SET drops Poe residency issue

MANILA, Philippines - The Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET) has dropped the residency issue in the disqualification case against Sen. Grace Poe over her election in 2013.

During a preliminary conference held at the Supreme Court (SC) yesterday, the nine-member tribunal and the camps of Poe and petitioner Rizalito David agreed to drop the residency question due to a rule requiring the filing of disqualification petitions based on residency within 10 days from proclamation of the candidate.

The SET, chaired by Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio and composed of two other justices and six senators, would then resolve whether or not Poe is a natural-born citizen when it hears the case in oral argument on Sept. 21.

Poe’s lawyer Alex Poblador revealed this to reporters after the 30-minute hearing, citing Section 11 of the SET rules.

“Since Senator Poe was proclaimed on May 16, 2013, those who would want to question her qualifications had only until May 26, 2013 to file a petition against her. It’s been two years since Senator Poe assumed office and yet it is only now that the case is being filed,” he said.

Poblador believes that the petition should be dismissed, saying it has an obvious political agenda.

The lawyer, who accompanied Poe in the hearing, alleged that the case was filed not really in relation to the 2013 polls but could be related to the possibility of her seeking higher office in 2016.

“The petition has more to do with what will happen in 2016 rather than her current seat in the Senate,” he stressed.

Poblador expressed confidence that Poe would hurdle the remaining citizenship question.

“We have sufficient evidence to prove that Senator Poe met the citizenship requirements for congressional candidates when she ran and won in the 2013 midterm elections,” he said.

The lawyer insisted that in the absence of contrary proof, a foundling like Poe, who was found in the Philippines, is presumed to be Filipino.

He argued that the 1987 Constitution, international law and domestic laws all favor protecting foundlings.

“The presumption is that Senator Poe is a natural-born Filipino and the one who alleges the contrary must prove that she is not,” the lawyer said.

He said Poe regained her original status as a natural-born Filipino, as if she never lost it, after she took a new oath of allegiance to the Philippines in 2006.

“The status she reacquired when she repatriated was her status from birth, which is natural-born Filipino,” he said.

Poblador also cited several acts of the senator showing that she intended to return and remain in the Philippines for good – returning to the country in the first half of 2005, enrolling her children in local schools in June 2005, purchasing a property in late 2005, the construction of her family home in Quezon City in early 2006 and the sale of their Virginia home in 2006.

Not barred from running

As this developed, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) yesterday said Poe, a frontrunner in surveys on preferred presidential or vice presidential candidates in the May 2016 general elections, cannot be barred from seeking the highest position in the land or any other post despite the pending disqualification case against her.

“If it is for a different position, I do not see why not. But she is not running for senator and that is the immediate concern,” Chairman Andres Bautista said.

Poe’s term as senator will end in 2019 but she is being courted by the ruling Liberal Party to be the running mate of its standard bearer, former interior secretary Manuel Roxas II next year.

Other sectors are urging her to seek the presidency.

Aside from the disqualification case he filed against Poe before the SET, David also filed last month a complaint before the Comelec, accusing Poe of “material misrepresentation” in the certificate of candidacy (COC) that she filed with the poll body in the 2013 senatorial race.

David charged that Poe had committed an election offense for misrepresenting her citizenship, period of residence in the Philippines and eligibility to run for senator. 

Such violation is punishable with up to six years imprisonment, disqualification from holding public office and suspension of the right of suffrage.

Bautista refused to comment on the cases. 

Replay of FPJ case

Poe said her appearance before the SET reminded her of the case of her late father, popular movie actor Fernando Poe Jr., who ran for president in 2004.

“This is a replay of what happened to my father. I’m actually a little sentimental in my presence here,” she told reporters.

“When FPJ ran in 2004, they couldn’t hurl accusations of corruption so they just threw the citizenship issue at him,” she said.

The citizenship of her father was questioned before the Supreme Court, which ruled in March 2004 that he was a natural-born Filipino citizen under the terms of the 1935 Constitution.

True Filipino

It was the first time Poe faced David. She said an aisle separated them during the closed-door conference but they did not talk to each other.

“We did not need to talk because it was a formal discussion. We only listened to Justice Carpio,” she said.

Poe said she personally attended the hearing to directly tell the SET and her accuser that she has nothing to fear and she is a true Filipino.

During the hearing, the camp of Poe presented as one of the evidence her birth certificate, but the camp of David questioned supposed alterations in the document.

Poblador immediately explained that what David claimed as alterations were additions reflecting Poe’s formal adoption in 1974.

Poblador added that contrary to David’s claim that Poe’s birth certificate was registered only in 2006, “it was reflected or registered in the Civil Registrar of Iloilo in 1980.”

Poe was found abandoned outside the Jaro Church in Iloilo in 1968. She was adopted by Fernando Poe Jr. and his wife Susan Roces in 1974. – With Sheila Crisostomo, Christina Mendez, Robertzon Ramirez