BACOLOD City – Two mayors in Negros Occidental who faced election protests filed by their opponents, based on the results of the May 13 elections, have garnered favorable rulings from the courts.
The latest decision was handed down by the Regional Trial Court (RTC) in La Carlota City, upholding the proclamation of Irene Montilla as elected mayor of Isabela town.
“The proclamation of the protestee (Montilla) as the duly elected winning candidate for mayor in the municipality of Isabela, Negros Occidental is hereby sustained and affirmed,” Judge Mila Yap-Camiso of RTC Branch 74 stated in a ruling dated Oct. 10.
Consequently, the judge dismissed the petition filed by former mayor Joselito Malabor against Montilla for lack of merit.
Montilla said on Friday that she has been vindicated because the court has upheld her proclamation.
“I’m glad it’s over. (We have) to move forward. There’s no going back. We have three years to do what we want to do. The time may not be enough, but it’s a chance for us to do something for the town,” she told reporters in a press briefing at the municipal hall.
On the same day, Sheriff IV Michael Betila returned the ballot boxes and all election paraphernalia in the court’s custody to the Commission on Elections (Comelec) officer and municipal treasurer of Isabela, as directed by the judge.
Losing by 48 votes, Malabor lodged an election protest on May 23. He obtained 13,844 votes, compared to Montilla’s 13,892. Although following the revision of votes, Montilla’s lead went down to 22, according to the court decision.
In neighboring Moises Padilla, mayor Ella Garcia-Yulo earlier also hurdled the election protest filed against her by former mayor Magdaleno Peña.
In his Aug. 22 order, RTC Bacolod City Branch 49 Judge Edgar Tupas stated that the protest was “summarily dismissed, motu proprio, for insufficiency in form and content.”
The order added that Peña’s petition to hold in abeyance the transfer of ballot boxes was “noted without action for being moot and academic.”
Garcia-Yulo and Peña, who is her uncle, were running-mates in 2016. In the 2019 mayoral race, the former obtained 13,056 votes and was proclaimed early morning a day after the elections. Peña got 5,493 votes.
Peña claimed “manufactured, padded, fraudulent, altered, distorted and illegal vote totals, which were not reflective of the true results of voting and counting in the protested precincts.”
In the adjacent town of La Castellana, Mayor Rhumyla Mangilimutan said she was awaiting the final decision on the election protest filed by former vice mayor Felix “Chad” Feria IV.
Mangilimutan was proclaimed winner after obtaining 17,822 votes against Feria’s 13,987 votes.
In her order dated September 6, La Carlota RTC Branch 63 Judge Frances Guanzon denied Feria’s motion to open the Comelec records and pertinent election documents in the May 13 elections.
This was sought by Feria after the revision of all precincts had been completed, but Guanzon denied his plea for lack of legal basis.
The result of the revision has been deemed submitted for resolution, the order stated.
The three municipalities – Isabela, Moises Padilla, and La Castellana — are all situated in the fifth district of Negros Occidental. (With a report from PNA/PN)
