Don’t consolidate Poe DQ cases, SC asked

MANILA, Philippines – The Supreme Court (SC) was asked yesterday not to grant the plea of Sen. Grace Poe to have the disqualification cases against her from the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET) and Commission on Elections (Comelec) consolidated into a single case.

In separate pleadings, SET petitioner Rizalito David and Comelec petitioner Antonio Contreras asked the high court to deny the motion for consolidation, arguing that the two petitions would have differing results when ruled on.

David reasoned in his five-page urgent manifestation that the SET and Comelec cases involved “different parties and originated from different electoral tribunals” and should not be consolidated.

“To illustrate, if the assailed SET decision is reversed and set aside, (Poe) will be removed from the Senate; (but) if the honorable court will sustain the assailed Comelec resolutions, she will not be included in the ballot or barred from running for president in the May 9, 2016 national elections,” he stressed through lawyer Manuelito Luna.

Contreras, for his part, filed a 41-page comment to Poe’s petition questioning the Comelec resolution cancelling her certificate of candidacy (COC) for the presidency due to misrepresentation on her citizenship and residency eligibilities. He also opposed the senator’s bid for consolidation of the SET and Comelec cases before the high court.

The De La Salle University professor also asked the SC to dismiss Poe’s petitions and instead uphold the Comelec rulings.

“The Comelec did not commit grave abuse of discretion. There is solid jurisprudence that supports the Comelec’s conclusion that petitioner failed to fulfill the minimum 10-year residency requirement to run for president,” he argued.

Earlier, the Comelec asked the SC for more time to answer the petitions of Poe questioning its decisions to disqualify her from the presidential election in May. It was pressed to ask for more time after the Office of the Solicitor General opted not to represent Comelec in the SC cases and, instead, to defend a contrary position of the SET on the eligibility of Poe as a natural-born citizen.

Poe won in the disqualification case before the SET, prompting David to elevate it to the SC.

She lost, however, in the Comelec cases, filed by former senator Francisco Tatad, Contreras and former University of the East law dean Amado Valdez, after her COC was cancelled due to misrepresentation on citizenship and residency in the country.