An election protest seeking a manual recount of the ballots in the closely-fought Bato mayoral race has been filed by Princess Vanessa Rodriguez, who claimed that the May 12, 2025 elections were attended by massive fraud.
In the legal remedy filed before the Regional Trial Court last May 21, the congressman’s daughter, through counsel, claimed that illegal and fraudulent devices and schemes were employed before, during and after the elections, all of which benefited her opponent, incumbent Mayor Juan Rodulfo.
Rodulfo was proclaimed winner by the Commission on Elections after he received 7,164 votes, a margin of just eight (8) votes over the protestant’s 7,156.
“The results do not reflect the true will of the voters as they are secured through fraudulent and illegal acts, schemes, devices, and machinations employed by protestee Rodulfo, his agents, supporters and cohorts,” Rodriguez stated.
She said that fraud and deceit employed in Bato led to the systematic reduction of the votes she actually obtained while a corresponding increase was noted in the votes obtained by Rodulfo.
Thus, she added, the protestee was credited with more votes than what he actually obtained in the 32 clustered precincts.
The protest also alleged that votes were either misappreciated, misread or miscounted by the Automated Counting Machines (ACMs) in Rodulfo’s favor, to the prejudice of Rodriguez.
It claimed that based on the Statement of Votes by precinct, there are at least 318 votes that were not counted in her favor.
The irregularities and malfunctioning of the ACMs were allegedly witnessed by several pollwatchers and a member of the Electoral Board who will testify that the ACM in their respective precincts either did not print any Voter’s Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT), rejected some ballots or issued a VVPAT that did not reflect the vote for mayor and other candidates.
Identified in the protest as subject to the initial revision of ballots and representing not less than 20 percent of the protested precincts are those in Banawang, Batalay, Binanuahan, Bote and San Roque where Rodriguez collected total votes of 2,475 while Rodulfo got 1,623.
“In these pilot clustered precincts, a total of at least 94 votes were not read and counted by the ACMs in favor of protestant Rodriguez,” it claimed.
The Court was asked to issue an order directing the Election Officer and the Municipal Treasurer to take necessary measures to protect the integrity of the ballot boxes and other election documents and paraphernalia and direct their transfer and delivery to the Court for the revision of the ballots.
The protest, filed through Sardillo Sardillo Salom Law Office based in Pasig City, asked that, after due hearing and evaluation of evidence, an decision be issued finding that Rodriguez received the highest number of votes for the position of mayor in the municipality of Bato and that she be declared as the duly elected mayor, with the proclamation of Rodulfo to be annulled and set aside.
Rodriguez’s allegations of massive fraud and irregularities in the local elections in Bato raised eyebrows among political observers who noted that her father, Cong. Rodriguez, won a total of 9.542 votes in the town or over twice the number of votes garnered by his opponents.