The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Friday ruled that Puerto Princesa Mayor Edward Hagedorn is eligible to run for re-election in the coming May 10 elections as it junked a petition to disqualify him from running for a third and final term.

In a five-page resolution issued by the Comelec’s First Division, the poll body thrashed the plea of Bienvenido Rodriguez to disqualify Hagedorn on the theory that he has already served three consecutive terms and is thus disqualified from running for re-election.

Presiding Commissioner Rene Sarmiento said that Hagedorn ran in the 2002 recall elections that pitted him against Mayor Dennis Socrates, who also questioned his qualification to join the race before the Supreme Court (SC).

The SC junked the petition of Socrates, citing Section 42 of the Local Government Code (LGC), which says that “no elective official shall serve for more than three consecutive terms and voluntary renunciation of the office for any length of time shall not be considered as an interruption in the continuity of office for the full term for which the elective official was elected.”

In Socrates versus Comelec, the SC ruled that “the second part states that involuntary severance from office does not interrupt the continuity of the service. The clear intent is that involuntary severance from office for any length of time interrupts continuity of service and prevents the service before and after the interruption from being joined together to form a continuous service or consecutive terms.”

The Comelec reiterated that the prohibited election refers to the next regular elections for the same office following the third consecutive term. Subsequent election like a recall election is no longer an immediate election.

Any winner in the recall election cannot be charged or credited with the full term of office of three years for the purpose of counting the consecutiveness of an elective official’s terms of office, the SC ruled in Socrates, citing the case of Ibarra versus Comelec.

Comelec said the provision of the law is clear, and that terms should be consecutive and the service is full and continuous.

With this clarification, the Second Division trashed the petition filed by Rodriguez on December 22, 2009 for lack of merit.