Susan drops protest

"Enough is enough. We will just accept the Supreme Court’s decision."

With these words, movie actress Susan Roces told her lawyer last Saturday she would no longer pursue the poll protest of her late husband Fernando Poe Jr.

Roces — Jesusa Sonora in real life — filed a 27-page final manifestation yesterday informing the Supreme Court, sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), that she would not appeal its March 29 ruling dismissing the protest for lack of "party in interest."

The ruling junked Roces’ petition to be Poe’s substitute in his bid for a recount of ballots in last year’s presidential election, which was won by incumbent President Arroyo.

Roces expressed sadness over her virtual withdrawal from the quest to "reveal the truth" about the results of the election, but events and circumstances that preceded the PET verdict had made her decision inevitable, her lawyer Sixto Brillantes said.

"Some harrowing incidents that surrounded the (protest) indicate and confirm Susan Roces’ perception from the very start and until that gloomy Wednesday, March 29, 2005 — when the (PET resolution) was abruptly released to the mass media ahead of formal notices to the contending parties — that (Poe’s) protest was doomed to fail," Brillantes said.

But despite her manifestation, Roces stopped short of acknowledging Mrs. Arroyo won the election.

"She now formally manifests that despite honestly finding the said resolution is inaccurate in some of the more significant aspects and thus unacceptable, she no longer intends to avail of the final and ultimate remedy of filing a motion for reconsideration, thus effectively rendering the (resolution) final, executory, unappealable and unassailable, but judicially and legally only," Brillantes said.

The announcement was greeted with relief by Mrs. Arroyo’s election lawyer, Romulo Macalintal.

Contacted by The STAR, Macalintal said he had been praying for the speedy resolution of the poll case.

"I’ve been praying for that," he said. "I’m glad it will be over."

Macalintal urged Poe’s supporters to "respect the decision of MISS Susan Roces."

Roces appeared to have been daunted by the unanimous decision of the PET to dismiss Poe’s protest as well as her petition to be her husband’s substitute on a "mere technicality."

"Everybody noted that it was a 15-0 vote. It’s very difficult for us to get a reversal. It’s an exercise in futility," Brillantes said.

But Roces, he said, has no intention of joining Poe’s supporters in street protests against the Arroyo administration.

Brillantes said Roces will instead appear in a press conference on Thursday, April 14 that will coincide with the fourth-month death anniversary of Poe.

Brillantes questioned the refusal of the SC to exercise the "motherhood dictum" in Poe’s protest case.

The SC, he said, "has apparently opted to simply put to naught" the principle that technicalities should be "set aside" in determining the "true will of the electorate."

"The Supreme Court has opted to take the simple and easy way out by deciding to go technical, as if to wash its hands, and just leave the true will of the Filipino people, expressed in the May 10, 2004 national election, in limbo. It thereby allowed, via sheer technicality, a mere presumptive president to continue governing this nation for the next several years, all under the guise of a desired stability, but without considering that such washing of hands and easy way out could readily serve as the very fuse for continuing instability," he said.

Brillantes also lamented the failure of the PET to issue an order to "preserve and protect electoral documents and paraphernalia."

"For several months after the commencement, and until the protest died, or was effectively killed, this honorable tribunal never issued such a precautionary order, for reasons, to this very day, that one cannot truly understand," he said. — With Marichu Villanueva