MANILA, Philippines — The legal counsel of detained Kingdom of Jesus Christ founder and Senate aspirant Apollo C. Quiboloy filed a petition to declare as a nuisance candidate Sonny Matula.
Matula earlier asked the Comelec to disqualify Quiboloy from the 2025 Senate race,
In a document obtained by INQUIRER.net, Mark Tolentino, president of the “Tolentino wing” of the Workers and Peasants Party (WPP), filed a letter request for Commission on Elections (Comelec) to declare as nuisance candidates Matula and nine other aspirants under the “Matula wing” of the WPP.
“We are praying to the good Commission on Elections to give due consideration on this letter and to motu propio cancel the certificates of candidacy (COC) of the ten … senatorial candidate on the ground that they are nuisance candidates and attaching in their COC an illegitimate Cona (certificate of nomination and acceptance),” the three-page letter said.
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Matula is included among the 66 candidates who made it on Comelec’s initial cut.
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Matula’s nine other party mates – Pedro Ordiales, Roel Lacoste, Monique Kokkinaras, Romeo Macarrag, Celeste Aguilar, Shirly Cuatchin, Subair Mustapha, Sonny Pimentel and Enrique Olonan were not included in the Comelec’s initial list of Senate candidates.
Tolentino noted that Matula could still be declared a nuisance candidate.
For his part, Matula shrugged off the Tolentino camp’s move..
“I already got three million votes in the last election,” Matula, who ran as senator in 2022 under the slate of then-presidential candidate former vice president Leni Robredo, told INQUIRER.net in an interview.
“His petition is pointless.”
Tolentino also filed a petition before the Comelec for him to be declared as the legitimate president of the WPP.
This comes as Matula filed a petition to cancel the Cona issued to Quiboloy as a nominee of the WPP.
Matula said there is also a material misrepresentation on Quiboloy’s COC when he stated that he is running under WPP, which the former deemed as unauthorized.
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Quiboloy is detained in the Philippine National Police since September over accusations of human trafficking and child abuse, which his camp vehemently denied.
