After 2 Years, Poll Body Finally Decides On Election Protest

COTABATO CITY (Dom Cusain / 23 Jun) The Commission on Elections ordered its Law Department to file before the proper Court the pertinent information against former Congressman Didagen Dilangalen and Estrellita Juliano-Tamano after finding the two guilty of committing election offenses during the 2004 national and local elections.

In an en banc resolution promulgated on May 22, the COMELEC said that respondents Dilangalen and Tamano violated Section 229 of the Omnibus Election Code and as such constitutes an election offense pursuant to Section 262 of the same Code.

Section 229 of the Code states that it shall be unlawful for any person to delay, obstruct, impede or prevent through force, violence, coercion, intimidation or by any means which vitiates consent, the transmittal of the election returns or to take away, abscond with, destroy, deface or mutilate or substitute the election returns or the envelope or the ballot box containing the election returns or to violate the right of the watchers.

The case stemmed from the complaint filed by Cotabato City Treasurer Cleotilde San Luis wherein she alleged Dilangalen and Juliano grabbed and took possession of three ballot boxes being transmitted by the treasurer to the Sangguniang Panlungsod Building on May 13, 2004. The boxes were chained and padlocked to a concrete post adjacent to the building.

San Luis averred in her complaint that she was just complying with the order of the Cotabato City Board of Canvassers contained in its May 12, 2006 letter directing her for the transfer of 3 ballot boxes containing election returns mistakenly placed thereat by concerned Board of Election Officers.

The COMELEC noted that the “participation of Didagen (sic) and Tamano in delaying the delivery of three ballot boxes containing the election returns from Precincts 49A & 49B, 318A & 317B and 270B & 271A is "uncontroverted."

“There are categorical admissions by Didagen and Tamano in their respective affidavits that they prevented such delivery of boxes to the canvassing hall, although they posit the defense that they did so only because they were motivated by a noble intention of preventing the perpetration of electoral fraud”, the poll body added.

Said defense was not accepted by the Commission which stresses that every official must act by and within the authority of a valid law and cannot justify the lack of it on the pretext alone of good intentions.

The Commission also ordered dismissed the complaint against Bai Sendig Dilangalen, now Congressman and wife of Didagen, for lack of evidence