Running-mates Grace Poe (right) and Chiz Escudero endorse the senate bid of Neri Colmenares. Colmenares is one of the 6 exclusive senatorial aspirants of Team GP, which also consists of six shares bets. MAILA AGER/INQUIRER.net FILE PHOTO
Senatorial aspirant and Rep. Neri Colmenares denounced on Wednesday the decision of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) second division to disqualify Senator Grace Poe in the 2016 presidential elections.
On Tuesday, Comelec ruled on the petition filed by lawyer Estrella Elamparo that seeks to disqualify Poe on the ground that she failed to satisfy the required 10-year residency preceding the day of elections which is provided in the Constitution.
READ: Comelec 2nd division disqualifies Grace Poe from presidential race
However, Colmenares said that the Comelec’s decision was “violative of the right of the sovereign people to choose their president.”
He said Poe decided to return, resided and worked in the Philippines since May 2005, citing that she even enrolled her children in our country’s schools during that time.
Colmenares further said that Poe returned after her adoptive father Fernando Poe Jr. died in December 2004.
“Sen. Poe has already proven that she has indeed an intention to return, to stay and actually resided in the Philippines since May 2005 thus surpassing the residency requirement for running for the presidency,” Colmenares said in a statement.
“This is really sad because the LP (Liberal Party) and its cohorts are using every issue they can hit Sen. Poe with even the foundling issue. They are essentially discriminating against abandoned children and depriving them of their rights,” he added.
READ: Poe camp dismisses Palace hand in Comelec DQ ruling
The lawmaker added that the “Comelec 2nd Division only confirms the belief of many that (Benigno) Aquino (III) appointed members of the poll body might yield or succumb to the Liberal Party’s grand scheme and anti-democratic maneuverings to eliminate a rival popular candidate so that Mar Roxas would have a chance of winning the presidency.”
“This type of political maneuver has also been done before against Sen. Poe’s father Fernando Poe Jr., though the Supreme Court then allowed him to be a presidential candidate a few weeks before the election and the damage has been done to Poe,” he said.
Colmenares, however, said the decision to disqualify Poe “is far from over.”
READ: This is not the end of the process, says Grace Poe
He said a motion for reconsideration will be filed so the Comelec en banc can still overrule the second division’s initial decision.
“We just hope that the Comelec commissioners would not allow themselves to be used by the Liberal Party for their political machinations to remain in power,” he said.
“But if worse comes to worst and the Comelec toes the Liberal Party orders then the Partido Galing at Puso will have to go to the Supreme Court for the final ruling and the people would have to fill the streets to demand who they really want to be president,” Colmenares added. RAM
RELATED STORIES
Escudero: Comelec’s disqualification of Poe ‘unfortunate, wrong’
Poe camp on disqualification: There is no ‘Plan B’