Comelec disqualifies Dueñas vice mayor
For failure to comply with the basic one-year residency requirement on all local elective officials, the vice mayor of Dueñas, Iloilo has been stripped of her post.
The order came from no less than the Commission on Elections (Comelec) Second Division following a Petition for disqualification filed in May 2007.
Subject of the order was Dueñas Vice Mayor Merloi "Pangga" Lamasan Piccio who was further assailed by the Commission in a strongly-worded nine-paged Resolution.
Yes, Piccio did not meet the one-year residency yet her woes did not stop there. The Commission in considering evidences presented, made clear of its dissent on significant facts apparently kept by the subject-town official.
"At the outset, this Commission must state and deplore the act of the Respondent (Piccio) in deliberately concealing the fact of her marriage to Mr. Pedro B. Hautea in her Certificate of Candidacy. It is apparent from the evidence on record that Respondent did not state that she was already married to Mr. Hautea at the time of the filing of her Certificate of Candidacy on March 28, 2007. ...(we) view Respondent's attempt to mislead or misinform the public and this Commission of her true civil status as a crucial piece of evidence in resolving the instant controversy," excerpts of the Resolution as obtained by The News Today (TNT) went.
And the Commission did not stop there.
"Going back to our earlier observation that the Respondent conveniently omitted the fact of her marriage to Hautea, we are appalled with the brazenness of this subterfuge. Knowing that clear fact would have been material to her status as a candidate, the Respondent was duty bound at least by mere decency and morality to disclose it. Her willful non-disclosure betrays the trust reposed in her by the residents of the Municipality of Dueñas and mars whatever suitable qualifications she may have already possessed for the purpose of running as an elective official," the Resolution continued.
To note, petitioner Sergio Pelopero filed the case docketed as SPA No. 07-620 primarily to disqualify Piccio.
On top of the questioned residency, the Commission's attention was also called on the civil status stated by Piccio who wrote and declared that she is a "widow."
Material misrepresentation, Pelopero said as he further showed other evidences such as voters' list that registered Piccio as voter of Barotac Nuevo, Iloilo.
The COMELEC ruling was penned by Presiding Commissioner Nicodemo Ferrer and Commissioner Lucenito Tagle.
The News Today is still taking efforts to reach Piccio for her side of the story.