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By ANDREW DOGA-ONG/PIA- Mountain Province

BONTOC, Mt. Province — The Commission on Election (Comelec) has approved the conduct of an Automated Special Election in sitio Apalis, Barangay Bunot, Paracelis to determine the number 7 and number 8 members of the Sangguniang Bayan of this eastern municipality.

The approval of the conduct of the automated special elections in Precinct No. 30A, sitio Apalis, in barangay Bunot is contained in a COMELEC Minute Resolution No. 10-1362.

Provincial Election Supervisor Atty. Ricardo Lampac said the special election in Paracelis is scheduled on March 12, 2011.

It can be recalled that on the morning of the May 10, 2010 on the day of the local and national elections in sitio Apalis, Bunot, two armed men barged into the polling place and forcibly took the Precinct Count Optical Scan(PCOS) machine including election paraphernalia and burned the same outside the school building.

This incident prompted Marilyn Wanason, to petition the Comelec to declare a failure of elections in precinct 30A which was granted. The precinct has 148 total registered voters.

Based on the tabulated election results, the first six candidates with the highest votes for the SB were proclaimed as the 148 votes from sitio Apalis will not in anyway affect the result of the election.

However, Comelec did not proclaim the seventh and eight winners in the SB elections considering that only few votes separated them from number 9 and 10 candidates with highest votes. Tabulated election results show rank number 6 garnered a total of 2,820 votes while number 7 got 2,429 votes with a difference of 391 votes.

Comelec officials said the result of the elections at Apalis will definitely alter the positions of the 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th highest in the elections for members of the SB of the municipality.

Winning candidates in the national and provincial levels and also the other positions in the municipality of Paracelis were all proclaimed as the votes in Apalis, will not in anyway alter the results of the elections.

The six proclaimed SB members are Ruben Manat, Lorenzo Carpio, Belio Banggot, Majorie Oredina, Toy Tangbawan and Ramon Bucatan. Vying for the last two slots are Cesar Corcha, Mike Asuud, Juan Batoy and Marilyn Wanason.

Atty. Lampac instructed the Acting Election Officer of Paracelis to give copies of the COMELEC Resolution to the affected candidates, political parties and the citizen’s arm of election office for their information and guidance. # nordis.net