A candidate for mayor in the interior town of Carmen was disqualified to run in the coming May polls for being a “fugitive from justice”. The Post obtained a copy of the resolution of the First Division of the Commission on Elections disqualifying Conchita A. Toribio a.k.a Conchita T. de los Reyes or Conchita T Ordonez which was promulgated last Feb. 17. The disqualification case was filed by his rival to the mayoralty incumbent Carmen Mayor Manuel Molina. The Molina petition for disqualification cited as misleading the use of Conchita of a surname de los Reyes, the surname of her second and bigamous marriage with a certain Francisco de los Reyes. It was stressed in the petition that the first or original husband of Conchita is still alive whose marriage with her has not been declared null and void. The same said that there was no declaration of nullity of marriage of their Marriage Contract xxx on the basis that it does not contain any material entry, remarks of annotation that it is declared null and void by a court of competent authority taking cognizance of the petition.

Moreover, the same petition added that under the circumstances that Conchita is validly married to Zosimo Ordonez, her marriage to Francisco de los Reyes is bigamous in nature. It being a bigamous marriage, she is never allowed to use the surname of Francisco de los Reyes. Instead, Conchita should use the surname Ordonez. According to petitioner Molina, it was his humble opinion that Conchita was hiding her true identity as Conchita A. Toribio probably by entering into second or bigamous marriage and using her second husband's surname as de los Reyes to avoid further criminal liabilities. Molina has gathered that Conchita in 1997 using her full maiden name Conchita A. Toribio and not Conchita T. Ordonez or Conchita de los Reyes was facing a number of criminal cases. Among them were violations of Batas Pambansa Blg. 22 or Bouncing Check Law before the MTCC-1, Tagbilaran City , estafa before MTCC-2, Tagbilaran City with warrants of arrest still unserved. Among the salient features of the respondent's Answer Cum Memorandum were the following:

A perusal of Section 39 and 40 of the Local Government Code, which gives the qualifications of an elective local official, would readily show that there is no requirement at all referring to the civil status of a candidate before he or she can be allowed to run for an elective office. 2. Respondent is thus of the humble submission that whatever statements which she made in her COC as regards her civil status, whether the same be true or false, cannot be considered as material misrepresentation as it has no relevance to a candidate's qualification for an elective office. Hence, it cannot constitute a ground for disqualification under Section 78 in relation to Section 74 of the Omnibus Election Code. The instant petition should therefore be dismissed for lack of merit.

FUGITIVE FROM JUSTICE

The issue of fugitive from justice was taken cognizance by the poll body after it was gathered that Conchita was not only facing criminal cases in MTCC-Tagbilaran, she had also pending cases in various MTCCs in Rizal and Bacoor. Status of these cases was that either she was wanted, arrested or charged. According to the poll body, on the strength of these cases, it found out that respondent was somehow always on the run in evading her cases she has been facing. According to the nine-page Comelec resolution, these cases could have been the very reason respondent was always hiding and away from the scrutinizing public eye. In handing out a disqualification ruling, the First Division cited petitioners allegations that respondent was a fugitive from justice being wanted for a certain case among piles of cases with warrants of arrest.

These allegations were not controverted by respondent when she filed her Answer Cum Memorandum. In fact, the poll body said, respondent only chose to focus on answering the issue on material misrepresentation by arguing, albeit correctly, that the civil status of a candidate and use of a particular surname has no relation to the qualifications for an elective office. As for the definition of fugitive from justice, the Comelec cited Black's Law Dictionary which defines the same as: A person who having committed a crime, flees from jurisdiction of court where crime was committed or departs from his usual place of abode and conceals himself within the district. A person who, having committed or been charged with crime in one place, has left its jurisdiction and is found within the territory of another when it is sought to subject him to criminal process of former state.