The camp of presidential aspirant and Senator Grace Poe appealed on Monday the decision of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) Second Division which ordered the cancellation of the senator’s certificate of candidacy (COC) for president in the 2016 polls.
Poe’s lawyer George Garcia filed a motion for reconsideration seeking to reverse the division’s decision which it promulgated last December 1.
READ: Comelec 2nd division disqualifies Grace Poe from presidential race
In the motion, Garcia said that Poe did not commit “material misrepresentations” when she declared in her COC that she has been a resident of the country for 10 years and 11 months come election day on May 9, 2015.
“Respondent (Poe) had no intention to deceive the electorate or to hide a fact of disqualification with respect to her period of residency in the Philippines,” Garcia said in a statement.
The lawyer said that the Second Division, which is led by presiding commissioner Al Parreno and commissioners Arthur Lim and Sherriff Abas, exercised “complete and utter disregard of the overwhelming evidence on record” and decided “contrary to applicable jurisprudence as to amount to a capricious and whimsical judgment.”
Garcia said Poe committed an “honest mistake” when she filled out her certificate of candidacy in 2013 where she said that she is a resident of the country from November 2006 where in fact, she has been a resident of the country since May 2005.
Their camp claims that the Comelec division ignored documents which prove Poe’s intention to stay in the country for good since 2005 such as the enrollment of her children in local schools in June 2005 and the purchase of a residential lot for their family home.
“If the Second Division considered these pieces of evidence, it would have found that [Poe’s] statement that she will be a resident of the Philippines for 10 years and 11 months by May 2016 is not false,” Garcia said.
READ: Brillantes: Keep Grace Poe on the ballot; she can still go to SC
He said that Poe only acted “in good faith” when she declared in her latest COC that she stayed in the country for the past “10 years and 11 months.”
“In indicating in her COC for President her period of residence in the Philippines to be ‘10 years, 11 months,’ [Poe] acted in utmost good faith, relying on Supreme Court pronouncements that a candidate is not estopped from proving her actual residence in the Philippines as a question of fact,” Garcia said.
Meanwhile, Poe’s camp slammed the Comelec division for ruling that Poe is not a natural-born Filipino. Garcia reiterated that Poe is a natural-born Filipino even if she is a foundling, in accordance to pertinent provisions of the Philippine Constitution, customary international law and domestic laws.
Lastly, the lawyer said that Comelec has no jurisdiction to rule on Poe’s eligibility as a presidential candidate as it should only act as an “enforcer” or “administrator” of election laws. He said that that president’s qualifications could only be assailed before the Presidential Eletoral Tribunal (PET), but only after the elections or once the presidential candidate has been proclaimed as the winner.
“The power to pass upon the qualifications of a candidate for President who does not clearly fall under [pertinent OEC provisions], is not a power granted to Comelec. The Constitution vests the sole and exclusive jurisdiction over questions relating to qualifications of the President to the Supreme Court sitting as the [PET],” Garcia said.
READ: ‘Comelec has no say on Poe DQ’
The motion will be decided upon by the Comelec sitting en banc.
The December 1 decision of the Comelec division was only the first of the four disqualification cases that the former presidential poll frontrunner is facing before the poll body.
Poe’s camp earlier expressed hope that the Comelec en banc will rule in their favor.
“This is just a decision of the Second Division. She is still a candidate for President and her name will remain on the ballot. We will exhaust all legal remedies, including appeal to the Comelec en banc. We believe that collectively they (Comelec) will see the merits of our case,” Poe’s spokesperson Rex Gatchalian was earlier quoted as saying. CDG