By Dominique Gabriel G. Bañaga

Former Bacolod City Vice Mayor Jude Thaddeus Sayson and 2016 congressional candidate questioned the motion for reconsideration filed by Bacolod City Lone District Rep. Greg Gasataya after the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET) dismissed the latter’s request to dismiss the challenge to the electoral results.
“If you have nothing to hide why file a petition to dismiss?” asked Sayson. “I am very vocal in all my interviews that, if we can know what really happened to the 27,000 votes and it shows he won, I am going to help him.”
“This is the third (time) the other camp has presented their defense, with the (same) basis, and the first two petitions were junked,” he added. “We should be now proceed to the next level and start the counting.”
Sayson noted, if Gasataya is confident of victory, he should join him in requesting the HRET “hasten the recount process so that, once and for all, we will know who really won.”
He also jabbed at the congressman for not being forthright on how he is funding his legal defense.
Sayson, who ran under National Unity Party/Pamilya MKK, earned 84,431 votes, while Gasataya, who ran under the Bacolod City Mayor Evelio Leonardia’s Grupo Progreso banner, received 85,467 votes./WDJ