SET seeks Grace’s birth, travel records

MANILA, Philippines - As Sen. Grace Poe continues her soul searching amid calls for her to run for president next year, the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET) has directed the Bureau of Immigration (BI) and the National Statistics Office (NSO) to produce her citizenship and birth certificate documents, signaling the start of an investigation that could make or break her political future.

Poe has the highest popularity ratings among possible presidential candidates in the 2016 elections. The ruling Liberal Party has long been trying to convince her to be the running mate of its presidential candidate, Interior and Local Government Secretary Manuel Roxas II.

In a resolution dated Aug. 27 and signed by the nine-member SET, the two government agencies – through a subpoena duces tecum – were directed to produce the documents as part of the tribunal’s investigation into allegations by defeated 2013 senatorial candidate Rizalito David that Poe had distorted information in her certificate of candidacy filed with the Commission on Elections (Comelec) when she ran for senator.

The NSO has been asked to produce Poe’s birth certificate, while the BI has been directed to show her complete travel records, citizenship papers and immigration records when she was still an American citizen.

The SET wants to know if the senator has complied with the requirements under the Republic Act 9139 or An Act Providing for the Acquisition of Philippine Citizenship for Certain Aliens by Administrative Naturalization and for other purposes.

The SET also wants the BI to present documents on the oath reportedly taken by Poe when she re-acquired citizenship.

In the case he filed with the SET, David also alleged Poe failed to satisfy the two-year residency requirement for senatorial candidates.

David said he wanted Poe removed as member of the Senate, citing her not being a natural-born citizen of the Philippines.

“So right now, Grace is stateless. She is neither an American nor a Filipino and therefore she has no right to sit in the Senate,” David said.

Poe’s camp, for its part, said the subpoenas issued by SET were unnecessary because the documents being required for submission would all be included in her response to the petition filed by David.

In a statement, Poe’s chief of staff Nelson Victorino said that “certified true copies of all pertinent documents from the NSO and BI relative to said matters covered by the subpoena will all be submitted to the SET as attachments to Senator Poe’s answer to serve as pieces of evidence that will prove that Senator Poe is a natural born Filipino citizen.”

“She has complied with all other constitutional requirements to become and remain a duly elected senator of the country and that therefore Mr. David’s petition has no legal basis and must be dismissed,” Victorino said.

Poe stated she re-acquired Filipino citizenship in 2005, a year after she decided to finally settle in the Philippines shortly after her father’s death in 2004.

Poe became an American citizen in 1991 after she went to the US to pursue her relationship with her boyfriend, Neil Llamanzares. Poe married the young US navy officer who is a natural-born American. 

Poe earlier said she welcomed the filing of the SET case as it would give her the opportunity to address issues leveled against her by David.

“I assure the 20 million fellow Filipinos who voted for me, as well as the rest of the country, that their confidence in me is not misplaced,” Poe said in a statement. “I remain truthful to our countrymen. I am a Filipino by birth, abode and choice.”

Immigration spokesperson Elaine Tan said that they have yet to receive SET’s order, but assured the tribunal the bureau would comply with the order. Marvin Sy