Reyes insists she won Marinduque congressional race

MANILA, Philippines -  â€œEven in his hometown, I defeated him.”

Thus said Marinduque Rep. Gina Reyes as she insisted yesterday that she won over Lord Alan Jay Velasco in the May 13 polls.

In a statement, Reyes said it is clear that she won the Marinduque congressional race, beating Velasco, the then incumbent, by about 3,800-plus votes. Reyes garnered a total of 52,209 votes.

She added that even in Torrijos, Velasco’s hometown, she won after getting 6,151 votes compared to Velasco’s 6,047 votes.

“This proves that even the hometown of Velasco was not happy with his performance. Otherwise, being the incumbent then, he should have won by a landslide,” she said.

Reyes said she wondered “why it seems that it is only the Comelec (Commission on Elections) and the SC (Supreme Court) that want Velasco to win. Clearly, Marinduque (folk) wanted me to represent them in Congress.”

The Comelec disqualified Reyes although the complainant, Joseph Socorro Tan, only cited a blog from the Internet in his complaint and presented a mere photocopy of the alleged evidence pointing to her as being a foreign citizen, she said.

She also cited the dissenting opinion of Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. in the poll body’s decision to disqualify her.

Brillantes said Tan’s “factual allegations are at best, circumstantial in character and by themselves do not prove” that Reyes lost her Philippine citizenship.

Brillantes added that the travel records submitted by Tan “are also without hearing,” and the printed blog article showing that Reyes used a US passport on June 30, 2012 “is hearsay.”

He also said that the purported copy of the Bureau of Immigration certification is merely a photocopy and not even certified to be a true copy of the original, thus “similarly inadmissible.”