MANILA, Philippines - The camp of Sen. Grace Poe has asked the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to reverse the decision of its Second Division disqualifying her as presidential candidate in the 2016 elections.
Poe, through her lawyer George Garcia, filed a motion for reconsideration before the full Comelec in response to what she felt was a whimsical judgment handed down by the poll body’s Second Division on the disqualification case filed by lawyer Estrella Elamparo, former chief legal counsel of the Government Service Insurance System.
Last week, Comelec Commissioners Al Parreño, Arthur Lim and Sheriff Abas of the Second Division granted the petition filed by Elamparo, who sought the cancellation of Poe’s certificate of candidacy (COC) for president.
Elamparo claimed that Poe failed to meet the 10-year-residency requirement and, being a foundling, the senator is not a natural-born Filipino, thus she is not qualified to run for president.
In her motion for reconsideration, Poe disputed the findings of the Second Division that she committed material misrepresentation when she declared in her COC for president that she would be a resident of the Philippines for 10 years and 11 months by the May 9, 2016 elections.
“Senator Poe has no intention to deceive the electorate or to hide a fact of disqualification with respect to her period of residency in the Philippines,” Garcia said.
In her COC for the 2013 senatorial election which she filed in 2012, Poe indicated that she had been a resident of the country only since November 2006, or six months short of the residency requirement for her to qualify as candidate for president in the May 2016 polls.
Poe said that it was an honest mistake on her part and that the truth was that she has been residing in the Philippines since May 24, 2005.
Garcia said that the Comelec’s Second Division completely disregarded the voluminous evidence submitted by Poe to support her claims on residency and citizenship and instead relied exclusively on her COC for the 2013 election.
Among the evidence submitted by Poe’s camp was a sworn “questionnaire” she filed with the US State Department when it was processing the renunciation of her American citizenship.
Garcia said they were able to prove Poe’s intention to stay in the Philippines for good by presenting documentary evidence in relation to the enrolment of her children in local schools in June 2005, and the purchase of a residential lot and the construction of their family home in Quezon City, shortly after selling their house in the US in early 2006.
She also secured an identification card from the Bureau of Internal Revenue in July 2005, proving that she has resumed being a Filipino taxpayer for more than 10 years now.
“If the Second Division considered these pieces of evidence, it would have found that (Poe’s) statement that she will be a resident of the Philippines for 10 years and 11 months by May 2016 is not false,” Garcia said.
He also said Poe’s declarations in her COC for president reflect her actual period of residency in the Philippines and correct the errors in her 2013 COC for senator.
“In indicating in her COC for president her period of residence in the Philippines to be 10 years, 11 months, Sen. Poe acted in utmost good faith, relying on Supreme Court (SC) pronouncements that a candidate is not estopped from proving her actual residence in the Philippines as a question of fact,” Garcia said.
Speaking with reporters yesterday, Poe said that she is confident that her case is strong and that she will get justice.
Petition vs SET ruling on Poe to reach SC
Meanwhile, the disqualification case against Poe regarding her eligibility to remain as senator is expected to reach the SC today.
Rizalito David, a losing senatorial candidate in the 2013 polls, is set to question the decision of the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET) dismissing with finality his disqualification petition against Poe in a petition to be filed this afternoon.
David’s lawyer Manuelito Luna said the petition would be filed before the SC at 2 p.m.
David’s camp said they would prove before the SC that the majority in the SET erred in declaring Poe a natural-born Filipino eligible for her senatorial post.
Luna claimed that the five senators who voted in favor of Poe – Vicente Sotto III, Loren Legarda, Pia Cayetano, Cynthia Villar and Bam Aquino – violated the Constitution and the Lerias doctrine, which warned politicians who are members of electoral tribunals against partisan voting.
In dismissing David’s appeal last week, the five senators maintained their position that Poe should be considered a natural-born Filipino despite being a foundling, based on customary international laws providing right of every human being to a nationality and the state’s obligations to facilitate the naturalization of foundlings and avoid statelessness.
But Luna insisted that the dissenting opinion of the minority in the SET –composed of SC Associate Justices Antonio Carpio, Teresita Leonardo-de Castro and Arturo Brion and Sen. Nancy Binay, daughter of presidential contender Vice President Jejomar Binay – was the correct interpretation of the law.
The dissenting members believed that the Constitution precedes customary international laws and that the rules on natural-born eligibility should be strictly applied. They said Poe, being a foundling, could be considered only as a naturalized Filipino, thus she is not qualified for national elective posts unless she is able to trace her biological parents and prove that either of them is Filipino.
Despite Poe’s legal battles, the Nationalist People’s Coalition continues to support her presidential candidacy and remains optimistic she can surmount the disqualification cases, NPC stalwart Valenzuela City Rep. Sherwin Gatchalian said yesterday.
Erap tells Poe: Continue fighting
Former President and Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada also advised Poe, his goddaughter, to “keep on fighting.”
In an interview yesterday, Estrada said he pities the Poes who have been subjected to demolition job by their political rivals.
Fernando Poe Jr. and his wife actress Susan Roces adopted Sen. Poe after she was found in a church in Iloilo when she was still an infant. Sen. Poe is now facing disqualification as senator and as presidential candidate due to citizenship and residency issues, the same problems that her adoptive father faced when he ran for president in 2004. He died after losing to former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo amid allegations of massive cheating in the elections.
“What they did to her father is what they are doing to Grace. FPJ managed to run, but was cheated. The Poes are pitiful,” Estrada said.
“Keep on fighting. If all the opposition candidates are disqualified, like Vice President Binay, Sen. Grace Poe and (Davao City Mayor Rodrigo) Duterte, then I will be forced to run again. The people should be given a chance to choose their leader. It should not be unopposed. Definitely, I will not run if the opposition will have its own presidential candidate,” he added.
Estrada also said that while he has high regard and respect for the administration’s bet, Liberal Party (LP) standard-bearer Manuel Roxas II, he would not endorse him for president.
“He was a former member of my Cabinet. No, I will be for the opposition. I belong to the opposition. I will always be for the opposition. Although I respect Mar Roxas,” he explained.
Estrada also said he does not believe that Roxas could be behind the effort to eliminate all his contenders” in the presidential race. “Mar Roxas is not like that. I know him well. He is a decent person.”
‘Roxas, LP behind DQ of Poe, not PNoy’
But Poe’s vice presidential candidate Sen. Francis Escudero believes that Roxas and some of the President’s inner circle within the LP are the ones making legal maneuvers to disqualify Poe because she has performed well in surveys while Roxas has been lagging.
“As far back, people from the LP have been bragging that Sen. Grace Poe is sure to be disqualified. And sure enough, she was disqualified by the Second Division of the Commission on Elections,” Escudero said in a press conference at La Parilla Hotel in Cabanatuan City on Saturday night.– With Sheila Crisostomo, Edu Punay, Paolo Romero, Jose Rodel Clapano, Manny Galvez