TAGBILARAN CITY- Still wanted after a graft conviction, former Alicia mayor Marnilou Ayuban is losing grip of his tenacious hold to the position as elected mayor, as the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) First Division dismissed his instant appeal he filed as a last ditch effort to keep his mayoralty victory alive and valid.
Ayuban, who is now a fugitive, faces 10 years and 8 months and perpetual disqualification from public office, after being convicted by a court, of graft violation.
Already winning the seat as mayor in Alicia town during the 2022 election, Ayuban however found himself in a legal bind when his graft conviction which happened before the elections surfaced.
Earlier, his political opponent, former mayor Victoriano Torres III filed for a disqualification case and petitioned the COMELEC in Manila to cancel Ayuban’s COC.
But, having won the elections, Ayuban took his oath of office last June 18, in Luzon.
Ayuban, who has gone up hiding from law, is facing arrest warrants.
With a pending disqualification case and petition for cancellation of his Certificate of Candidacy (COC) before the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in Manila, Ayuban, through counsel, tried all means to get a favourable reversal.
After the elections, Torres filed quo waranto case before the RTC in Carmen questioning the elected mayor’s power on the ground of material misrepresentation for failure of Ayuban to declare his case in his COC.
Ayuban, who was a Sangguniang Kabataan Federated Chairman and youth sectoral representative in the town’s council, along with 7 others, did not recognize the appointment of Jonathan Puracan, to sit on the unfinished term of Rogelio Balahay, who resigned as a sitting councilor in 2002.
Puracan, the aggrieved party filed a complaint before the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas.
Meanwhile, RTC Branch 51 in Carmen, found Ayuban and 7 more councillors guilty for violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act and Judge Patsita Sarmiento-Gamutan ordered their arrest.
On June 27, 2016, the RTC found Ayuban and the 7 accused guilty and sentenced each with the penalty of imprisonment of six years with perpetual disqualification from public office.
As Ayuban’s co-accused bowed to the order of the court and served their penalties, Ayuban and two more accused, sought for other legal remedies.
They filed an appeal for their conviction, but on March 12, 2019, the Court of Appeals Special 20th Division in Cebu City affirmed the penalty with modification.
From 6 years imprisonment, the CA ruled a penalty of imprisonment of up to 10 years and six months as maximum, and affirmed the lower court’s decision on the perpetual disqualification from public office.
Not content with the decision, Ayuban and company sought the Supreme Court’s intervention through a petition for review of their case.
On March 11, 2020, the Supreme Court Second Division however denied the petition for review and the decision became final and executory by October 14, 2020 as recorded in the Book of Entries of Judgments.
As to the COMELEC, Ayuban filed another appeal, but when he paid the P1,000 filing fee for the appeal at the lower court, he missed paying the COMELEC appeal fee of P3,200 in time, as prescribed causing the poll body to dismiss the appeal, in a decision dated October 7, 2022.
At this, Ayuban, through counsel, filed a motion for reconsideration, with motion to admit the appeal fee on October 25, 2022, but the Election Contests Adjudication Department (EAD), in its decision No. 055-2022 said, relative to the instant case, the respondent failed to pay the required COMELEC appeal fee.
Citing the Supreme Court in the case of Divinagracia vs COMELEC, the EAD finds the non-payment as not excusable, and thus the dismissal.
Finally, the EAD and the COMELEC en banc, through its Judicial Records Division has remanded all the case files to the RTC after the issuance of the entry of judgment and the succeeding order of finality. (PR)
