Petitions have been filed before the Commission on Elections in Manila seeking the cancellation of the certificates of candidacy of Murcia Mayor Esteban Coscolluela and his wife, Judith.

The mayor, who is running for congressman of the third district of Negros Occidental under the Atun Tamdon Utod Negrosanon party, furnished the DAILY STAR with copies of the petitions yesterday, which he called pure political harassment.

His wife, Judith, is running for mayor of Murcia town in Negros Occidental.

The petitions to deny due course and or cancel the certificates of candidacy of the Coscolluela couple were filed by Edgar Penonal of Fermont Village , Victorias City .

The grounds cited is that Coscolluela and his wife, who have been serving Murcia for three terms, have no voting records in the National Central File Division when the first procedural step the COMELEC officer performs upon the filing of COC is to check whether the candidate is an active voter, the mayor said.

But the mayor said he is not surprised at the low move against him and his wife that “can only be politically motivated.”

Coscolluela said his political opponents claim confidence that they can get the third district and Murcia through scandalous spending, but their non-verbal language says otherwise because they are resorting to desperate measures.

Their supposed confidence is belied by their actions, he added.

In his petitions against the Coscolluela couple, Penonal said they made false and material representations in their COCs when they indicated that they are residents of Hacienda Puyas, Barangay Blumentritt, Murcia, and are registered voters of Precinct 0061-A in the barangay.

The mayor is not a registered voter of the legislative district where he filed his COC, and his wife is not a registered voter of Murcia , claimed Penonal, who attached a certification issued by the COMELEC, noting that their claim is not available in the National Central File Division, Election Records and Statistics Department of the COMELEC.

Running for congressman of the third district against Coscolluela are Alfredo Abelardo Benitez of the Nationalist People's Coalition-United Negros Alliance, and Ted Victor Jimenez, an independent bet.

Running for Murcia mayor against Mrs. Coscolluela is Andrew Montelibano of the NPC.*CPG

back to top