Residency issue even helps Grace Poe—election expert

Senator Grace Poe. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / NINO JESUS ORBETA

Using the same certificate of candidacy (COC) that the opposition claims as basis for Senator Grace Poe being unqualified to run for president in 2016, an election law expert said the document could even boost her qualifications in gunning for the top post.

Election lawyer Romulo Macalintal was reacting to claims made Tuesday by Navotas Representative Toby Tiangco, who said Poe would be six months short of the residency period required by the Constitution if she decided to run for president or vice president in May 2016.

Tiangco is interim president of the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA), the coalition of the political opposition which is backing the presidential candidacy of Vice President Jejomar “Jojo” Binay next year.

Article VII, Section 2 of the 1987 Constitution requires at least 10 years of Philippine residency, among others, for a valid candidacy for president. The same requirement is provided for those aspiring to run for vice president under Section 3 of the same article.

Tiangco cited that in Poe’s COC for the 2013 elections, she said that she had been a Philippine resident for six years and six months. The COC was filed in October 2012, or seven months before the polls.

“If Poe was a resident of the Philippines for “6 years and 6 months” in October 2012, then the additional period from October 2012 till the May 2016 elections, which is three years and 7 months, will give her a total of 10 years and 1 month residence in the Philippines,” Macalintal said.

“The statement she made in her COC for senator in 2013 will even strengthen her claim of 10-year residency in the Philippines as explained above,” he added.

Macalintal added that the COC filed by Poe when she ran for Senator in the 2013 elections could not be the basis for disqualifying her from running for president or vice-president next year.

He compared Poe’s case to that of Leyte Representative Imelda Marcos when she ran for representative of first district of Leyte in the 1995 elections.

“In answer to the question ‘period of residence in the constituency immediately preceding the election,’ Marcos wrote ‘seven (7) months,’” noted Macalintal.

But when she showed proof that she had been a resident of the first district of Leyte since birth, the Supreme said that “it is the fact of residence and not a statement in the COC which ought to be decisive in determining whether or not an individual has satisfied the constitution’s residency qualification,” Macalintal noted.