Case vs Poe fizzles out; P50K needed for it to sizzle
His spirit is strong but his wallet is thin.
And because he could not pay the filing fee of P50,000, Rizalito David, who lost his bid for a Senate seat in 2013, stepped back Wednesday from questioning Sen. Grace Poe’s citizenship in the Senate Electoral Tribunal.
Poe topped the 2013 senatorial election, but David contended that the adopted daughter of movie actors Fernando Poe Jr. and Susan Roces was not a natural-born Filipino and should be unseated.
But he was taken aback when a clerk at the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET) informed him that he should pay a filing fee of P50,000.
‘Steep’ cost of justice
“This is the cost of justice? It’s quite steep,” he cried out, turning to reporters to ask them to chip in to raise P50,000.
“Maybe you want to contribute P1,000 each?” he told them, admitting he knew there would be a filing fee but he did not expect it to be “that high.”
Unable to file his petition, David tried to leave his copy with the tribunal but the clerk said it could not be received.
Poe’s citizenship and residency were recently questioned by the camp of Vice President Jejomar Binay, whom she had overtaken to become the new front-runner in the presidential polls.
She has dismissed allegations she is not a Filipino citizen and countered that she has been residing in the Philippines long before the 2013 elections.
David said he argued in his petition that Poe was not a natural-born Filipino citizen and that “she [has been] using an American passport since 2009.”
“She was a foundling then she became a Filipino citizen by virtue of the adoption. But the adoption does not accord to her a natural-born status,” he said.
Poe was abandoned in a Catholic church in Jaro, Iloilo province, before she was adopted by the Poes.
Residency requirement
David said he also cited in his petition the allegation that Poe fell a year short of the required 10-year residency for President and Vice President, an issue first raised by Navotas Rep. Toby Tiangco, interim president of Binay’s United Nationalist Alliance (UNA).
While he raised the same issues cited by the camp of Binay, David claimed he was filing the petition on his own.
“This is a noble act. I don’t need somebody else to push me to do this,” he said.
He said he planned to file another complaint in the Commission on Elections alleging Poe made false statements about her citizenship in her certificate of candidacy when she ran for senator in 2013.
David said he also planned to file a complaint against Poe in a trial court for heading the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) when “she [was] not completely a Filipino citizen.”
The President appointed Poe MTRCB chair in 2010 then asked her to run for the Senate on the administration’s senatorial slate in 2013.
Poe said she was ready to answer questions about her citizenship in the courts.
She said she was disappointed that David failed to file his petition.
“This would have been a chance [for me to defend myself],” Poe said.
Opposition’s demolition job?
The ruling Liberal Party (LP) is trying to get Poe to come aboard as the vice-presidential running mate of its standard-bearer, Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, in next year’s national elections.
Caloocan Rep. Edgar Erice, LP chair for political affairs, said Wednesday the failed petition to question Poe’s citizenship was likely part of a demolition job on the behest of the opponents of the Aquino administration’s reform program.
“Of course, she’s a strong candidate,” Erice said when asked what could have motivated the filing of the petition.
“We know she’s part of the ‘straight path.’ So the ones behind this are probably those against the straight path. Let’s not mention names,” he told reporters.
Erice said the LP remained optimistic that Poe would accept the offer of Roxas to be his running mate.
“As the saying goes, it’s not over till it’s over. We still hope Senator Poe will yield to the advice of the President, to unite with us, to continue the reforms,” he said.
“What we’re saying is, she’s ripe to be senator and to be Vice President. In my personal opinion, she’s too raw to be President,” he said.
Erice said the party was not setting any deadline for Poe to make a decision.
“Of course, [we need to know] before the filing of certificates of candidacy. But we can’t [set] a deadline. We respect Senator Poe. We need to give her time,” he said.
A ‘cause’ for Poe
Poe said that while she had not yet decided whether to run, the failed challenge to her citizenship had given her a “cause”—giving everyone a fair chance to serve in the government.
“I’m not hiding anything. You know [me], you know where I was found,” she told reporters.
She said people knew who brought her up and that she lived in the United States, where she worked, married, had a family and returned to the Philippines permanently after the death of her father in 2010.
Poe said she had been a senator for three years now and yet it was only now that her citizenship was being questioned.
“My life is an open book,” she said, adding she was prepared to answer questions about her citizenship and had documents to prove it.
But she will not present her documents, she said, until a petition is filed in court for fear that these may be tampered with, the same way some people tampered with the documents of her father, whose citizenship was also questioned.
Q&A on citizenship
Poe’s office produced a three-page “question and answer” document on her citizenship.
The document says Poe is a natural-born Filipino and that the parents of a foundling in the Philippines are presumed Filipino.
“Having been born of Filipino parents, even by presumption, she is a natural-born Filipino,” says the document, which claims to be based on international law.
It also says that Poe reverted to her status as a natural-born Filipino after she renounced her US citizenship.
Told that one of David’s arguments was that she was still using her US passport in 2009 even after she had renounced her US citizenship, Poe made it clear that she renounced her US citizenship on Oct. 20, 2010, before she became chair of the MTCRB on Oct. 21, 2010.
When she renounced her US citizenship, she said she did not use her US passport as a dual citizen.
“I have not used any passport but my Philippine passport when I renounced my other citizenship,” she said.
As for the residency question, Poe said: “You don’t have to be a dual citizen for 10 years, you just have to be natural born and a resident for 10 years and so even if I were a dual citizen in 2006, and let us say that this lacked some years, I still do not believe in that qualification because natural born, dual citizen and the 10-year residency are all separate. It’s taken separately,” she said.
She doesn’t know David
Poe said she did not want to speculate who could be behind David’s petition.
She said she did not know David.
Poe said that apparently, the people behind the petition did not like the way she handled committee hearings, but did not elaborate.
Still, she said she was certain the petition had to do with her possible run for higher office next year.
Poe said the petition intended to vilify her and probably “force me to make a decision, which I would not do if this did not happen.”
“That’s why I’m telling you, [these people] encourage me, because you are not fighting me but a cause, an advocacy,” she said.
“I am confident that I am a natural-born Filipino. [I] have documents to prove it. I am confident and praying that our courts will be fair because I believe in the case of my father, it’s clear where this case will lead to,” she added.
Told that Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte had said he would not vote for her because she might be an American citizen, Poe said he might have just seen what was in the news but she was willing to talk to him to remove his doubts.
“But I thank him because he said I’m a good person,” she added.
Not a drunkard
Poe also denied a tabloid report that she was a drunkard and had undergone drug rehabilitation.
She said she liked San Miguel beer and white wine but this did not mean she was a drunkard.
She said she was never a drug addict or had gone into drug rehab or was cruel to her house helpers.–With reports from DJ Yap and Christine O. Avendaño
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