Court orders Mayor to vacate post in favor of brother
Pat Samonte
Butuan City – A regional trial court here has issued a writ of execution and ordered Carmen, Agusan del Norte Mayor Ramon Calo to vacate his post in favor of his brother Jesus.
In an electoral protest that involved not only two siblings but two powerful and influential families in Agusan, Regional Trial Court Branch 3 Presiding Judge Francisco Maclang directed the sheriff to install Jesus Calo as the duly elected Carmen town mayor pursuant to his decision last February 8.
Ramon Calo was backed by former Agusan del Sur Governor Valentina Plaza and her businessman son, Boyet Plaza who ran for governor and representative respectively, of Agusan del Norte in the May 14 last year. In that electoral exercise, Jesus Calo’s supporters , incumbent Rep. Edelmiro Amante and son, Gov. Erlpe John Amante prevailed.
Maclang declared Jesus the town’s duly elected mayor with a plurality of 1,018 votes over the votes received by Ramon. Following the election, Ramon was proclaimed on May 16, 2007 based on the canvass by the Carmen Municipal Board of Canvassers crediting him with 4,818 votes against that of Jesus’ 4,540 votes or a difference of 278 votes.
In his electoral protest, Jesus alleged that the May 14 mayoral electoral exercise was marred by fraud. Maclang held that 981 votes based on stray ballots and 315 votes based on marked, claimed, written by one person, written by two persons and stray ballots should be deducted from Ramon’s votes.
Maclang’s ruling used as basis, among others, Rule 14 of Section 211 of the Omnibus Election Code which provides, “Any vote containing initials only or which illegible or which does not sufficiently identify the candidate to whom it is intended shall be considered stray vote..”
