LA TRINIDAD, Benguet – Disqualification cases continue to pile up against incumbent Rep. Eric Yap with the filing of a fourth complaint against him before the Commission on Elections (Comelec) with an obvious desire to further delay his proclamation.
The latest disqualification case filed against yap was filed by Leonardo Lamsis of Daclan, Bokod who alleged, among others, violation of Commission on Election (Comelec) Resolutions 11111 and 11086 in relation to the pertinent provisions of Republic Act (RA) 9006 or the Fair Elections Act.
The complaint claimed that Yap violated Resolution 11111 as his campaign materials for posted in areas where the same are prohibited from being posted or outside of the designated common poster areas.
He added that Resolution 11086 presumes that failure to remove the illegally posted campaign materials makes the candidate depicted in the said materials as the owner or is the person who caused the said violation.
Lamsis claimed that although the petition for disqualification was filed after the conduct of the May 12, 2025 election, it does not remove the fact that the violations had been committed and that the same must be considered by the poll body against the respondents following the suspension of his proclamation as the province’s winning candidate for congressman.
Lamsis also prayed for the poll body to issue a gag order considering that those who earlier filed similar disqualification cases against Yap are now under threat from supporters of the lawmaker.
He stipulated that the act of the congressman to post the disqualification cases that have been earlier filed against him in his social media page is a strategy to scare people from filing additional disqualification and other cases against him and to beat the said people down and back out.
Further, he alleged that the posting of the complaints against him aims to manipulate public opinion as avid supporters of the solon had began harassing and even threatening the petitioners in the earlier cases.
For his part, Congressman Yap vowed to answer all the filed disqualification cases against him but is saddened over the fact that the filing of the disqualification cases might cause serious delays in his proclamation and his desire to go back to work for the welfare of the people of Benguet in the 20th Congress.
He reiterated his earlier position that those individuals filing the disqualification cases against him do not actually know and understand the impact of what they are doing but vowed to face the said charges to once and for all put an end to the issues being raised against him.
According to him, he will fight it out considering the trust that was bestowed by the people of Benguet to him to serve as their Representative to the House of Representatives in the 20th Congress considering that there are numerous things that should be done to continue improving the current state of the province through the cascading of various government programs, projects and activities to the grassroots level for the welfare of the greater majority of the populace.
Yap was overwhelmingly voted by the people of Benguet for another term as congressman as he was able to obtain more than 144,000 of the casted votes way ahead of his rival incumbent Vice Governor Ericson ‘Tagel’ Felipe during the May 12, 2025 mid-term elections.
He also questioned the motive of the petitioner in filing an urgent motion for the issuance of a gag order which he considers as out of place because the mere fact that the copy of the petition for disqualification was emailed to him already makes it a public document which the people of Benguet must know, saying that it seems that some quarters are trying to hide something by compelling the poll body to issue a gag order so that the matter will not be publicly discussed.
Yap is awaiting the issuance of the summons by the poll body for him to file his answers to the separate petitions for disqualification that were earlier filed against him where one was the cause of the temporary suspension of his proclamation as the winning congressman of the province in the just concluded polls. By Dexter A. See
