Grace Poe confident SC will uphold SET

Senator Grace Poe answers questions from reporters during the National Convention of Government Employees Association of the Philippines at the SMX Convention Center in Pasay City on Monday, December 7, 2015. INQUIRER PHOTO / GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE

A SPOKESPERSON for Sen. Grace Poe on Tuesday said he is confident the Supreme Court would uphold the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET) majority decision dismissing a petition to expel her from the Senate over a question of citizenship.

“We are confident that the Supreme Court will uphold the decision of the majority of the members of the SET,” Poe’s spokesperson Valenzuela Rep. Rex Gatchalian said in a statement.

Petitioner Rizalito David has asked the high court to review the decision of the nine-member SET which voted 5 to 4 that Poe is qualified to continue to sit as a senator, deeming her to be a natural-born Filipino.

Three justices members and one senator member voted to unseat Poe, saying she was not qualified when she ran for the Senate in 2013. The majority of five senators also threw out David’s motion for reconsideration.

Gatchalian said the SET on two occasions “studied the merits of the position of Senator Poe and deemed that she is a natural-born Filipino… They saw wisdom in the legal arguments raised by Senator Poe.”

He also dismissed suggestions that the vote of the SET majority was motivated by political accommodation.

“How can the decision of the SET be political in nature when the members (who sided with Poe) come from different parties,” he said.

Poe herself Tuesday said she will continue with her presidential bid until all questions on her candidacy are resolved by the high court.

“Our fight continues,” she said in a statement.

Even if she was victorious at the SET, Poe suffered a setback at the second division of the Commission on Elections which unanimously voted to disqualify her as a presidential candidate because she lacked the required residency and was not a natural-born Filipino.

Poe’s lawyers have asked the Comelec en banc to reverse the decision of its second division. Christine O. Avendaño