Yt Framework

Congresswoman Maria Isabelle "Beng" Climaco-Salazar has filed her "Opposition/Challenge" to the Application for Voter's Registration of mayoral aspirant former Zamboang del Norte Congressman Romeo "Nonong" Jalosjos.

Salazar on Friday afternoon trooped to the Commission on Elections District II main office's Election Registration Board (ERB) at Joaquin F. Enriquez Memorial Sports Complex, R.T. Lim Blvd., to personally file the 2-page petition.

The House Deputy Speaker for Mindanao, who declared recently her mayoral bid for the City of Zamboanga, wants Jalosjos disqualified from registering as a voter for the conviction of his crime of Statutory Rape and Acts of Lasciviousness.

The lady solon cited that Jalosjos' conviction was upheld by the Supreme Court in its decision in the case of People of the Philippines vs. Romeo G. Jalosjos, G.R. Nos. 132875-76, dated November 16, 2001.

In the said decision, the Court upheld the Regional Trial Court's decision finding Jalosjos guilty beyond reasonable doubt of 2 counts of Statutory Rape and 6 counts of Acts of Lasciviousness, sentencing him to Reclusion Perpetua and Reclusion Temporal, respectively for each count.

Having been convicted by the final judgement, Salazar says that Mr. Jalosjos suffers from the accessory penalty of perpetual absolute disqualification under Article 30 of the Revised Penal Code, including being deprived of the right to vote in any election for any popular elective office or to be elected to such office.

Jalosjos, in response, said the filing was already expected from his political detractors just for him to stop from running in the May 2013 elections.

"Ya prepara ya kita conese...cuestion lang de mio, porque man ansina? Manda maga hente iscuhi (I'm prepared for that..my only question, why is it like that? Let the people choose)," he said in chavacano in an interview aired over Radio Mindanao Network (RMN).

Citing the technicality of law which takes precedence over it, he said there is a ''later provision" in the Local Government Code that an ex-convict can be a voter and can be voted after two years lapsed from the time of his release serving sentence.

Jalosjos had earlier said that for any convicted felon who served his sentence fully, he is qualified to run for any office on the local level three years after the completion of his sentence.

Cong. Climaco, meanwhile, said that even if Jalosjos was granted a commutation sentence by then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the commutation merely reduced his original sentence from an imprisonment of 40 years to 16 years, three months and three days and has not reinstate his privilege to register as voter, to vote and be voted unless these are expressly remitted and restored by pardon.

"Since Mr. Jalosjos was not granted an absolute pardon but a mere commutation of sentence, his perpetual absolute disqualification remains. The commutation of sentence is not the same nor equal to a summary pardon," Climaco's petition read.

Climaco is considered as the closest rival of Jalosjos and Congressman Erbie Fabian in the mayoral race in the forthcoming May 2013 elections.

She assured that they at Liberal Party will always remain vigilant in the enforcement of the laws to ensure that no person, regardless of his wealth and influence, gain any undue advantage at the expense of ordinary citizens, consistent with the "No Wang Wang" policy of the President and in pursuit of his "Matuwid na Daan."