BAGUIO CITY (February 11, 2025) -- The Commission on Elections (COMELEC) has acknowledged the service of the one-year suspension of Urdaneta City Mayor Julio Parayno III and Vice Mayor Jimmy Parayno, saying, “it did not violate the rules”.
The poll body responding to the letter of Department of Local and Interior Government (DILG) Region I, COMELEC Director IV Atty. Maria Norina S. Tangaro-Casingal ruled the serving of the suspension order is not an offense to the Omnibus Election Code (OEC). THE OEC requires that a serving of suspension against elective officials should not be within the period of prohibition set by the poll body.
On February 5, 2025, DILG Region 1 Regional Director Jonathan Paul M. Leusen Jr. wrote the Comelec informing that on January 7, 2025, the DILG served the January 3, 2025 suspension order by the Office of the President against the two Urdaneta City officials.
In the past promulgation of the COMELEC purposely for the May 2025 Elections, particularly Section V, “it is prohibited to suspend any elective provincial, city, municipal or barangay official from January 12 to June 12, 2025,. except upon written approval of the Commission.”
The order against the Paraynos was served on January 7, 2025, through substituted service due to the absence of the two.
Parayno III though had contested before the Comelec that the suspension order falls into the election ban making it invalid. He also insisted he is not suspended as he did not received copies of such as he was absent when the DILG served it.
But the Comelec in its response to DILG-Region 1, said, "As such, prior approval of the Commission is no longer required for the implementation of the order against Mayor Julio F. Parayno III and Vice-Mayor Jimmy P. Parayno pursuant to the Decision dated January 3, 2025 in OP-DC Case No. 22-K-090."
Earlier on January 3,m ,2025, the Office of the President (OP) found the two officials administratively liable for Grave Misconduct and Grave Abuse of Authority. The OP through Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin meted them 12-months suspension.
The suspension stemmed from the complaint of barangay captain Michael Brian M. Perez on 28 October 2022 against the mayor and the vice mayor.
