BINMALEY NEW LIGA PRESIDENT

NEW LIGA PRESIDENT. Barangay Balogo Chairman and new Liga of Barangay President Douglas delos Angeles (5th from left) and fellow village chiefs raised their No.1 sign last Thursday at the conference hall of the Binmaley town hall after they won the different seats in the League of Barangays of the Binmaley. Out of 33 town villages, 21 village chiefs attended the barangay assembly cum election but one surreptitiously left. Twenty voted  but two ballots were decided as spoiled. Eighteen votes catapulted Angeles to the presidency. The league leadership of the town had been nagged by controversy since 2013 after Acting Liga President Arsenio Merrera, a lawyer and the ex-officio representative to the town council, would not give way to Angeles despite the latter winning the league’s election in 2013. MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

WHAT HAPPENED IN DECEMBER 2013

Lawyer Manuel Manuel said the November 9, 2013 election of Angeles and his officers here have been sanctioned by their December 4, 2013  meeting after they filled their candidacy on that date.

“There was an actual meeting. They took it upon themselves to call the meeting because he no longer called a meeting after the first meeting,” he stressed.

He said it was not true as alleged by acting Liga President Arsenio Merrera to the media that there was no quorum on December 4 since the majority of the barangay chiefs who supported Balogo Barangay Chairman Douglas delos Angeles were in the other building.

The December 4 meeting sets the agenda for the December 9 election where 18 of the 33 village chiefs attended and elected delos Angeles at the Central School here despite the threat of Merrera to sue some of them with criminal usurpation because they imitated his function and those of the officials of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the Commission on Election on calling the December 4 and 9 meetings.

But Manuel downplayed the threat and instead commented that the election jibed with memorandum circular No.2013-139 dated December 2 that was signed by Secretary Mar Roxas of the DILG for an election to be held 30 days after the October 28 barangay polls.

He explained that in the first place Merrera has no personality to preside the December 9 assembly because he is an unannounced Liga candidate.

But Merrera denied he was a candidate for the post.

Merrera is identified with Mayor Sam Rosario and Vice Mayor Pete Merrera - his brother, while delos Angeles is a supporter in the May 13, 2013 election of defeated mayoral candidate Lorenzo Cerezo.

“Just like in the Sanguniang if the presiding office has sponsored a resolution or will sponsor an ordinance he will relinquish his position as presiding officer from the (legislative) body as there will be an acting presiding officer (to replace him)”.

Merrera denied that he has a moist eye on the presidency but was only following the provision of the Liga ng mga Barangay Election Code where Section 1 mandates that the president duly assisted by the government officer aforementioned shall notify, in writing, all the above concerned at least twenty-five (25) days before the scheduled election meeting on the exact date, time, place, and requirements of the said meeting.

“I told them already before that I am not obsessed about the position we have to apply the rule of law. And whoever will win I am always willing to vacate this position, “he said when asked by Northern Watch that he was blocking the election as assailed by the camp of delos Angeles because he wants to preserve his post as an Ex-Officio member of the town council.