3 lawyers back Comelec on Poe DQ ruling

MANILA, Philippines - The ruling of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) Second Division to disqualify Sen. Grace Poe from the 2016 presidential elections has valid grounds that would be tough to contest, three legal experts said yesterday.

Election law experts Romulo Macalintal and Carlo Vistan and litigation lawyer Raymond Fortun said the Comelec resolution disqualifying Poe for lack of 10-year residency had legal and factual bases.

“The decision of the Second Division appears to be supported by factual and legal arguments, especially on the residency issue, where Poe admitted a residency of only six years and six months when she filed her certificate of candidacy (COC) for the May 2013 elections,” Macalintal said.

Vistan agreed, saying it was Poe’s admission on her actual period of residency in her previous COC that caused her disqualification.

He said the Comelec division was correct in considering the 2013 COC as an “admission against her interest.”

“That kind of evidence, statements or admission against one’s own interest, that’s a very good evidence against a person. In other words, you cannot contradict now what you had said earlier,” Vistan said.

Fortun, for his part, believes that Poe’s appeal of the ruling would be an uphill battle.

“From experience, a unanimous decision is already an ominous sign. It is highly unlikely that these same commissioners would change their mind,” Fortun said, referring to Second Division commissioners Al Parreño, Arthur Lim and Sheriff Abas.

Macalintal and Vistan shared the same view on Poe’s appeal.

“In that sense it will be difficult for her to seek a reversal of the Comelec division’s ruling against her, since the primary evidence is her own declaration that will contradict her 10-year claim,” Vistan added.

Vistan believes the Second Division’s decision might even affect the outcome of the three other disqualification petitions lodged against Poe before the poll body’s First Division.

Macalintal agreed: “Poe needs new and material evidence to overturn the division ruling. DNA results proving her ties with a Filipino parent might prove her being a natural-born Filipino citizen.

“But that is only one issue because she still has to hurdle the residency issue, which according to the Second Division, she made an admission against interest when she herself declared her said residency in her COC for senator,” he said.

Macalintal added the issue was complicated further by a separate disqualification case filed against Poe with the Senate Electoral Tribunal, in which three of its Supreme Court justice-members and one fellow senator all ruled that Poe should be disqualified as a senator for not being a natural-born Filipino.

“The issue of her citizenship was likewise strongly assailed by the Second Division, practically adopting the opinions of the three Supreme Court justices in the Senate Electoral Tribunal, who dissented from a petition to disqualify Poe as a sitting senator,” Macalintal said.

In its ruling, the Comelec Second Division sided with lawyer Estrella Elamparo’s petition that Poe failed to meet the 10-year residency requirement mandated by the Constitution for a presidential candidate.