Bacolod City Legal Office head, Atty. Joselito Bayatan, following the recent decision by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to dismiss with finality the electoral protest by former Bacolod City Mayor Monico Puentevella, yesterday responded to claims by the former mayor regarding the number of supporters questioning the result of the 2016 mayoral polls by differentiating “supporters” from “voters.”

“Supporters doesn’t necessarily mean they are also voters,” he said.

Bayatan said, if the Comelec sided with Puentevella, it would “open the floodgates of frivolous and sham elections.”

“At the very start of Puentevella’s complaint, he already [didn’t] have [evidence] to present,” he added. “He has no basis to call for a recount.”

The former mayor said he has around 120,000 supporters questioning the result and wondered how he only received 97,933 votes.

Earlier, the Comelec Electoral Contests Adjudication Department (ECAD) issued a certificate, signed on October 27 by ECAD director Allen Francis Abaya, supporting the Comelec decision to dismiss Puentevella’s appeal, citing it on “insufficiency in form and content.”

Copies of the Comelec certificate of finality were also forwarded to President Rodrigo Duterte, the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), the Commission on Audit (COA), and the Bacolod City Sangguniang Panlungsod (SP).

Leonardia won the May 2016 elections with a total of 120,231 votes against Puentevella’s 97,993./DGB, WDJ