Estrada ‘partner’ plea to stop recall polls rejected

MANILA: The Commission on Elections (Comelec) threw out the petition of a “partner” of former president and now Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada to stop the recall polls it ordered in suburban San Juan City in Metro Manila.

In a decision, the Comelec said the petition iled by former San Juan vice mayor Francis Zamora to hold recall election was “suficient in form and substance” so he could run anew against incumbent Mayor Guia Gomez, a former actor and Estrada’s “partner” whose son Jose Victor Ejercito is a member of the Senate.

Gomez won by 1,000 votes for mayor of San Juan in the May 2016 election against Zamora who protested her victory but later withdrew it and iled instead a petition for recall election to hasten the process, which the Comelec had granted.

The Comelec said it would verify the 30,000 signatures from San Juan residents who supported Zamora’s petition for recall election, adding it would schedule the polls if half of the signatures proved to be authentic.

The Philippine Constitution allows the Comelec to conduct recall polls to replace an incumbent elective oficial, provided this has the support of majority of residents involved through a signature campaign.

In a separate but related development, the military reported that still unidentiied gunmen shot and killed four people, including a candidate who wanted to regain his seat as the “barangay” (village) chairman on the island province of Basilan in Mindanao.

Brigadier General Juvymax Uy, the chief of the Joint Task Force Group Sulu, said the three other fatalities belonged to the family of Usan Asani, who iled his certiicate of candidacy as village chairman in the town Ungkaya Pukan, Basilan.

Uy said armed men attacked the residence of Asani, a former village chairman, early on Sunday morning, resulting in his death and three other members of this family.

The killings were the latest violence reported to the Comelec, which was related to the holding on May 14 of the nationwide election involving more than 40,000 of the country’s barangay, the country smallest political unit.

Hours after the killing, Herni Asaol, the incumbent village chief, showed up at the Army battalion headquarters in Ungkaya Pukan armed with an M16 rile, according to Uy.