Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro

Cojuangco era coming to an end?

- AL S. MENDOZA ALL WRITE MENDOZA,11

WHAT will Jose “Peping” Cojuangco do now that his request for a TRO (Temporary Restrainin­g Order) was denied by the Court of Appeals (CA)?

Defy the CA verdict or obey it?

Cojuangco sought the TRO when a lower court in Pasig ordered the new polls to elect the president and chairman of the POC on February 23.

Because the ruling is immediatel­y executory, Cojuangco's main relief was a TRO from the CA to stop the polls just weeks from now.

But in a decision on January 30 penned by Associate Justice Maria Filomena D. Singh of the Eleventh Division of the Appellate Court, and concurred in by division chairman Justice Ramon M. Bato Jr. and senior member Justice Edwin D. Sorongon, the CA said, “the court finds no ground for the issuance of a TRO.”

With this new developmen­t, it seems obvious now that Cojuangco has to order the elections for president and chairman, respective­ly, of the POC on February 23.

In 2016, Cojuangco won unopposed as POC president when the POC's Commission on Election disqualifi­ed boxing chief Ricky Vargas as Cojuangco's opponent.

Also disqualifi­ed was Rep. Abraham Tolentino of the Integrated Cycling Federation of the Philippine­s as candidate for chairman.

The Comelec, headed then by Frank Elizalde, ruled that Vargas and Tolentino got ousted for being “inactive members of the General Assembly.”

In going to court, Vargas claimed that the Comelec had wrongly interprete­d the “inactive member” clause when it said “active membership meant attending the General Membership meetings.” Pasig Judge Ma. Gracia Cadiz-Casaclang ruled that: One, the Comelec's interpreta­tion was wrong. Two, the Comelec had no authority to interpret the POC by-laws.

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