Another Disqualification Case Filed Against Pasig Mayor Vico Sotto
VICO SOTTO – The Pasig City Mayor-elect is once again facing a disqualification case, just a week after his official proclamation on May 13, where he secured a landslide victory with 351,392 votes, far ahead of his opponent Sarah Discaya, who received only 29,591 votes.
On Tuesday, Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman George Erwin Garcia confirmed that a new petition to disqualify Sotto was formally filed. According to Garcia, the petition included the necessary filing fee, making it an official case. However, he noted that under normal rules, a disqualification petition must be filed before a candidate’s proclamation.
Garcia refrained from commenting directly on Sotto’s case but clarified that once a candidate is proclaimed, legal actions must take a different route, such as filing an election protest, a quo warranto petition, or a criminal complaint for election-related offenses. Disqualification cases, he said, have a clear deadline, and are typically not accepted after a candidate has been officially proclaimed.
Earlier this year, on January 28, Curlee Discaya, the husband of Sarah Discaya, filed a disqualification case against Sotto. He claimed that the mayor misinformed the Comelec through a letter he submitted in October 2024, which questioned Sarah’s eligibility to run due to an alleged conflict of interest. Sotto had asked the Comelec to investigate Sarah’s business involvement in a company that previously partnered with the provider of election services for the 2025 polls.
However, this earlier petition was dismissed by the Comelec Second Division on March 4, as shown in a document Sotto later shared.
As the new petition moves forward, questions are being raised about its validity and timing, since it was filed after Sotto’s proclamation. Despite these challenges, Sotto remains the officially declared winner and continues to serve as the mayor of Pasig City.
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