SC upholds win of Samar lawmaker

MANILA, Philippines - The Supreme Court (SC) has upheld the election of former three-term Samar governor Milagrosa Tee Tan as representative of the province’s second district in 2010.

In a ruling, the SC affirmed an earlier ruling of the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET) and junked the petition filed by Wilfredo Estorninos questioning Tan’s citizenship.

The SC upheld HRET’s findings that Tan is a natural-born Filipino citizen and qualified to sit as a representative of Samar’s second district at the House of Representatives.

After a careful examination of the records, the SC said it decided dismiss Estorninos’ petition for failing to show that the HRET “committed grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or in excess of jurisdiction” in finding that Tan is a natural-born citizen, and thus qualified to sit as congresswoman.

Still, she was allowed to run pending appeal of the Comelec ruling. She won in the congressional race against Estorninos, former mayor of Basey town, and has since taken her seat in the House.

The HRET later on held that Tan does possess the legal qualifications to run for a seat in Congress, as her mother was a natural-born Filipino and her father was a Chinese national.