Senator Grace Poe (MNS Photo)
MANILA (Mabuhay) – The camp of Senator Grace Poe said Friday the disqualification case filed against the lawmaker was a mere ploy to prevent her from seeking higher office in 2016.
In a statement, lawyer Alexander Poblador, Poe’s counsel, said the case filed by defeated 2013 senatorial candidate Rizalito David was directed not so much as to her election to the Senate but on the possibility of her seeking higher office in next year’s polls.
Poe, however, has yet to categorically state her political plans for 2016.
“The petition has more to do with what will happen in 2016 rather than her current seat in the Senate,” said Poblador, who accompanied Poe during the preliminary conference on the quo warranto petition before the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET).
He said they have sufficient evidence to prove that Poe met the citizenship and residency requirements for congressional candidates when she ran and won in the 2013 midterm elections.
The lawyer said the disqualification case ought to be dismissed for late filing and forum shopping, noting that a similar case was also filed by David with the Commission on Elections recently.
He said under the SET rules, a petition must be filed within 10 days after proclamation.
“Since Senator Poe was proclaimed on May 16, 2013, those who would want to question her qualifications had only until May 26, 2013 to file a petition against her,” he said.
“Our answer to the David petition contains grounds for summary dismissal. It’s been two years since Senator Poe assumed office and yet it is only now that the case is being filed,” he added.
Disqualification cases at SET, Comelec
Earlier in the day, the SET dropped the residency issue and deemed that they focus on Poe’s citizenship.
The quo warranto complaint was filed by David, who placed 50th among 61 candidates in the 2013 senatorial race.
David had claimed that Poe filed a certificate of candidacy in 2013 even when she isn’t a natural born Filipino citizen, that she declared that she has been residing in the Philippines for six months and six years at the time, and that she was ineligible to run because her COC was questionable.
David also filed a similar complaint with the Comelec, citing the same grounds he mentioned in his SET complaint.
But Poblador maintained that in the absence of contrary proof, a foundling like Poe is presumed to be Filipino.
He said the 1987 Constitution, international law, and domestic laws all favor protecting foundlings.
“The presumption is that Senator Poe is a natural-born Filipino and the one who alleges the contrary must prove that she is not,” the lawyer said.
He further said Poe regained her original status as natural-born Filipino, as if she never lost it, after she took new oath of allegiance to the Philippines in 2006.
“The status she reacquired when she repatriated was her status from birth, which is natural-born Filipino,” Poblador said.
Poe returned to the country after the death in 2004 of her father, movie actor Fernando Poe Jr.
Poblador said among Poe’s acts that showed she intended to return and remain in the Philippines for good were her return to the country in the first half of 2005; enrolling her children in local schools in June 2005; purchasing a property in late 2005; construction of her family home in Quezon City in early 2006; and sale of their Virginia home in 2006. (MNS)