Benjamin, in the 2004 and 2007 gubernatorial elections,  But in December 2009, she was ordered by the Comelec Second Division to immediately vacate the office of the provincial governor and turn over the post to Dy, who had accused her of committing "glaring violations" in the 2007 elections. — RSJ, GMA News