ER

The Supreme Court upheld a ruling by the Commission of Elections removing embattled Laguna Gov. Emilio Ramon “ER” Ejercito from his post for campaign overspending during the last mid-term election. The SC denied the petition for certiorari filed by Ejercito and upheld the resolution of the Comelec First Division to unseat the Laguna governor for violation of the Omnibus Election Code. The May 1, 2014 resolution of Comelec was upheld, which in turn granting the petition for disqualification filed by private respondent Edgar San Luis dated September 26, 2013. The Court Voting 12-0, last May 23, Ejercito asked the SC the nullify the May 1 resolution, he argued that the poll body committed grave abuse of discretion in disqualifying him from his post considering there is no formal complaint for disqualification lodged against him, he noted that what was filed by his political rival San Luis (Liberal Party) Before the poll body was only to initiate a criminal proceeding for violation of election laws. Thus, Ejercito argued, Comelec’s resolution has no legal basis, they merely assumed that the case was for disqualification, which is contrary to Section 68 of the Omnibus Election Code, instead of filing a criminal complaint against him or ordering a conduct of an inquiry into allegations of overspending, he said, he was already disqualified from the office, he said a TRO should be issued immediately to avoid irreparable injury in his part as the ruling would become final within five days upon its promulgation. The Comelec held that Ejercito spent up to P23,563,365.28 for his campaign although he is only authorized to spend P4,576,566 or P3 for every registered voter in his province. Out of so many winning candidates in the same boat, ER was singled out to be ousted for election overspending, making him the first to be unseated because of the alleged overspending.

Around six months ago, The Comelec created a Campaign Finance Unit which reviews the Statement of Contributions and Expenses (SOCE) of all candidates in 2010 and 2013. According to Brillantes, from there you can already clearly see who overspent, so they are filing charges against those politicians. They have already filed over a hundred cases for preliminary investigation and expect to file over 2,000 more cases. Brillantes clarified, though, that this exercise is not selective and not targeted against political dynasties. They base their charges purely on the SOCE, whether the politician is an incumbent or lost the election. They are also filing charges against both national and local officials. As a seasoned politician, ER should be well-versed with the do’s and don’ts of campaigning, he should already know the limitations set by the Comelec as to only how much he should spend in the whole campaign period. If he thinks that the Administration is out to get him and the other members of his family (since JV and Erap also have pending Comelec cases), then he should have been more careful. He should have used his “extra” campaign budget for something less obvious instead of getting into an advertising contract for commercials to be seen by a lot of viewers.