Former Pinamungajan Mayor Geraldine “Gaye” Yapha has withdrawn the electoral protest she filed against Rep. Gwendolyn Garcia before the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal.
The motion to withdraw was filed before the tribunal last Tuesday, June 30, by Yapha’s counsel. In a statement, Yapha said that her decision to withdraw the case is based solely on her desire to focus all her resources for her candidacy in the 2016 elections.
“My decision to withdraw my election protest does not mean and should not be taken to mean that I am conceding to Gwen, as the duly elected Congresswoman of the 3rd District of Cebu,” she said.
Yapha ran against Garcia in 2013 for a seat in Congress as Cebu’s 3rd district representative.
She lost to Garcia by 1,984 votes.
It has been two years since Yapha filed her protest and she has already spent over P600,000 for the ballots from the contested precincts to be retrieved, recounted, and re-appreciated. Since the filing, only 109 of the 434 precincts were checked and the tribunal has not given any feedback yet.
“I have come to accept that my situation is just part of the reality of our system,” she added.