THE latest political advertisement of Sen. Grace Poe that compared her disqualification case with that of her father’s may put the Supreme Court in a bad light, a lawyer said Wednesday.
In Poe’s latest 30-second TV ad, four neighbors are discussing the disqualification case against the senator, and then one of them, a woman, butts in to say: “Lola, kandidato pa rin po siya bilang presidente.”
Her male neighbor says, “Eh ganyang-ganyan din yung ginawa nila sa tatay niyang si FPJ (Fernando Poe Jr.), eh,” as the woman continued: “Pero sa huli, pinayagan ng Korte Suprema na tumakbo.”
The man then says: “Parang pelikula lang yan ni FPJ, nagpapabugbog sa simula!”
Litigation lawyer Raymond Fortun said the advertisement may put the Supreme Court in a bad light “if the outcome is different from what they want to portray.”
There are three cases involving Poe which are pending before the Supreme Court. The first is the petition filed by Rizalito David questioning the decision of the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET) that dismissed his bid to unseat Poe from the Senate. The two other cases are petitions filed by Poe questioning the decisions of the Commission on Election (Comelec) en banc canceling her certificate of candidacy (COC).
The Supreme Court has stopped the Comelec from implementing its decision and set the case for oral argument.
“To come up with an ad that ‘ganyan-ganyan din ang ginawa nila sa tatay nyang si FPJ’ is a deception to the people. Further, the issue is pending before the Supreme Court. Her lawyers should know better than to allow the release of an ad that may put the High Court in a bad light if the outcome is different from what they want to portray,” Fortun said in a text message to INQUIRER.net.
Fortun added that the legal and factual issues against FPJ are different from those of Senator Poe, to which election law expert Atty. Romulo Macalintal agreed.
“Poe’s case is not similar to her father, FPJ because the parents of the latter were known and he was declared natural born unlike Senator Poe who is a foundling which is now the issue whether her parents were indeed Filipino citizens,” Macalintal said in a separate text message.
“Also Senator Poe has issue on her residency which was not present in FPJ case,” he added.
In FPJ’s 2004 case, the Supreme Court ruled he was a Filipino even if he was an illegitimate son to an American mother. The high court said FPJ takes after the citizenship of his Filipino father.
Poe is a foundling from Iloilo adopted by FPJ and Susan Roces. She migrated to the US in 1991 and eventually became a naturalized US citizen.
In 2006, she re-acquired her Filipino citizenship and became a dual citizen. In 2010, she finally renounced her US citizenship just before she was appointed chair of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board.