SC dismisses Tinga’s ‘moot’ 2010 protest vs Cayetano

MANILA, Philippines – The Supreme Court dismissed on Tuesday, July 2, the petition filed by former Supreme Court Justice Dante Tinga that questioned the poll body’s dismissal of his protest case against Maria Laarni Cayetano, to whom he lost in the 2010 elections mayoral elections in Taguig.

Supreme Court Spokesperson Theodore Te said the high court dismissed the petition for being “moot and academic,” as the contested tenure for the post had already expired.

Tinga had questioned the Commission on Election (Comelec) for deciding his poll protest based on the images of the ballots from the compact flash cards used during 2010 elections. 

The law requires that the actual ballots be reviewed in the event of a recount. The images of the ballots from the CF cards should be used as basis on the recount only if the ballots show signs of tampering.

However, the Comelec couldn’t review the ballots because Cayetano’s camp refused to give the poll body access to the ballots, which were kept at city hall.

Tinga scored the Comelec for its “utter powerlessness and lack of will to assert its constitutional authority” adding that its “importuning and maneuvers of the political powers aligned with the adverse party.”

In 2013 elections, Tinga fielded her daughter Rica against re-electionist Cayetano. The incumbent mayor defeated Rica Tinga by 23,000 votes.

The daughter Tinga earlier said she might challenge the results of the 2013 mayoral contest. 

In a press release sent out on May 14, before the canvassing of votes was completed, her camp claimed there was “massive cheating, the worst of which is the use of pre-shaded ballots that favored Mayor Lani Cayetano and her whole ticket.”

Read: Lani Cayetano wins by a landslide in Taguig

During the proclamation, however, Tinga’s counsel Benedict Litonjua did not object to proclaiming Cayetano “without prejudice to the 100% threshold set by Comelec.”

A Rappler report showed that only 47 percent of the vote counting machines in Taguig last elections were able to transmit results to the Comelec central server.

The recent Cayetano-Tinga face-off was the only mayoral race in the National Capital Region where both candidates were female. The Tingas and the Cayetanos have a rivalry running back nearly 30 years. – Rappler.com