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MANILA - The Commission on Elections' (Comelec) Second Division has dismissed the electoral protest filed by losing mayoral candidate Arnel Cerafica against Taguig Mayor Lino Cayetano. In the 2019 mid-term elections, Cayetano won the mayoral race, garnering 172,710 votes against Cerafica's 109,313. Despite Cayetano's huge margin of 63,357 votes, Cerafica lost no time in submitting an election protest. In a 250-page Order released on January 31, the Second Division found no evidence of the alleged irregularities such as malfunctioning vote counting machines or VCMs, vote buying, ballot shading by poll watchers, and distribution of sample ballots. After the manual review, the contested ballots showed a clear preference of the voters for Cayetano. Out of the counted 93 pilot protested precincts, Cayetano tallied 33,557 votes while Cerafica got 25,463 votes. Comelec rules mandate that an electoral protestant must obtain substantial recovery in the pilot contested precincts for ....