SC upholds Susan Yap's election as Tarlac City mayor

The Supreme Court (SC) has annulled and declared void a Commission on Elections (Comelec) resolution that canceled the certificate of candidacy (COC) of Susan Yap-Sulit and upheld her proclamation as Tarlac City mayor.

In a 17-page decision, the SC En Banc granted Yap’s petition to reverse the poll body’s finding that she is not a resident of Tarlac City for at least a year before the May 2025 national and local elections and is not qualified to run for mayor.

“Petitioner Susan Areno Yap-Sulit is declared eligible to be elected Mayor of Tarlac City. Her proclamation as such is hereby upheld,” it said.

In October 2025, the Comelec disqualified Tarlac City Mayor Susan Yap-Sulit in the 2025 May elections and declared her ineligible to serve public office after she allegedly failed to meet the mandatory one-year residency requirement.

But according to the SC, Comelec issued its ruling without substantial evidence. The SC said it found that Yap-Sulit was able to prove that she abandoned San Jose in favor of Tarlac City.

The SC stressed that Yap-Sulit served as governor for three consecutive terms.

“She is hardly a stranger to the locality. Even if the period of her residency in Tarlac City is disputed here, her political exposure to and experience in the city shows that she is neither a stranger nor a newcomer who is “unacquainted with the conditions and needs of a community,” it said.

“At the very least, her election as the city mayor does not defeat the very purpose for the residency requirement,” it added.

Aside from this, the SC said that Yap-Sulit was proclaimed as mayor.

“Here, the Court respects and indeed upholds the will of the electorate, not despite a candidate’s eligibility, but because, from the evidence presented, there is no such ineligibility,” it said.

The decision, penned by Associate Justice Antonio Kho Jr., was promulgated on June 3, 2026.

Yap-Sulit welcomed the ruling, saying it is a victory for every resident in Tarlac.

“The journey has been long and difficult, but we never lost faith in our institutions and in the justice of our cause. From the beginning, we maintained that I met the legal qualifications to serve and that the people of Tarlac City had freely expressed their choice,” she said in a statement.

“Today, the Supreme Court has affirmed that mandate. I am deeply grateful to the justices for their careful and impartial review of the evidence and the law,” she added. — RSJ, GMA News