It’s ‘strike 3’ for Manila Mayor Honey Lacuna’s bitter and defeated erstwhile political rival Alex Lopez.
This, after the Supreme Court recently junked the motion for intervention filed in his behalf by his legal counsel.
Lopez had attempted to intervene in the case that a transport group filed to stop the “no contact apprehension policy” or NCAP.
However, the Supreme Court issued an en banc resolution on October 11, 2022 where it SC resolved to deny the motion for intervention dated September 21, 2022 filed for intervenor-complainant Lopez by his counsel.
The Supreme Court denied a motion filed by defeated mayoral candidate Alex Lopez in which he seeks to intervene in the case concerning the “no contact apprehension policy” or NCAP, now pending before the High Court.
In an en banc resolution issued on October 11, 2022 but which was released just recently, the SC resolved to deny the motion for intervention dated September 21, 2022 filed for intervenor-complainant Lopez by his counsel.
In view of the denial of the said motion for intervention, the SC also resolved as “note without action” the complaint in the intervention dated September 21, 2022 which was filed in behalf of Lopez by his counsel.
By definition, a motion for intervention is a petition in which one seeks to be permitted to intervene in a lawsuit involving other parties so that his own rights and interests may be protected by a judgment or decree or if he has legal interest in the matter in litigation or in the success of either of the parties, or an interest against both.
Simply put, the Supreme Court is telling Lopez to stay out of the case or not to meddle, finding that he has nothing to do with the case in any way.
Before this, the election protest that Lopez had filed with the Commission on Elections (Comelec) was also junked by its Second Division.
The Comelec did not only state that the protest was “insufficient in form and content,” but also said that moving forward with the protest will be a futile effort for both the Comelec and for Lopez himself.
The Comelec also described the lead of Lacuna as “massive”, adding that “even if all the alleged unaccounted/missing ballots being mentioned by Lopez are credited to him, the same cannot cover the lead of incumbent Mayor Lacuna.
The first strike of course, was when Mayor Honey handily who won the elections last May.
The first lady mayor of the nation’s capital city won via landslide victory in the said recently-concluded local polls, receiving a total of 538,595 votes.
Even if the votes received by her two rivals are combined, to include that of Lopez (166,908 votes), Mayor Honey Lacuna would still be enjoying a 252,993 lead.
Why, even her runningmate, now Vice Mayor-elect Yul Servo-Nieto, was also proclaimed with 582,942 votes in total with Lopez’s runningmate, Raymond Bagatsing coming in at far second with 183,684 votes.
These developments are clear signs that Lopez should start accepting reality, move on and just wait for the next elections if he still honestly believes that he can surmount the gargantuan lead of Mayor Honey Lacuna over him and his fellow candidates combined.
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