Akbayan, other petitioners file motion
The Akbayan party-list on Tuesday asked the Commission on Elections to reconsider its decision junking their petition to disqualify presidential aspirant Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. from the May 9 elections.
In a 16-page motion for reconsideration, Akbayan chairperson emeritus Etta Rosales and nominees Percival Cendaña and RJ Naguit called on the Comelec en banc to reverse the decision of its First Division and include the points raised by retired Commissioner Rowena Guanzon in her separate opinion in the deliberation of the case.
Cendaña said they will pursue the case until the end.
“The fight is far from over. Bongbong cannot just sweep this under the rug…We will pursue this to the end and ensure a just conclusion to the case,” he said.
The petitioners argued the First Division’s ruling may be void and may have violated its own rules when it issued the decision with only two actively serving commissioners.
“The Comelec’s rules provide that a Division shall be composed of three commissioners. As such, the decision issued on the petitions may be void as it was issued by a Division that was not validly constituted, there being only two commissioners left. Had they issued the resolution when the Division was still validly constituted by three Commissioners, then it would have been a valid resolution,” Cendaña said.
“Since there were only two Commissioners in the so-called ‘First Division’ or the so-called ‘former First Division,’ there clearly was no validly-constituted Division of the Comelec to begin with. Consequently, the so-called ‘resolution’ dated 10 February 2022 should not be treated as one that is validly issued by the Comelec. It is nothing more than a document issued by two Commissioners, but certainly not a Resolution or Decision that should be treated as having been issued by the Comelec,” the petitioners added.
The group also called on Commissioner Aimee Ferolino, the ponente of the February 10 decision, to inhibit herself from the en banc’s deliberations.
Petitioners represented by Martial law survivor Bonifacio Ilagan have also asked the Comelec en banc to reverse the ruling.
The petitioners claimed that the division erred when it ruled that failure to file income tax returns for four consecutive years is not inherently wrong and does not involve moral turpitude.
They said that regardless of the penalty imposed by the court, a violation of Presidential Decree 1994 comes with a penalty of perpetual disqualification from running for public office.
On Monday, another petitioner, Abubakar Mangelen filed his motion for reconsideration on the three disqualification petitions which were consolidated and junked by the division.