Comelec files raps vs. Alvin Garcia for poll violation

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) yesterday filed criminal charges against former Cebu City Mayor Alvin B. Garcia for allegedly violating the provisions of the Fair Elections Act by placing paid political advertisements in a newspaper that exceeded the allowed quantity.

Garcia, who ran and lost to Mayor Tomas Osmeña in the May 10, 2004 national and local elections, is accused of violating section 6 of Republic Act 9006 that only allows the candidates of government posts to have not more than three political advertisements every week per newspaper.

Director Alioden Dalaig of the Comelec-Manila law department said the records showed that Garcia had 15 political advertisements in Sun*Star that was published from April 26 to May 2, 2004 designed to promote his candidacy.

Shortly before noon yesterday, Cebu provincial election supervisor Edwin Cadungog filed the case before the Regional Trial Court (RTC) upon the instruction of Dalaig. Cadungog was also ordered to personally handle the prosecution of the case in court and to update Dalaig about the issue.

Garcia, who was in Manila yesterday, was hesitant to make any comment. He however said that his lawyers are trying to seek some legal remedies at the Supreme Court about the case.

Once the case would be assigned to a judge a few days from now, Garcia should put up the required P12,000 bail bond for his temporary liberty, otherwise he would have to stay behind bars.

Persons convicted of election-related offenses could suffer the penalty of imprisonment of not less than one year, but not more than six years and shall not be subject to probation.

In addition, the guilty party shall be sentenced to suffer disqualification to hold public office and deprivation of the right of suffrage.

The case stemmed from the complaint of Osmeña, who strongly believed that his political rival violated the provisions of the Fair Elections Act of 2001.

One of the political advertisements published in Sun*Star that promoted the candidacy of Garcia was titled "It's a No-Contest" and it compares the accomplishments of Garcia during his term as mayor from 1995 to 2001 and to Osmeña's term from 2001 up to 2004.

The advertisement showed that during the administration of Garcia, there were only 13 barangays in the city that were seriously affected by illegal drugs, but it went up to 33 when Osmeña reassumed office in 2001.

It also said that there were no bank robberies that took place in Cebu City and the crime rate was very low during Garcia's term, while in Osmeña's leadership there were five major bank robberies and Cebu City became number 1 in crime rate outside of Manila.

The political advertisement also showed that Garcia had so many projects, including the construction of the new City Hall annex building, while there were "no new projects" during Osmeña's term from 2001 to 2004.

Garcia tried to convince the Comelec officials that he had nothing to do about those political advertisements, because it was his friends and political supporters who paid for them.

But the Comelec en banc headed by Chairman Benjamin Abalos rejected Garcia's arguments saying, "we in the commission refuse to be swayed by the arguments of the respondent."

"The contention of the respondent that he has no knowledge and control over the said advertisement deserves scant consideration. On the contrary, he is very much in control of said advertisement for the simple reason that Sun Star is owned by his family," the Comelec officials said.

Garcia also said that the questioned political advertisement was not only intended for his candidacy, but for all the 22 candidates of Kugi Uswag Sugbo (Kusug), his party.

The Comelec officials again rejected the argument, because it was very clear that no name of other candidates was printed on it.

"An inspection of the said advertisement reveals that it refers only to respondent, there is no mention of his political party or party mates, making it clear that it was his advertisement alone," Abalos said.

Osmeña and Garcia used to be close friends and running mates when both of them ran and won as mayor and vice mayor, respectively, in the 1987 elections under the Bando Osmeña Pundok-Kauswagan.

Their good friendships started to sour when the candidate of the BOPK in the barangay councilor's league elections lost to Carmen Piramide, who used to be a barangay councilwoman of Kasambagan before she was elected as city councilor.

The criticisms of Osmeña against Garcia suddenly became public and it reached a point when they engaged in a shouting match in front of reporters covering the City Hall.

When interviewed yesterday, Garcia said he has no plans to run as mayor again until the Comelec would implement the computerized counting of the votes to prevent cheating.