CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – Losing Pampanga gubernatorial candidate Danilo Baylon has filed an election protest before the Commission on Elections claiming irregularities in the 2025 midterm elections.
“We believe that if the elections have been clean and the automated election system has really performed, we believe that Danilo Baylon would have won. This is based on pre-election surveys that were repeatedly conducted. That’s why we were very surprised with the outcome of the elections,” said Atty. Ernesto Franciso, legal counsel of Baylon, in a media interview on May 23 after filing the election protest.
Official results showed incumbent Vice Gov. Lilia “Nanay” Pineda won the gubernatorial race with a total of 709,694 votes against Baylon’s 476,642 votes.
The election protest also questioned the integrity of the automated counting machines.
“If you look at the affidavit that we submitted, these are supposedly very new machines. But why is it that there were repeated malfunctioning, all kinds of malfunctioning. We were surprised when we gathered testimonies of witnesses that many of them witnessed malfunctioning of the machines,” noted Francisco.
He said the Baylon camp is contesting all precincts in the province for a manual recount.
“The province of the Pampanga should be the test case if the automated election system that was recently introduced really worked,” Francisco replied when asked why a manual recount is significant for the protest.
Francisco also called on Comelec chairman George Garcia to inhibit himself from any election matter concerning the Pampanga province, citing Garcia’s being a “long-time lawyer” of the Pineda family.
Garcia was Pineda’s lawyer in her own election protest against proclaimed gubernatorial winner Eddie Panlilion in 2007. Pineda was declared the “real winner” by the Comelec in 2010, a few months before the elections that year.
Asked to comment on Francisco’s call, Garcia said that there is no need for the appeal to be asked.
“I always recuse/inhibit myself from any case of which I have previous professional relationships with a party/ies,” Garcia told INQUIRER.net in a Viber message.
2022 redux
Losing the gubernatorial contest to Dennis “Delta” Pineda in the May 9, 2022 polls, Baylon filed an election protest alleging irregularites and massive vote-buying.
It was dismissed on July 15, 2022 with the Comelec Second Division ruling that the protest was “insufficient in form and content as required in Section 7 (g), Rule 6 in relation to Section 9 (b), Rule 6 of Comelec Resolution No. 8804, as amended.”
To Baylon’s allegations of irregularites and massive vote-buying, the Second Division stated: “The non-specification of the material facts such as names of the persons involved, the time of occurrence and the precincts where the allegations transpired render these averments blatantly unjustified and groundless.”
A part of the order read: “Though defeat in any elections is desolating for the losing candidate, an election protest must not be mused as a vindication of a lost opportunity of the noble cause to serve the public, or worst, as an unjustified assertion of a wounded pride.”
Pineda beat Baylon by garnering 668,787 votes in the two-way race, according to a certified true copy of a provincial certificate of canvass.
Baylon also filed an election contest after her lost Candaba mayoralty contest in 2019 against Rene Maglanque. It was dismissed.
In the following elections in 2022, Baylon’s wife Aniway filed an election protest against the reelected mayor Maglanque. It was also dismissed.
In the most recent elections, Aniway again lost to Maglanque. Punto News Team/Inquirer report
