From the
Philippine Daily Inquirer.
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MANILA, Philippines—The Commission on Elections (Comelec) Tuesday ordered Isabela Gov. Grace Padaca to vacate her post to give way to former Gov. Benjamin Dy, saying the latter won in its recount by a thousand votes.
The Comelec Second Division ruled in favor of Dy almost three years after the 2007 gubernatorial election.
Commissioner Nicodemo Ferrer said Padaca should leave Isabela’s top position because Dy was the rightful winner.
“Wherefore, the Commission Second Division resolves … to grant the instant petition, to annul the proclamation of protestee, and to direct the protestee to vacate the office of the provincial governor of Isabela and relinquish the same to protestant,” the division said in its decision.
Dy received a total of 199,435 votes, while Padaca got 198,384 votes, a lead of only 1,051 votes, according to the Comelec’s appreciation of votes.
After Ferrer read the dispositive portion of the decision, Dy and his supporters clapped.
Padaca did not attend the promulgation. Her lawyer immediately left the session hall but said the Padaca camp would appeal the case.
“I am glad that the Comelec saw the basis of glaring election fraud in Isabela as shown by markings on the ballots,” Dy said in a statement distributed immediately after the promulgation.
In his electoral protest, Dy said there were thousands of ballots marked for his opponent with the same handwriting. The Dy camp protested the ballots from 13 Isabela towns, including the provincial capital of Ilagan.
Padaca was declared governor in 2007 after getting 17,007 more votes than Dy.
30-year hold endedShe ended the Dy family’s almost 30-year hold of the top leadership in the province when she defeated then reelectionist Gov. Faustino Dy Jr., Benjamin’s brother, in the 2004 election.
After graduating magna cum laude from the Lyceum of the Philippines in 1984, she worked as a radio commentator for Radyo Bombo.
Padaca, a 2008 Ramon Magsaysay awardee who is with the Liberal Party (LP), will seek a third term next year against another member of the Dy clan, Isabela Rep. Faustino Dy III, a brother of Faustino and Benjamin.
Benjamin Dy, a known ally of the Arroyo administration, is the official candidate of Lakas-Kampi-CMD in the May 2010 elections for a mayoral race in the province.
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So the Dy clan, who has been holding the top post in Isabela for 30 years and is a political ally of GMA lost to a woman in a wheelchair with no previous political experience by cheating to win the seat for governor of Isabela.
Makes sense.
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