Dear Atty. Nico,

My aunt was a mayoralty candidate in our hometown during the 2025 election. She placed second in the polls. Prior to the election proper, she had already filed a petition to cancel the certificate of candidacy of her rival, arguing that the latter lacked the necessary number to meet the residency requirement because he was still serving as a mayor of another town. However, her opponent was eventually declared the winner of the said contest.

Three years later, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) En Banc issued its decision, declaring her opponent as disqualified. Surprisingly, he did not bother to take up his case to the Supreme Court, which led to its finality.

My question is: Can my aunt petition to have herself declared the mayor? Citing the case of Jalosjos Jr. v. Comelec (2012), the Court declared the second placer the winner upon the disqualification/ineligibility of the candidate receiving the majority votes. Is this still a good case law?

Marco

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Dear Marco,

It would seem that the above-mentioned ruling has already been overturned by a recent En Banc decision of the Supreme Court, stating that the second placer has no basis in law.

In the case of Mangundadatu v Comelec (G.R. Nos. 260219 & 260231), it was held that no law authorizes the proclamation of the second placer in the elections in case the candidate who received the most votes is disqualified or turned out to be ineligible. The second placer rule undermines the people’s choice in every election and is repugnant to the people’s constitutional right to suffrage. The Court cannot impose upon the electorate to accept as their representative, the candidate whom they did not choose in the elections.

The Court’s pronouncement in Geronimo (In re Geronimo v Ramos) is enlightening:

The importance of the people’s choice must be paramount consideration in every election, for the Constitution has vested in them the right to freely select, by secret-ballot in clean elections, the men and women who shall make laws for them or govern in their name and behalf. The people have a natural and a constitutional right to participate directly in the form of government under which they live. Such a right is among the most important and sacred of the freedoms inherent in a democratic society and one which must be most vigilantly guarded if a people desires to maintain through self-government for themselves and their posterity a genuinely functioning democracy in which the individual may, in accordance with law, have a voice in the form of his government for him.

As such, in Geronimo, the Court ruled that a permanent vacancy is created when the winning candidate is not qualified and cannot qualify for the office to which he or she was elected. For local elective officials, the permanent vacancies in the Offices of the Governor, Vice Governor, Mayor and Vice Mayor are governed by Section 44 of the LGC, while permanent vacancies in the Sanggunian shall be filled in accordance with Section 45 of the LGC.

The Court effectively abandoned the second placer rule and declared that the rules on succession under the LGC shall apply in all cases where a permanent vacancy results from a local elective official’s disqualification from office regardless of the proceedings involved.

In view of the foregoing principles, your aunt cannot petition to be proclaimed as mayor, after the disqualification of her opponent, as she merely placed second during the last local election. As the Latin maxim states: dura lex sed lex… The law may be hard but it is the law.

Atty. Nico A. Antonio