Poe downplays SC dissent; court amending Charter?

MANILA, Philippines - Sen. Grace Poe yesterday downplayed questions being raised about the legitimacy of the ruling handed down by the Supreme Court on her disqualification, which the SC’s senior associate justice argued was not a majority ruling.

This developed as SC Associate Justice Teresita Leonardo-de Castro said in her dissenting opinion that the ruling on Poe’s disqualification case has effectively amended the Constitution.

“This amendment of the Constitution by the judicial opinion... is based mainly on extralegal grounds and a misreading of existing laws, which will have unimaginable grave and far-reaching dire consequences in our constitutional and legal system and national interest,” De Castro stressed.

Speaking with reporters at the Santa Barbara public market in Iloilo, Poe said SC Associate Justice Antonio Carpio’s argument that there was no majority ruling on her case was his own opinion.

“Hayaan mo na siya kung ano man ang kanyang opinyon diyan. Pero yung collective wisdom ng Supreme Court ang ating batayan,” Poe said, stressing it was the collective wisdom of the court that mattered.

In his dissenting opinion, Carpio said there was no majority ruling on Poe’s qualification as a natural-born Filipino because the SC’s ruling on the issue of citizenship was 7-5-3.

Poe said that she was advised by her lawyers that the requirement of a majority ruling, as cited by Carpio, applies to questions on constitutionality.

“Hindi ako abogado pero hindi naman ito question ng constitutionality of a particular law. Ito ay isang kaso na kanilang naresolusyonan kaya ang advice naman sa akin ay mayroon pa rin tayong mayorya,” Poe said.

Poe said that she would leave it up to her critics to take whatever action they deem necessary in response to the position taken by Carpio.

Poe said that she was no longer surprised by the opinion of Carpio, who she said has not only ruled against her in the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET), but also against her father, the late actor Fernando Poe Jr. (FPJ) when his citizenship was also raised before the SC in 2004 in relation to his bid for the presidency.

In its ruling, the SC allowed FPJ to run for president.

The SET junked the disqualification cases filed against Poe, which were based on the argument that she is not a natural-born Filipino.

In a forum with students of the University of the Philippines in the Visayas yesterday, Poe reiterated her claim that she made an error in her certificate of candidacy (COC) for the 2013 senatorial elections where she indicated that her residency in the Philippines started in March of 2006.

This entry of Poe in her COC was used as the basis for some of her disqualification cases because using the dates that she provided, she would be short by five to six months on the 10-year residency requirement for presidential candidates.

Poe said that she made a mistake of counting from the time her husband Neil Llamanzares returned to the Philippines in 2006 and not when she was actually living in the country early 2005.

Overstepping SC power

Meanwhile, De Castro said that the SC has overstepped its judicial power with its ruling last week allowing the presidential bid of Poe.

The magistrate said the SC decision declaring foundlings like Poe as natural-born citizens eligible for national elective posts could be considered as an amendment of the Constitution.

She said it was an act of judicial legislation beyond the powers of the high court.

In her 47-page dissenting opinion, De Castro said the majority ruling has

effectively amended the 1935 Constitution, which applies to the

citizenship status of Poe who was born in 1968, when it added “foundlings found in the Philippines whose parents are unknown” in the enumeration of natural-born citizens.

‘Dangerous precedent’

Justice De Castro pointed out that foundlings are not listed among those considered natural-born citizens in the Constitution and that the ruling approved in full by seven justices added it as a new entry.

De Castro said the ruling also sets a dangerous precedent as it provides a way for non-Filipinos to abuse such decision, which could threaten national interest and security.

Another dissenting magistrate, Associate Justice Mariano del Castillo, agreed with this opinion.

He believes that foreigners might use the SC ruling to obtain Filipino citizenship or natural-born status and wreak havoc on the nation.

“Our country must not only be defended and protected against outside invasion, it must also be secured and safeguarded from any internal threat against its sovereignty and security,” he said in his 70-page dissenting opinion.

“I do not want to wake up someday and see my beloved country teeming with foreigners and aliens posing as natural-born Filipinos while the real natives are thrown into oblivion or relegated second or third class citizens who have become strangers in their own homeland,” he lamented.

Associate Justice Arturo Brion also slammed the majority ruling in his 144-page dissenting opinion, saying it disregarded well-established jurisprudence giving the Commission on Elections (Comelec) power to determine eligibility of candidates.

Brion believes the Poe ruling was a complete turnaround from previous rulings of the high tribunal upholding Comelec’s jurisdiction to determine eligibility in case of false material representation in a candidate’s certificate of candidacy.

He cited cases involving the ouster of Rommel Arnado as mayor of Kauswagan, Lanao del Norte for continued use of US passport despite having renounced his American citizenship and Regina Ongsiako-Reyes as Marinduque lawmaker for being an American citizen.

“With the Comelec stripped of the jurisdiction to determine, even preliminarily, Poe’s citizenship and residence, then its determinations are null and void, leading to the further conclusion that this court no longer has any issue left to review and to decide upon as neither would it be necessary to determine Poe’s eligibilities,” Brion stressed.

The SC ruling upheld the argument of Solicitor General Florin Hilbay, which cited statistical probability that any child born in the Philippines would be a natural-born Filipino is either 99.93 percent or 99.83 percent, respectively, during the period 2010 to 2014 and 1965 to 1975 based on records of the Philippine Statistics Authority.

“The constitutional requirements for office, especially for the highest office in the land, cannot be based on mere probability. The proof to hurdle a substantial challenge against a candidate’s qualifications must therefore be solid,” he said.

Poe was found at a church in Iloilo City on Sept. 3, 1968.

However, Justice Estela Perlas-Bernabe said the circumstances surrounding Poe’s abandonment, as well as her physical characteristics, “hardly assuage this possibility.”

“By parity of reasoning, they do not prove that she was born to a Filipino: her abandonment in the Philippines is just a restatement of her foundling status, while her physical features only tend to prove that her parents likely had Filipino features and yet it remains uncertain if their citizenship was Filipino,” Bernabe said. De Castro, Del Castillo, Brion and Bernabe were among the six justices who dissented in the ruling allowing Poe to proceed with her presidential bid after a finding that the Comelec committed grave abuse of discretion in canceling her COC over material misrepresentation in her citizenship and residency eligibilities.

The other two were Carpio and Associate Justice Bienvenido Reyes.

‘SC decision immaterial’

Liberal Party (LP) presidential candidate Manuel Roxas II is not concerned over whether or not the SC will reverse its ruling to allow Poe to run for president in the May elections, his spokesman said yesterday.

“It doesn’t matter to us, whether the SC overturns its decision or not. From day one, we’ve been ready to campaign against her and other rivals,” Akbayan party-list Rep. Ibarra Gutierrez, spokesman for the LP-led Daang Matuwid coalition, said in a telephone interview.

He said there is no assurance that if Poe is disqualified, Roxas will benefit from it.  – With Edu Punay, Poalo Romero, Robertzon Ramirez