The Commission on Elections First Division has ruled that there is no need to proceed with the recount of the votes for the mayor of Himamaylan in the remaining precincts of the city as they would not overcome those garnered by Mayor Agustin Ernesto Bascon who had been proclaimed the winner of the 2010 polls.

A copy of the COMELEC First Division order was furnished the DAILY STAR yesterday by Bascon.

Bascon had won as mayor of Himamaylan City with 20,471 votes against his uncle, Antonio Gatuslao, who garnered 15,510 votes.

Gatuslao filed a verified petition contesting the election of Bascon as mayor and questioning the results in the 316 percents of Himamaylan on the grounds of mis-appreciation of votes due to manipulation of the Precinct Count Optical Scan machines, defects in the production of election returns, uncounted votes, disenfranchisement of voters, and rejection of ballots.

Bascon denied the allegations and asserted that should there be a recount and appreciation of ballots he would still emerge the winner and his winning margin would further increase.

The COMELEC First Division order said it appears that the results of the recount would show that Gatuslao failed to obtain a reasonable recovery from the pilot precincts where he could best establish his projected gain over Bascon.

The COMELEC division dated January 31, 2012 is signed by Presiding Commissioner Rene Sarmiento and Commissioners Armando Velasco and Christian Robert Lim*CPG

back to top