The Supreme Court (SC) has declared Susan Areno Yap-Sulit the duly elected and proclaimed mayor of Tarlac City, affirming her victory in the 2025 elections and making permanent an earlier order restoring her to office.

In a full Court decision written by Associate Justice Antonio T. Kho Jr. and released Friday, the Court made permanent its November 2025 status quo ante order, which reinstated Yap-Sulit as mayor while her petition was pending.

Yap-Sulit won the 12 May 2025 mayoral race and was proclaimed by the Commission on Elections (Comelec). She sought relief from the Supreme Court after the Comelec en banc reversed its Second Division’s dismissal of a disqualification case against her.

The disqualification complaint, filed by Amado S. De Leon and Jay-Ar Capulong Navarro, alleged that Yap-Sulit failed to meet the one-year residency requirement for candidates seeking the Tarlac City mayoralty.

Granting her petition, the Supreme Court ruled that the evidence failed to establish her alleged ineligibility.

“The Court respects and upholds the will of the electorate, not despite a candidate’s ineligibility, but because, from the evidence presented, there is no such ineligibility,” the decision stated.

The Court noted that Yap-Sulit had served three consecutive terms as governor of Tarlac, with her office based in Tarlac City.