SC set to rule on disqualification case vs Erap

MANILA, Philippines - Two petitions in the Supreme Court (SC) for the disqualification of Joseph Estrada as mayor of Manila have been given due course after over a year.

Reporters obtained yesterday a copy of the resolution that was issued last April 22.

Spokesman Theodore Te said the SC did not necessarily find merit in the arguments raised in the petitions.

“Due course means that it will result in a decision on the merits, not on an outright dismissal,” he said. “It means the court will not dismiss the petition outright. That’s all it means.”

The SC ordered the parties to submit their memorandums within 30 days from receipt of notice.

“No new issues may be raised by a party in the memorandum, and the issue raised in the pleadings but not included in the memorandum shall be deemed waived or abandoned,” read the SC order. “Being a summation of the parties’ previous pleadings, the court may consider the memorandum alone in deciding or resolving this case.”

Alicia Risos-Vidal, lawyer of then Manila mayor Alfredo Lim, filed the petition in April last year seeking to reverse a Commission on Elections decision declaring Estrada qualified to run for mayor of Manila in the May 13, 2013 elections. Lim himself filed a petition-in-intervention.

Petitioners insisted that Estrada’s conviction for plunder and life sentence in 2007 disqualified him from running for public office.

The executive pardon that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo granted Estrada did not restore his right to seek or hold public office, they added.

In his answer to the petitions in June last year, Estrada said his pardon was absolute and did not hinge on the condition that he would no longer seek elective office as supposedly stated in the whereas clause of the clemency.

The pardon had effectively obliterated all the penalties attached to the conviction and restored him to his full and civil political rights, he added.

Estrada said Lim lacked the legal standing to intervene in the case because he does not stand to sustain any direct injury, or is denied a right or privilege with him sitting as mayor of Manila.