Osmeña: If Poe wins without court decision on DQ, SC will follow ‘will of people’

Senator Serge Osmeña believes that in the end, the Supreme Court will follow the will of the people should Senator Grace Poe win in the May 2016 elections without the court deciding on her qualification.

Osmeña, who helped Poe during the 2013 senatorial race, said the lady senator would regain her lead in the surveys if the high tribunal junks the disqualification cases filed against her over her citizenship and residency.

“It will definitely help because she’s being accused now of having abandoned her country. But if the Supreme Court says no she has not abandoned the country, she’s really a Filipina, then it will help her in her standing,” he said.

If, however, the SC has no decision yet when the official campaign starts on February 9, then Osmeña said, “It will weigh her down.”

“But as it gets closer to election today and the Supreme Court will not have made its decision, then the voters will say: ‘Well, I’m gonna vote for her anyway and let the Supreme Court reject my judgment on who should be president.’ If she wins the election and wala pang decision ‘yung Supreme Court, I believe the Supreme Court will say the people have spoken,” he said.

With the pendency of the cases against Poe, Osmeña noted how people change their preference based on the issues being hurled at the lady senator.

“I have not undertaken a detailed survey on that but it seems to me just by asking around that many people change their vote from Grace Poe to another candidate because they felt that number one, she had abandoned her citizenship and now she is reclaiming it for purposes advantages to her and she’s got to clear it up and the Supreme Court decision will certainly help. A favorable Supreme Court decision will help,” he said.

Osmeña said Davao Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, another presidential aspirant, would benefit if Poe would be disqualified from the race.

“I believe half of Grace Poe’s votes will go to Duterte and if you remove Grace from the race, Duterte pops up more than Vice President (Jejomar) Binay and Secretary Mar (Roxas). That’s the way surveys are; this is not my prediction. That is what I read from the surveys,” he pointed out.

Binay, Poe, Roxas and Duterte are the leading contenders for president based on latest surveys.