Canoy: I won fair and square

CEBU, Philippines - San Fernando vice mayor and mayor-elect Antonio Canoy is asking the Regional Trial Court to dismiss the election protest filed by outgoing mayor Lakambini Reluya whom he defeated in the recent polls.

Reluya has asked the court on Friday to recount and re-tabulate the election returns in 49 precincts in San Fernando. She lost to Canoy by 1,271 votes.

Canoy got 15,329 votes while Reluya got 14,055 votes. Reluya is a member of the Nacionalista Party while Canoy ran under the Liberal Party.

But in his answer before the court, Canoy denied all the allegations, saying he won fair and square despite Reluya allegedly having enjoyed all the resources and machinery during the election being the candidate under the administration.

“Independent and well-trained election observers like the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting and the C-Cimpel were fielded in all barangays and precincts in the province. Election observers said that the elections were clean, credible and orderly,” Canoy said.

Canoy was declared and proclaimed as mayor last May 11.

In her formal protest, Reluya alleged that Canoy and his supporters committed “widespread anomalies” in the May 10 polls, which allegedly involved massive vote buying.

She alleged non-registered voters were allowed to vote and that members of the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) allegedly broke the seals of the memory cards for the election machines before the actual voting.

She alleged further that the BEIs allowed Canoy’s supporters who were not illiterate or disabled to be assisted in filling out the ballots.

“The anomalies were perpetrated with impunity since (Reluya) watchers were not allowed by the BEI to enter the polling place. Worse, some of these anomalies were even committed with the participation of BEI members,” Reluya said.

She alleged a “significant number of ballots” were shaded in the oval for Canoy so that ballots for her supporters would be invalidated by the Precinct Count Optical Scanner (PCOS) machines.   (FREEMAN NEWS)