SAN JOSE DE BUENAVISTA, Antique – The Commission on Elections (Comelec) en banc has canceled the Certificate of Candidacy (COC) of the incumbent mayor of Bugasong town, Antique province, for having served three consecutive terms.
Comelec Acting Assistant Regional Director and concurrent Antique Provincial Election Supervisor Wil Arceño confirmed on Wednesday the receipt of the Certificate of Finality and Entry of Judgment in response to the Motion for Reconsideration filed by Mayor John Lloyd Pacete on Tuesday.
The document, which also affirmed the Comelec First Division Resolution issued on Dec. 27, 2024, was signed by the Clerk of the Commission lawyer Genesis Gatdula.
"The Commission En Banc on Jan. 7, 2025, has promulgated a resolution to deny the Motion for Reconsideration of Pacete on the cancellation of his COC,” Arceño said in a media interview.
The decision favored the petition of Antique board member Victor Condez to deny due course and to cancel the COC of Pacete on the ground that the latter had made a material misrepresentation in his COC.
Condez is running for the mayoral post in Bugasong in the 2025 midterm polls.
He alleged that Pacete already served as mayor for three consecutive terms - 2016-2019, 2019-2022, and 2022-2025, which is in violation of the Omnibus Election Code (OEC) and the Comelec Resolution Number 11046.
In his petition, Pacete said that he was not able to fully serve his three consecutive terms due to the involuntary interruption of his term after he was found guilty of violating Comelec Resolution 10015 or the ban on the carrying or transporting of firearms and other deadly weapons during the 2016 election by the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Bugasong.
His conviction also came with a disqualification to hold public office, but the decision was reversed by the Court of Appeals.
The Comelec First Division, however, said that he “was not divested nor denied of his title as mayor” during his imprisonment.
It added that Pacete constituted a violation of the three-term rule limit since there was “merely a temporary inability to exercise respondent’s powers as mayor due to the RTC cancelation of his bail bond and pendency of his application for bail pending appeal.”
The Comelec En Banc ruling has already become final and executory since the Supreme Court has not issued any restraining order within the five-day period. (PNA)
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