Bro. Eddie plays ‘Good Samaritan’ to Eddie Gil

The Bangon Pilipinas Movement of evangelist and presidential candidate Eduardo "Bro. Eddie" Villanueva is set to file administrative and civil charges against the Commission on Elections (Comelec) next week, BPM chief legal counsel Jordan Pizarras said Tuesday.

Pizarras said the BPM "would file charges of dereliction of duty, violation of election laws and failure to render judgment against the commission with the Office of the Ombudsman" if the Comelec fails to resolve by Friday the disqualification case against self-proclaimed billionaire Eddie Gil.

The BPM would also seek the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court over the case, he said.

Pizarras filed on Jan. 30 a case to disqualify Gil and delist his Isang Bansa Isang Diwa party.

"It has long been overdue," he told The STAR in an interview. "They should decide on the case soon so we could proceed with our other legal plans."

Pizarras said that it was "obvious that Mr. Gil’s bid for president is meant to mock the election."

Pizarras pointed to errors in Gil’s Certificate of Candidacy (COC) as being among the grounds for his possible disqualification as a nuisance candidate.

He cited a report that claimed Gil, standard bearer of Isang Bansa Isang Diwa, had written two different dates and places of birth in his COCs for the 2001 and 2004 elections.

When Gil ran for senator in 2001, he wrote that he was born on Feb. 7, 1944 in Masbate, the report said. But in his COC this year, he wrote that he was born in Zamboanga City.

Pizarras also claimed that Gil wrote "Filipino" for his gender and "Businessmen" for his profession.

The measly number of votes Gil received when he ran for senator could be another ground for his disqualification, the BPM lawyer said. Out of the 30 million votes cast, Gil got only 15,000 or 0.0005 percent.

Under election rules, a candidate could be disqualified if he garners less than 10 percent of the total votes cast, Pizarras explained.

Gil, who describes himself as an "international banker," has promised to pay off the country’s foreign debt. He also promised to give every Filipino a million pesos each.

But during a campaign sortie, Gil and his party were detained for issuing bouncing checks to the hotel they were billeted in.