ALABEL, Sarangani – The services of the country’s prominent election lawyers have been tapped by Manny Pacquiao’s political party to handle the world boxing champion’s disqualification case that he, together with his allies, recently filed against his opponent in the May 10 congressional derby in the lone district of this province.

Pacquio’s Peoples’ Champ Movement (PCM) legal team is headed by Metro Manila-based election legal luminaries Romulo Macalintal and Sixto Brillantes, said Alabel trader Juan Domino.

Domino, who is PCM’s gubernatorial candidate for Sarangani, identified Pacquiao’s challenger for a seat in the House of Representatives as businessman Roy Chiongbian of Muntinlupa City.

In a press conference here, Domino told local media practitioners that “we believe that with Macalintal and Brillantes leading Pacquiao’s legal team, our charge at the Commission on Elections against Chiongbian will take on added urgency and legal weight.”

According to Domino, a three-page petition filed by Pacquao, through Sarangani last-termer Sanguniang Panlalawigan member Raul Martinez, concurrent PCM secretary-general, claimed that Chiongbian “is not a bonafide resident of Sarangani.”

Martinez, who is now gunning for the mayoral post in nearby Kiamba, further claimed in his petition that Chiongbian also “provided false information in his certificate of candidacy when he indicated that his residence is at Purok Uno, Barangay King, in Kiamba, Sarangani.”