Rizalito David. SCREENGRAB FROM INQUIRER.net VIDEO
Atty. Rizalito David has asked the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET) to subpoena the citizenship documents and travel records of Senator Grace Poe in his bid to unseat her from the Senate.
According to his motion to subpoena filed on Tuesday, David asked the SET to subpoena Poe’s re-acquisition of citizenship documents and her travel records from the Bureau of Immigration.
David has also asked the tribunal to subpoena Poe’s birth certificate from the National Statistics Office.
“It is respectfully prayed of the Honorable Tribunal to grant this motion and issue subpoena duces tecum to the Bureau of Immigration and the National Statistics Office, for them to bring to the Tribunal, with certified true copies to be provided the petitioner, the aforesaid records, in the ‘higher interest of justice,'” David said in his motion.
The petitioner against Poe filed the motion for subpoena even when the tribunal has yet to take jurisdiction on his petition to disqualify Poe from the Senate.
Poe has been the target of politicians since she topped the presidential and vice presidential voters preference polls.
According to David’s quo warranto petition filed before the SET, Poe is ineligible to remain in the Senate because she is a foundling, or a “stateless” being.
This means Poe is not a “natural-born citizen,” as required for in the Constitution for senators.
Poe was abandoned in a church in Jaro, Iloilo province before she was adopted by the late action star Fernando Poe, Jr. (FPJ) and actress Susan Roces.
“Being a foundling, her parents are not known and cannot be presumed as Filipino citizens; hence, she cannot claim or acquire the status of a natural-born citizen,” David said.
David in his petition said the 1987 Constitution defines a natural-born citizen as “those who are citizens of the Philippines from birth without having to perform any act to acquire or perfect their Philippine citizenship.”
David said Poe became an American citizen in 2001 and reacquired her Filipino citizenship 2006 following the death of her father FPJ, known as the King of Philippine movies.
David added that no law in the Philippines gives a natural-born status to a foundling.
He also said Poe’s adoption by FPJ and Susan Roces does not give Poe a Filipino citizen stature.
“It should be emphasized that (Poe) was a foundling when she was adopted. She had no known biological parents, having been allegedly found in a church in Jaro, Iloilo, and was allegedly taken by a rich woman and later on ended up in the hands of the Poe couple,” David said. JE