MANILA, March 17 -- A petition to disqualify Leyte 4th District Rep. Richard Gomez from the May 12 midterm elections was filed before the Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Monday for allegedly spreading fake and alarming news in the province.

In a 25-page petition, Palompon, Leyte mayoral bet Ramon Onate asked the poll body to disqualify Gomez from seeking reelection after he supposedly propagated "malicious and false" contents through his official Facebook page (Richard "GOMA" Gomez) on March 6.

According to the petition, Gomez's post has the accompanying caption "Palompon is poised to do grave and massive election cheating this coming May."

"The malicious and false contents propagated by the Respondent (Gomez) contained false and ...