Lawyers Maria Jeannette Tecson, Felix Desiderio Jr. and Gertrudo de Leon said the Comelec acted with "grave abuse of discretion" when it heard the petition questioning the citizenship of Poe, since it lacked jurisdiction over the matter.
The petitioners also said the Comelec should be stopped from recognizing Poe’s candidacy. They asked the SC to order the permanent removal of Poe as a qualified candidate for president in all records of the Comelec.
In a 19-page petition, the three lawyers asked the SC to assume jurisdiction over the question of Poe’s citizenship, since it has the sole jurisdiction to resolve matters relating to the qualifications of presidential candidates.
Tecson, Desiderio and De Leon said Poe should be disqualified, since his own records show he is an illegitimate child who, under the law, should have adopted the nationality and surname of his American mother, Bessie Kelley.
The three lawyers said Poe was illegitimate because he was born out of wedlock. His parents, Allan Fernando Poe and Kelley, married on Sept. 16, 1940 — a little over a year after he was born on Aug. 20, 1939.
Since the marriage contract of his parents showed Poe’s mother was American, Poe, therefore, is also an American, they said. Philippine law states that an illegitimate child takes on the citizenship of his or her mother.
The three lawyers said allowing Poe to run "will not only work to continue misleading the voting public on Poe, but will more importantly cause heightened emotions, grave and irreparable damage to the Philippines because a foreign national is being allowed to vie for the highest position in the executive branch of government."
The petitioners said Poe’s parents failed to comply with the requirements to legitimize him based on the provisions of the Old Civil Code. They said there should be a public instrument executed to acknowledge Poe as the true son of his father.
But, even if he were legitimated, the three lawyers said, Poe will still not be qualified to run for president because he is not a natural-born Filipino citizen.
Under the 1987 Constitution, natural-born Filipinos are citizens of the Philippines from birth, without having to perform any act to acquire or perfect their Philippine citizenship.
This refutes the claim that Poe is a legitimate child of his parents and is a natural-born Filipino entitled to all the rights of a legitimate child — including the acquisition of his father’s citizenship.
Lawyer Victorino Fornier last week filed a petition for Poe’s disqualification on the basis that Poe is not a Filipino citizen. Fornier said Poe’s grandparents were Spanish citizens and that Poe’s father was a Spanish citizen.
Fornier also said Poe was an illegitimate child because Poe’s father was married to a certain Paulita Gomez before he married Kelley.
Fornier also said Gomez filed bigamy and concubinage charges against the elder Poe for his marriage to Kelley — indicating that the Poe-Kelley marriage was null and void.
Fornier’s petition was dismissed by the Comelec yesterday.
Records and Management and Archives Office (RMAO) director Ricardo Manapat, who testified against Poe in the Comelec hearing on the case last Tuesday, was sacked by President Arroyo Thursday on allegations he participated in forging the documents used by Fornier against Poe.
"With the national elections barely three months away, public interest and the already volatile situation calls for this Court to urgently assume jurisdiction over this action and resolve with finality the purely legal question of whether respondent Poe is qualified to run for president," Tecson, De Leon and Desiderio said.
The three lawyers belong to the Sales, De Leon, Tecson and Desiderio Law Offices in Pasig City.
Tecson said they "are non-partisan. We just really want to bring this matter (before the Supreme Court) as concerned citizens and as lawyers who feel that this issue should be put to an end as soon as possible."
The SC "will have to reopen the case because any proceeding done by the Comelec is void from the beginning," she added.
Tecson said she and her colleagues "were surprised when the petition was indeed filed (before) and heard by the Comelec, which lacked jurisdiction over the case."
"We want the Supreme Court to assume jurisdiction (over the Poe disqualification case) before government resources are wasted."