SC asked to deny Poe’s bid for consolidated petitions vs Comelec

THE camp of Rizalito David on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to deny the bid of Senator Grace Poe to consolidate her two petitions against the Commission on Elections (Comelec) with the pending petition regarding the decision of the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET).

“Petitioner views such move with grave concern. It bears emphasis that the actions pending before the Court en banc are by and between different parties and originated from different electoral tribunals—SET and the Comelec-and have different causes of action, issues, reliefs and eventualities,” David said in his five-page plea.

“To illustrate, if the assailed SET decision is reversed and set aside, private respondent will be removed from the Senate of the Philippines, whereas, if the Honorable Court will sustain the assailed Comelec resolutions, she will not be included in the ballot or barred from running for the presidency in the May 9, 2016 national elections. Hence, petitioner is constrained to file their manifestation,” he added.

Poe filed two petitions with the Supreme Court challenging two rulings of the Comelec en banc affirming the decisions of its first and second divisions.

Its first division canceled Poe’s COC due to questions on citizenship and residency raised by former-Senator Francisco Tatad, Antonio Contreras and Amado Valdez. Meanwhile, the Comelec second division canceled Poe’s COC based on the petition filed by lawyer Estrella Elamparo stating that Poe failed to meet the constitutional requirement of a 10-year residency for presidential candidates.

On Monday, former senator Francisco “Kit” Tatad also opposed the move of the camp of Poe for the consolidation of actions of all the cases filed against her saying there is no basis for their call.

“As regards petitioner’s motion for consolidation of actions the Honorable Court should deny the same for utter lack of merit. Consolidation of the present action with the action entitled “Rizalito Y. David v. Senate Electoral Tribunal, et al, is not feasible not only because the causes of action, reliefs, eventualities, and parties differ but more importantly, the tribunals which issued the assailed resolutions are not one and the same.  Actual consolidation cannot be had since the actions pending are not between the same parties,” Tatad said.

Tatad is one of the petitioners before the Comelec against Poe.

In her petition, Poe invoked Section 9, Rule 3 of the Comelec Rules in asking for the consolidation of the disqualification cases against her.

She said that except for the case filed by Tatad, all the other disqualification cases raised the same issues against her-the alleged material misrepresentation in her certificate of candidacy.

Aside from Tatad, former GSIS lawyer Estrella Elamparo, former University of the East Law dean Amado Valdez and De La Salle University professor Antonio Contreras have also filed disqualification cases against Poe before the poll body.

The neophyte lawmaker said consolidating the said cases will also save time.

Poe further explained then that considering that all parties have already said they will bring the cases all the way to the Supreme Court, a separate resolution will not only be counter-productive but will also put the aggrieved party twice in jeopardy for the same event.”

“A separate resolution of the pending motions for reconsideration will not only be inefficient, it will also be unjust to the aggrieved party, especially since this Honorable Commission has said that the resolution of the said motions for reconsiderations will only be, at most, a few days apart,” she added.