Albay’s capital has a new mayor, and his name is Alfredo “Pido” Garbin Jr.
Garbin formally claimed the seat of power in Legazpi City after the Commission on Elections (Comelec) belatedly declared him on Monday, November 11, as the rightful winner of the 2022 mayoral race in the city.
The proclamation puts a cap on the two-year-long disqualification battle fought by Geraldine Rosal to hold on to the post she had originally won.
The circumstances surrounding the case are unique, and Garbin’s last-minute ascent to city hall is considered a defiance of odds, as longstanding jurisprudence and rules of succession under the Local Government Code dictate that the next-in-command, not the election second placer, succeed a disqualified elective official.
What exactly happened?
Rosal’s disqualification by the Comelec
Rosal’s legal nightmare stemmed from the cash assistance payout events that Legazpi city hall conducted in March and April 2022. These coincided with the 45-day election ban on the spending of public funds during the campaign period.
It was Geraldine’s husband, then-outgoing mayor Noel Rosal, who approved the disbursement of funds, even though his city administration did not seek exemption from the poll body for the events.
In May that year, Noel won the governorship of Albay, Geraldine succeeded her husband in Legazpi city hall, and then-Legazpi councilor Al Barizo won reelection. All three took part in the cash payout activities, and all three were later disqualified by the Comelec in separate decisions for violating the Omnibus Election Code.
Mr. Rosal and Barizo were axed by the Comelec for bypassing Section 261(v) of the election code on the ban on public spending by government officials for all social welfare projects during the campaign.
In Mrs. Rosal’s case, the final Comelec ruling did not use the ground that got her husband in trouble because she was not a public official at the time of the cash distribution events. It instead disqualified her using the election code’s Section 68, in relation to vote buying.
Unlike Mr. Rosal and Barizo, Mrs. Rosal successfully secured a status quo ante order from the Supreme Court, blocking the enforcement of the Comelec disqualification order against her.
What the Supreme Court says
The Supreme Court upheld the disqualifications of the Rosal couple and Barizo, but said all three were liable of violating the prohibition on the release of public funds.
It said that the Comelec erred and worked on “weak assumptions” when it disqualified Mrs. Rosal on the basis of vote buying.
In her case, the Comelec admitted a number of evidence to establish that the cash payout events were meant to induce the electorate to vote for Rosal: the display of election paraphernalia that bore her name and image, text messages to tricycle drivers thanking them for supporting the Rosals and Barizo, and Barizo’s purported Facebook post about the event that referred to Mrs. Rosal as “mayor.”
The Supreme Court said these pieces of evidence were circumstantial, and could not establish that there had been vote buying on Mrs. Rosal’s end. It insisted though that Section 261(v) also applied to her because that provision of the law states that an official’s spouse shall not participate in the distribution of relief to calamity victims.
Rosal had insisted Section 261(v)(2) could not be applied to her because the cash payout was not intended for calamity victims.
“It should also not matter that the cash assistance was not given in view of a calamity or disaster,” the ruling read. “The rationale behind the prohibition is undermined: public funds do not get insulated from political partisan activities, and government works are easily used for electioneering purposes.”
Garbin’s belated win
The mayoral election in Legazpi in 2022 was a tight race, with Mrs. Rosal defeating Garbin by only around 500 votes.
When the Comelec moved to disqualify Rosal from the race she had won, it chose Garbin as her replacement. It was an unusual decision, as lawyers pointed out to Rappler in our story from 2023.
Rosal was the subject of a disqualification petition, not a petition to have her certificate of candidacy canceled. The distinction is important, because when the Comelec eventually declares a politician’s COC void, votes cast against the person are considered stray. In the eyes of the law, the election’s first placer was never a candidate at all, which is why the second placer in the race takes over.
But in disqualification petitions granted by the commission, the Comelec recognizes a politician’s candidacy as valid. So even when they are disqualified for committing an election violation, they are still considered a legitimate candidate whom the voters wanted to win, not the second placer. That is why the winner of the next highest position takes over — in this case, the winning vice mayoral candidate.
This is a longstanding jurisprudence, and the Supreme Court recognized that this is what “normally” happens.
“However, the extraordinary factual circumstances of the case that confront the Court behooves it to exercise caution in simply following the rule and pronouncing that [Vice Mayor Bobby] Cristobal should henceforth replace [Rosal],” the ruling read.
The Court pointed out that Cristobal was identified as a participant of the cash assistance payout, and that it’s a detail they cannot simply brush aside.
“It would also be the height of absurdity and impropriety to install someone in power and effectively give the people a leader who, after all, like respondents in this case, seems to have also violated the law and thus appears to be likewise suffering from the same disqualifications for which his predecessor Carmen [Geraldine Rosal] is being removed from office as a consequence of the present decision,” the magistrates said.
Because of the High Court ruling, the Comelec convened a special board of canvassers on Monday, November 11, and in the process annulled the election victory of Rosal. They proclaimed Garbin, the second-highest vote-getter, as the actual winner of the mayoral race in 2022.
The development gives Garbin less than a year to serve, as the term expires in June 2025. Garbin won’t be able to capitalize on this legal victory to maintain his grip on city hall, however. Before the Supreme Court ruling came out, Garbin chose to run for a party-list seat in next year’s midterms polls.
As per Rosal, she was already out of city hall even prior to the promulgation of the Supreme Court resolution, due to the Ombudsman’s suspension order in September over the irregular appointment of a city engineer to the provincial engineer position.
Since Rosal’s suspension from office, Vice Mayor Cristobal has served as acting mayor of Legazpi. – Rappler.com