1 week Ago By Pachico A. Seares
[] Joel Garganera or “Panday,” one of Kusug-Panaghiusa’s bets in Cebu City north for the 2025 election, was delayed for 15 days in assuming office in 2019 because of delay in his proclamation. Was it legally deemed an interruption to determine term limit? If it was, did the period of delay last long enough to matter? [] Petition filed Thursday, April 3, 2025 by one Casmero Asefre Mahilum of V-One, Nasipit, Barangay Talamban, Cebu City alleges that Garganera’s seeking a fourth term in next May’s election “violates the Constitution and existing laws” as it is a breach of the three-term limit. NOT DISPUTED in the controversy over Cebu City Councilor Joel C.
Garganera’s running for reelection in the May 2025 election are these: [1] THREE CONSECUTIVE ELECTIONS. Garganera, was first elected as councilor in 2016, No. 8 in the Cebu City north race.
In 2019, he was reelected when from No. 10 he, with the No. 9 councilor, moved up to the winning column after two BOPK candidates -- Sisenio Andales and Alvin Arcilla -- were thrown out by a Supreme Court ruling that disqualified them.
Garganera was declared the winner by a special board of canvassers on July 16, 2019 and sworn into office the following day, July 17. In 2022, Garganera ran again and won, this time placing No. 3.
Thus, Garganera had gone through three consecutive elections: 2016, 2019 and 2022. And will have served three consecutive terms by June 30, 2025. [2] THEN A FOURTH ONE.
For the elections this May 2025, Councilor Garganera filed a certificate of candidacy for councilor on October 8, 2024. Comelec in its ministerial duty accepted his COC and the reelectionist councilor’s name is on the ballot. Three actual consecutive elections and three terms actually served.
Although Garganera asserts the count was interrupted in the second election in 2019. For purposes of term limit, Garganera must believe 2025 is his second election as the term-limit count would start in 2022, that is if the 2019 term will be considered to have legally interrupted it. Mahilum disagrees and has complained to the Comelec.
[] THE LAW. Section 8 of the Constitution provides, “The term of office of elected local officials, except barangay officials, which shall be determined by law, shall be three years and no such official shall serve for more than three consecutive terms. Voluntary renunciation of the office for any length of times shall not be considered an interruption in the continuity of his service for the full term for which he was elected.
” The Local Government Code, in section 43 (b), ifted the same provision from the Constitution, adding as qualifier to “three consecutive terms” the phrase “in the same position.” The law is not disputed. What’s being quarreled and litigated over is the interpretation of what constitutes interruption of the service, other than voluntary renunciation of the office.
As in previous cases on term limit, the Garganera case rests on the issue of interruption. WHERE THE LEGAL DISPUTE LIES. On two questions: (a) Was there a legal interruption when Garganera’s proclamation and assumption of service in July 2019 were delayed? (b) If there was a legal interruption, was the 15-day delay substantial enough to take out one term from the term-limit count and/or start the count a-fresh? (News reports said “15 days” but the Mahilum petition says “16 days.
”) Garganera publicly defended his position as early as on March 31, 2024 when he told me it was an involuntary interruption of office because the Comelec cancelling Sisenio Andales’s COC became final only on July 16, 2019 and Garganera was sworn into office (by then mayor Edgardo Labella) the following day, July 17. The councilor said that “according to jurisprudence that was an interruption of office, a term not fully served.” He said then and he said again following the Mahilum complaint, “I am still eligible to run.
” Related: Seares: Cebu City Councilor Joel Garganera to run in 2025 for a fourth consecutive term. ARGUMENT ON ISSUE OF INTERRUPTION. Petitioner Mahilum through his lawyers, citing what’s “implied” from Tallado versus Commission on Elections, argues that “in order for there to be interruption of term, a person must have first acquired title to the office since interruption requires loss of title to the office.
” In another case, Aldovino Jr. versus Comelec, the SC ruled that interruption occurs when “there is loss of title to office or at least an effective break from holding it, implying that one must have acquired title to the office before it can be lost and thereafter interruption occurs.” In the same case, the high court used the term “severance” from office “as a requirement for an interruption of term to happen.
” And when did Garganera acquire title to the seat of Cebu City councilor in 2019? Mahilum lawyers say, citing Chairman Chavez va. Ronidel, “an oath of office is a qualifying requirement for a public office, a prerequisite to the full investiture of the office.” Applying to the Garganera case, the petition says he had yet to assume office before the decisions cancelling the COCs of Andales and Alvin Arclilla became final.
Only when the rulings became final that Garganera was sworn into office. “Delay for a few weeks of respondent’s assumption to office,” Mahimlum argued, “is not an interruption of his term as he did not yet acquire title to the office prior to his being sworn to office.” Garganera’s continuity of service “was never interrupted” after he was sworn to office on July 17, 2019 until June 30, 2022.
“He is deemed to have served his full term in 2019. There was “a mere delay in his assumption to office.” Thus Mahilum alleges.
Reduced to simpler terms, no term to interrupt when the term had not started. In “kuwentong barbero,” nothing to cut when there’s no hair or hair’s not grown. OK, TERM WAS INTERRUPTED: WAS HIS ACTUAL SERVICE FULL? Prefacing with the lawyerly “assuming but not conceding,” Mahilum through his lawyers says that Garganera’s service from 2019 to 2022 should still be considered full because the delay was so small to matter (“minuscule amount of time”), in this case in order to be considered as interruption of a three-year term.
Councilor Joel told me in March 2024 that the Supreme Court has ruled that the break or term “need not be for a full term of three years or for the major part of the three-year term, an interruption for any length of time, provided the cause is involuntary, is sufficient to break the continuity of service.” Strangely, at least to non-lawyers, both Mahilum and Garganera cite the same SC cases, namely (scroll up to check) Tallado versus Comelec and Aldovino Jr. versus Comelec.
Mahilum uses the cases for the argument that service had not started and thus there was no term to interrupt. Garganera uses the same cases for the argument that the interruption may be “for any length of time provided the cause is involuntary.” WHO IS MAHILUM? His identity is not relevant to the legal issue but it’s interesting to know who’s or what’s actually driving the petitioner to spend time and money and risk public exposure and possible reprisal just to have one councilor re-electionist shut out from the city legislature.
It could be Mahilum himself, on his own, waging a personal vendetta or fueled by a sense of civic mindedness, whichever, to uphold the law. It could be a rival candidate who, in some survey, is trailing Garganera. Or the leader of a rival party that wants to dominate the next City Council by putting in as many winners as possible.
Check out Mahilum’s political ties, which might lead to the mastermind. A lawyer tipped news reporters to check out the money trail, who’s paying for or providing the lawyers, or whose cases the Mahilum lawyers have been handling. Usually, politicians hire the same lawyers in their litigations.
Mahilum’s petition, the document says, is handled by SALIGAL Law Offices at the Sail Center Commercial Complex, Jose L. Briones St., North Reclamation Area in Cebu City, represented by Attys.
BJ Y. San Antonio and Aretha Belle A. Geganto.
Who’s picking up the tab for the billable hours?.
