THE camp of presidential front-runner Senator Grace Poe expressed hope the Commission on Elections will defer to the decision of the Senate Electoral Tribunal that dismissed the disqualification case filed against her and declared her a natural-born Filipino.
“We are hopeful the Comelec will defer to the SET ruling, which upheld the natural-born status of Senator Poe, in deciding the election offense case as well as the several petitions to disqualify her from the presidential race,” said Poe’s lawyer George Garcia.
The Comelec is expected to come out with a resolution on the complaint filed by defeated senatorial candidate Rizalito David, alleging Poe of “material misrepresentation” in the Certificate of Candidacy she filed with the poll body when she ran for senator in 2013.
Senator Vicente Sotto III, a member of SET, said they will meet on Dec. 3 to decide on the motion for reconsideration filed by David on its ruling that junked his petition to unseat Poe from the Senate.
Sotto, along with Senators Bam Aquino, Loren Legarda, Cynthia Villar and Pia Cayetano, voted to throw out David’s quo warranto petition to remove Poe as senator.
It was only Senator Nancy Binay who favored the disqualification of Poe. Her father, Vice President Jejomar Binay, is running against Poe in the upcoming elections.
The other who moved to disqualify Poe are SET chairman Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, and Associate Justices Antonio Brion and Teresita Leonardo de Castro.
According to David, Poe declared in her CoC that she is a natural-born citizen when she is actually not because foundlings like her are stateless.
But Garcia said David’s contention runs counter to the SET declaration that Poe, although a foundling, enjoyed the presumption that she was born of Filipino parents.
Under customary international law, the Philippine Constitution and domestic laws, a foundling found in the Philippines is presumed, in the absence of contrary proof, a natural-born citizen.
The SET held that David, a defeated senatorial candidate in the 2013 polls, failed to destroy such presumption by proving that her parents are foreigners.
“The SET has spoken: Senator Poe is a natural-born Filipino citizen. Therefore, she is not only eligible to sit as a member of the Senate but also to seek the presidency,” Garcia pointed out.
Poe’s legal team is poised to move for the dismissal of the election offense case on the ground that it has been effectively “extinguished” by the SET verdict.
“The SET has properly laid down the basis for the outright dismissal of the election offense case,” Garcia said.
The SET, in its Nov. 17 decision, declared Poe a natural-born Filipino, defined under the 1987 Constitution as a “citizen of the Philippines from birth, without having to perform any act to acquire or perfect [her] Philippine citizenship.”
Garcia had earlier said they will file a manifestation with motion to dismiss the election offense case in light of the SET ruling.
He said they are also set to file on Dec. 3 their memorandum for the three other disqualification cases filed by former senator Francisco Tatad, political science professor Antonio Contreras and ex-University of the East College of Law Dean Amado Valdez.
