The Commission on Elections (Comelec) Second Division has dismissed the disqualification case filed against boxing champion Manny Pacquiao by his rival in the Sarangani congressional race.
In a decision dated April 29, the division chaired by Commissioner Nicodemo Ferrer, said Roy Chiongbian’s claim that Pacquiao was a resident of this city and not Sarangani province had no basis.
Chiongbian had cited Pacquiao’s businesses and real properties in this city as proof he lived here.
In its decision, the Comelec admitted that the boxing icon’s “transfer of his voter’s registration from Lagao, General Santos City, to Kiamba, Sarangani, on Dec. 15, 2008, by itself is not sufficient to prove that he has abandoned his former residence.”
But it said that Pacquiao’s “various acts and utterances even before his transfer of his voter’s registration and thereafter would indubitably show that respondent has completely abandoned his former residence.”
Pacquiao’s camp said the boxer, who is making a second stab at politics after losing the South Cotabato congressional race in 2007, was elated by the decision.
Chiongbian, scion of a powerful political and shipping family, filed the case against Pacquiao after the pugilist’s camp had sought his [Chiongbian’s] disqualification also on the grounds of non-residency.
The Comelec dismissed the petition but the People’s Champ Movement filed an appeal.
Early this week, the Comelec en banc ruled with finality and upheld its previous ruling that Chiongbian was a resident of Sarangani.
Government prosecutors in Sarangani, meanwhile, junked Friday the charges filed against five supporters of Pacquiao who were linked to the supposed ambush of a town mayor last week.
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