Lawmakers to Grace: Explain citizenship

MANILA, Philippines - Two congressmen yesterday urged Sen. Grace Poe to sufficiently explain the issues hounding her, particularly questions about her citizenship and her alleged lack of qualification to run for president.

Party-list Reps. Lito Atienza of Buhay and Antonio Tinio of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers said Poe should welcome the cases filed by defeated senatorial candidate Rizalito David with the Senate Electoral Tribunal and the Commission on Elections.

“These cases will provide her the opportunity to explain the issues confronting her,” Atienza told the Usaping Balita forum at the Serye restaurant in Quezon City.

“Is she a natural born Filipino citizen? If she is, fine. Does she meet the 10-year residency requirement on the day of the elections in 2016 for a presidential aspirant? If she does, well and good,” he said.

Atienza said the “requirements of the presidency should be fully ventilated and discussed dispassionately and unemotionally and without anger because we will be electing the highest official of the land, no less.”

Poe, who has not yet declared if she is seeking higher office in the 2016 elections, has asserted that she is a natural born Filipino and that she would be meeting the 10-year residency requirement by the time of balloting.

Atienza said it is also important for Poe to tell the nation if she is qualified to run for president despite giving up her Philippine citizenship, swearing allegiance to the United States and then subsequently becoming a Filipino citizen again.

“She has to explain all these issues sufficiently so that the people can make an informed decision in case she runs for president. How we react to these questions will test our maturity as a democracy,” Atienza said.

“Anger, passion and emotion should not come into the picture. It’s simply a matter of presenting documents,” he said.

Poe has said she had given up her US citizenship before running for senator in 2013.

For his part, Tinio said it is better for Poe that the citizenship and lack of qualification issues hounding her are resolved now.

“We all knew that these would come out at some point. Now that they are out, they should be settled before the 2016 elections,” he said.

Tinio said Poe should also reveal how she, being a former American citizen, would deal with the US in case she is elected president.

David told the same news forum that the cases he filed against Poe are his own initiative.

“There is no politician, political party or any group behind me,” he said.

David said he raised the P50,000 filing fee required by the Senate tribunal by asking contributions from friends, whom he refused to identify.

Atienza vouched for David. He said he has known David for many years “and I know that he fights for what he thinks is right.”

“We have been together in the pro-life movement and I admire his convictions. I believe that this is his own initiative,” he said.

Instead of trying to investigate who the complainant is and who are the people behind him, if there are any, Atienza said the Poe camp should focus on the issues David has raised.

“Don’t shoot the messenger,” he added.

Also in the same forum was former Negros Oriental congressman Jacinto Paras, who claimed Caloocan City Rep. Edgar Erice made him a “scapegoat” by pointing to him as a possible contributor to David’s filing fee.

“I think it is Erice and the Liberal Party who are behind these cases,” Paras said.

Erice and LP leaders have said they have nothing to do with the Poe citizenship case filer.

Paras said Poe does not meet the 10-year residency requirement for a presidential aspirant.

“She filed her application to regain her Philippine citizenship on July 18, 2006. If that is the reckoning point for the 10-year rule, then she is short by three months on the day of the elections on May 9, 2016,” he said.

It was Navotas Rep. Tobias Tiangco, president of Vice President Jejomar Binay’s United Nationalist Alliance, who first raised the residency issue.

By Tiangco’s count, Poe would be short by six months.

Seeking audience

Erice, for his part, sought a personal meeting with Poe to “assure” her that he was not behind the attacks against her.

Erice showed to reporters his text message to Poe that read: “Sen. Grace ma’m. May I respectfully seek an audience so I can personally assure you that I am not part of those who question your being a Filipino, as being maliciously peddled in social media. I have some information that I can share with you regarding this.

“I made it clear in my other comments, that it should be taken as an advise (sic) and advocacy rather than criticism,” the text message read.

Erice told Poe that he was the first one who espoused the idea of her pairing up with Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas II of the Liberal Party.

He said he still stands by his opinion that Poe is not yet prepared to be president.

“I am sorry but it is my opinion that you are not yet ready for the presidency but I will respect whatever will be your opinion and decisions. After all we are accountable for whatever we say or do as a public officials,” Erice said in his text message.

However, Poe at first did not know who texted her and asked the sender to identify himself, saying she had “problems with phone directory.”

When Erice introduced himself, the senator thanked him but did not say whether she agreed to see him.

Erice earlier alleged that former Negros Oriental congressman Paras called him up and asked him to help defray the cost of filing a disqualification case against Poe.

Paras strongly denied the allegation. He admitted calling up Erice telling him that the LP also will benefit with Poe’s disqualification, but denied asking the Caloocan lawmaker to share the cost of filing the suit.

Ako Bicol party-list Rep. Rodel Batocabe, on the other hand, called for an end to what he said was the exploitation of the citizenship and residency issues against Poe.

Batocabe described the raising of these issues against Poe as “traditional politics of the worst kind.”

“Whether Senator Poe is qualified to run is a matter for the courts decide. But all this black propaganda aimed at questioning her patriotism because she lived abroad is uncalled for,”he said.

Batocabe cited social media campaigns that sought to cast in a negative light Poe’s decision to live and work in the US before deciding to return to the Philippines for good in 2005.

“I think this is unfair, not just to Senator Poe, but to every Filipino who decides to work in another country, many of whom come from Bicol,” he said.

Batocabe said economic realities and other factors force many Filipinos to go abroad and live there, but this does not mean they do not love their country of birth.

“If a Filipino came home after working abroad and decided to run for office and she was sincere and capable, then we would support her,” he said.

He said the tactics employed by traditional politicians have contributed to their unpopularity, while highlighting Poe’s appeal.

Like her father, Poe is a political outsider and provides a fresh alternative to “the same old names and faces dominating the political landscape,” he said.

“Aside from that, she has also shown no reluctance to hit either the administration or the opposition despite her ties to both. That independence has helped her establish a reputation as someone who can be trusted to advance the interests of common people, not political parties,” Batocabe said.

Do not interfere

Senate President Franklin Drilon yesterday chided Oriental Mindoro Rep. Reynaldo Umali for proposing an overhaul of major Senate committees once Poe and Sen. Francis Escudero choose to run for higher office in 2016.

Drilon, also the Liberal Party vice chairman, cautioned Umali against interfering in the internal affairs of the Senate.

He said Umali’s statements constitute a serious breach of inter-parliamentary courtesy.

Drilon’s statement also came amid the concerns Poe had raised that some LP members are hitting her despite failed efforts by Roxas to convince the senator to be his running mate. – Paolo Romero, Christina Mendez