Osmeña still hopeful Mabatid will lose barangay post

Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña remained hopeful that Mabolo Barangay Captain Prisca Niña Mabatid would lose her barangay chairmanship seat over a residency issue now pending in court.

The complaint was filed against her by defeated opponent Daniel Francis Arguedo, along with a separate vote buying complaint last May 24, or ten days after the barangay and youth polls.

Arguedo filed the cases against Mabatid last May 24 after the latter won the village chief post by over 1,500 votes against him.

Arguedo claimed that Mabatid was not an actual resident of the barangay and should have not been qualified to run in the first place.

He claimed that Mabatid’s house is located in a subdivision in Barangay Talamban in Cebu City.

The case remained pending in court but as to the separate vote buying case, Municipal Trial Court in Cities (MTCC) Branch One Presiding Judge Monalila Tecson has ordered it dismissed on May 28 for “insufficiency of form and substance.”

Arguedo went on to file an Omnibus Motion for Summary Judgment and for Immediate Suspension of Proclamation and to Shorten Periods of Pleadings on June 3.

On July 6, the same judge dismissed the motion for being ‘improper’ and not meritorious. A summary judgment, according to Tecson’s omnibus order, is only applicable for debts and not for election cases.

Mabatid maintained that she is a legitimate resident of Barangay Mabolo and was a registered voter of the village since 1990.

She said that she never applied to transfer her voter’s registration.

Sought for comment on Monday, Mabatid told Cebu Daily News by phone that she was “hurt” by the mayor’s pronouncement as she had nothing but respect for him.

However, she said, she could not do anything about it now and continue to protect the position she won in the barangay elections last May 14.

As to her owning a house outside of Mabolo, Mabatid said: “I have been graced with resources that’s why I was able to buy other properties in other places. But that doesn’t mean that I am no longer a resident here in Mabolo.”

Yesterday, July 16, the court has started hearings for the main quo warranto petition filed by Arguedo.

Mabatid believed that the quo warranto case was yet another attempt to destroy her reputation, as the election for the federation president of the Cebu City’s Association of Barangay Councils (ABC) is nearing.

Mabatid, who used to be belonged to the Bando Osmeña Pundok Kauswagan (BOPK), would now be running against BOPK’s bet, Kasambagan Barangay Captain Franklyn Ong.

Mabatid was asked to leave the BOPK by Osmeña after she was rumored to be going against Ong for the ABC federation presidency.

She was formally ‘kicked out’ from the party by Osmeña, through a Facebook post, following a controversial CCTV footage showing Mabatid and a companion having a heated argument with a staff of a posh hotel in Cebu City.