Poe won’t be disqualified, say allies

GRACE IN PAMPANGA Sen. Grace Poe, who is being supported by the Nationalist People’s Coalition, attends a public consultation with local officilas in Apalit, Pampanga province. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

The Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC) is optimistic that the Supreme Court will allow Sen. Grace Poe to run for President in the May 9 elections amid reports that an adverse decision against the foundling was being circulated among the magistrates.

“Based on what we have heard and read during the several public hearings of the high court, we are now more confident that Grace will be able to hurdle the Supreme Court case,” said the NPC president, Deputy Speaker Giorgidi Aggabao.

Aggabao was referring to the positive statements made by Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, Associate Justice Marvic Leonen and Solicitor General Florin Hilbay during the recent oral arguments the court had conducted.

Aggabao said the high court should have decided on the case as “early as yesterday” because for the public to go into Election Day without being sure whether a candidate would make it or not would be an injustice to the Filipino people.

Poe’s campaign manager, Cebu Rep. Joseph “Ace” Durano, brushed aside reports that the majority of magistrates had already decided to disqualify Poe.

“We’ve also heard that Poe has already won but we don’t go out and put this out as news. We believe the Supreme Court will come out with the decision as soon as it has reached one,” Durano said in a phone interview.

Even if it is true that Associate Justice Mariano del Castillo had written a 70-page draft ponencia, Durano said, it does not become a decision unless a majority of the magistrates sign it.

Without getting the signatures of the majority, Durano said the reported ponencia would end up as a dissenting opinion.

“What’s the motive in spreading this rumor? Who do they want to influence? If they think that Poe is already disqualified, why not wait for the official announcement? We’ve also heard that rumored draft decision was a hard sell among SC justices but we didn’t tell anyone, much less feed it to media, because that would be unfair to the high court,” Durano said.

No comment

During his regular weekly news briefing on Tuesday, Supreme Court spokesperson Theodore Te was asked about the purported draft ruling by Del Castillo, the magistrate reportedly assigned to write the court’s opinion.

“The court does not comment on those things,” Te said.

The high court has two more en banc sessions left—on March 8 and 15—before going on Holy Week break. It will resume on the summer sessions beginning on April 4, or about a month away from polling day.

Poe’s petition against her disqualification, which was ordered by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in response to questions on her citizenship and residency, was submitted for resolution by the court on Feb. 22 after five sessions of weekly oral arguments.

The senator continues to campaign and is still on the official list of candidates and the printed ballots after the high court issued a temporary restraining order last Dec. 28, the day she filed a petition to nullify the Comelec ruling, citing grave abuse of discretion.

The Comelec resolutions, which upheld separate rulings by the First and Second Divisions, had found Poe guilty of material misrepresentation when she declared that she is a natural-born Filipino citizen and had fulfilled the 10-year residency requirement for presidential aspirants.

Poe’s camp is asserting that she is a natural-born citizen, as international law accords such a right to foundlings like her. Her lawyers are also maintaining that Poe reestablished domicile in the Philippines on May 24, 2005, after living in the United States for a long time.

But the Comelec, acting on petitions filed by former Sen. Francisco “Kit” Tatad, De La Salle University professor Antonio Contreras, former University of the East law dean Amado Valdez and former Government Service Insurance System chief legal counsel Estrella Elamparo, decided otherwise.

Poe confident

The Comelec said that Poe may not be regarded a natural-born Filipino as provisions of the 1935 Constitution, which covered her birth year 1968, were silent on the citizenship status of foundlings.

It also said Poe was bound to her 2012 certificate of candidacy for senator, where she had declared that she would be a resident of the Philippines for six years and six months come Election Day 2013.

This would mean she would be six months short of the required domicile for presidential candidates by the elections this May.

In 2001, Poe renounced her Philippine citizenship and became an American after she married Filipino-American Neil Llamanzares. She then reacquired her Philippine citizenship in 2006, months after she and her family flew back to the Philippines. She was a dual citizen until 2010, when she renounced her American citizenship.

During a campaign swing in Angeles City, Poe told reporters she was confident the Supreme Court would uphold her candidacy.

“I think it would be better for me for the issue to be concluded. Whatever the outcome, we feel confident,” Poe said in a press conference.

While the positions of certain parties have been heard, a decision is not official until it comes out, she said.

“And probably the first to know would be us, the parties in the case,” she added.

Malicious

But her running mate, Sen. Francis Escudero, on Tuesday described as “malicious” the reports about the court’s purported adverse ruling.

Escudero said the report probably came from Poe’s rivals, who put out the rumor about the decision to try to dampen the good news regarding her campaign.

“They probably want to counter the good news about her being endorsed by the [NPC],” he said.

He questioned who was behind the report on the purported court decision. “Who is he and who are they talking to inside to be that confident about what they are saying with regard to the results in the Supreme Court?” he asked.

Reports earlier said a draft ponencia stated that Poe should be disqualified for failing to meet the 10-year residency requirement for candidates for President but would remain silent on the issue of foundlings, saving her Senate seat and affording her a chance to seek the presidency in the future. TVJ

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