Lawyer: SET decision on Poe kills material misrep case before Comelec

MANILA, Philippines - The camp of Sen. Grace Poe on Friday said the recent ruling of the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET) declaring the senator as a natural-born Filipino effectively extinguishes the electoral case filed against her before the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

George Garcia, Poe's legal counsel, said their camp on December 1 will formally inform the Comelec of the 5-4 SET decision in a move to dismiss presidential aspirant Rizalito David's complaint accusing Poe of material misrepresentation in her certificate of candidacy (COC) for the presidency.

“We strongly believe that the SET win means there is no misrepresentation in the COC she filed when she ran for the Senate in 2013,” Garcia said.

The SET decision rejected David's earlier complaint that Poe was ineligible “for the office she sought” in 2013 because she is not a natural-born Filipino citizen.

Garcia said their camp is scheduled to file on December 3 their memorandum for the three other disqualification cases filed by former Sen.Francisco Tatad, political science professor Antonio Contreras and former University of the East College of Law Dean Amado Valdez.