Senator Grace Poe must be breathing a big sigh of relief. Round one goes to her; it is a big psychological victory. The Senate Electoral Tribunal’s decision is a setback to the Liberal Party and the administration. Based on how the members of the SET voted, all the members from the Supreme Court voted for disqualification, while five senators voted against. Only Senator Nancy Binay among the senators voted for disqualification, which is understandable. With Senator Poe out, it would become a contest between her father, the Vice President and former Secretary Mar Roxas. Senator Binay must be calculating that it is easier to beat Roxas than Senator Poe.
The vote of Senator Bam Aquino is a little surprising. One would have thought that he would vote for disqualification in line with the wishes of his cousin, the President. He did not. We can only speculate on the reasons behind his decision. Perhaps he is one of those politicians who believe that Mar Roxas cannot win the election and it is better that Senator Poe be around to contest the election than hand over the presidency to Vice President Binay.
Meanwhile, the votes of the four other senators are not surprising. Senator Tito Sotto has from the beginning worked hard for Senator Poe. The other three female senators also delivered for Poe.
The war is by no means over. The Commission on Elections will still decide and the SET decision is appealable to the Supreme Court which guarantees that this issue will probably drag on until very close to election day. Until this issue is decided with finality, there will always be that doubt hanging over the candidacy of Senator Poe.
Just before the SET decision, I had it from a good source that contributions to her campaign was starting to dry up. With the favorable SET decision, this is going to give her campaign a new lease on life. It will be energized and funds will start pouring in again. Poe’s political enemies, on the other hand, will double their efforts on the two remaining fronts, the Comelec and the Supreme Court. All the commissioners of the Comelec are appointees by this administration but, the final arbiter will be the Supreme Court whose members, let us all hope, will decide purely on the merits of the case.
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The issue of the citizenship of Senator Poe has divided opinion writers and generated a lively debate among the many lawyers who inhabit our land. In addition, the issue of loyalty has been added to the mix. How is it so easy for Senator Poe to renounce her Filipino citizenship and reacquire it for the opportunity of becoming President is a question many are asking.
I supposed that this issue has to be raised in a presidential contest. For Senator Poe, she does not only have to prove that she is a natural-born Filipino citizen but also has to prove that she is a loyal citizen of this country. To prove her being a natural-born citizen, she submitted some specimens for DNA testing. So far, the tests done on the daughter of the person who found her in a church in Jaro in 1968 tested negative. I am not surprised. The good senator seems to be limiting the testing to the relatives of the man who found her. Of course this has to be done but she should expand the testing to include relatives of her adopted father. As the legendary fictional detective Sherlock Holmes once said, eliminate all the possibilities and whatever remains, no matter how improbable has to be the answer.
I do not know the capability of the laboratory doing the DNA testing but the specimen submitted by senator should perhaps undergo more forensic analysis to include her DNA profile. Senator Poe is what we would call a mestiza or a person with foreign blood. This is obvious because of the way she looks. It is therefore logical that she should be looking for persons with foreign blood for a match. Eventually, I hope that she will find a result that will be favorable to her.
To Rep. Leni Robredo, the Liberal Party vice presidential aspirant, it is also a moral issue as much as a legal one. Another former representative from Bicol also said that loyalty should not be trivialized and I agree. But does this mean that those politicians who did not renounce their Filipino citizenship are more loyal to the country than Senator Poe because at one time in her life, she renounced her citizenship? There are people in our midst who at one time in their lives went to the mountains and waged war against the duly constituted government. They have since given up their struggle, run for public office and are now in government. During the Second World War, many Filipino leaders collaborated with the enemy. The grandfather of President Aquino was one. The collaborators were later amnestied. They ran for office, got elected and became productive citizens of the country.
So which is worse—a person who commits treason by collaborating with enemy in times of war or a person who renounces her citizenship but acquires it back? Two current candidates for vice president have committed rebellion by mounting coups d’ etat but no one seems to be complaining. Is it because both have no chance of winning?
Loyalty to one’s country is a complex issue and difficult to judge. I believe however, that if Poe is allowed to run, it will be up to the Filipino people to judge whether she deserves to be their President or not.
