Coin toss settles 2 village races

MANILA, Philippines - A flip of a coin settled the electoral tie between bets for barangay chairmanship in a village in San Fernando, La Union and two cousins who both ran for councilman in Ilagan City, Isabela.

Coin toss settled the deadlock between re-electionist chairman Romulo Pulido and Raul Octavo of Barangay Pagdaraoan in San Fernando City.

Both got 405 votes, but Pulido’s choice of tails of the P5 coin prevailed over Octavo’s heads.

To seal the agreement, Pulido and Octavo signed a draft memorandum made by the chairman of the local board of canvassers in their precinct.

In Barangay Alinguigan in Ilagan City, meanwhile, cousins Nicanor Cabalonga and Faustino Cabalonga both got 279 votes in the race for councilmen.

Faustino won in the coin toss and placed fourth among the seven elected councilmen while Nicanor placed fifth.

According to the Philippine election law, tied electoral contests must be settled by the drawing of lots and coin toss is an acceptable variant.

However, retired Pangasinan regional trial court judge Ulysses Racles Batuyan criticized the practice.

“With that manner of selecting the winner, we could now dispense with the elections and save much of the public funds by allowing wannabes to draw lots even perhaps with cockpit ‘kristos’ presiding,” Batuyan said.

But coin toss is perhaps the most gentlemanly way of settling electoral ties in the country. On several occasions, mayoral bets tied on votes tossed the coin to win.

In the May 13 polls, for instance, mayoral bets tied on votes in San Teodoro, Bulacan tossed the coin to settle the impasse. Both the winner and the loser accepted the decision and shook hands afterwards. – With Raymund Catindig