‘Comelec can rule quickly on Marcos DQ’

MANILA, Philippines — Former Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman Christian Monsod questioned the poll body’s sense of urgency when its spokesman James Jimenez said it would take until December to decide on the petition against former senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.

“Jimenez does not know his talk. That’s too long,” Monsod said on “The Chiefs” on Cignal TV’s One News last Thursday.?

He emphasized that the case is just a question of facts, and all the Comelec has to do is verify if there are records of conviction against Marcos.

“Why is it difficult to find out if the facts are correct, why is it? Why should that take two months? I suppose it can be even faster,” Monsod said in reaction to Jimenez’s statement on television that since the Comelec is also handling several other petitions, it would take time to resolve the one against Marcos.

Jimenez stressed that the Comelec will still have to provide a particular number of days for the petitioners and the respondents to comment on each answer to the petition.

As far as Monsod is concerned, the late dictator’s son and namesake should not be qualified to run if he has been convicted of a crime with a penalty of more than 18 months imprisonment, or of moral turpitude.

Asked why Marcos was still allowed to seek elective posts in the previous elections despite his conviction for tax evasion, Monsod said that nobody raised it before and the Comelec “cannot take judicial notice of everything.”

More groups to join

Meanwhile, at least two more groups are expected to join the petition to cancel the certificate of candidacy (COC) of Marcos, according to lawyer Howard Calleja.

Calleja, a convenor of 1Sambayan, said he is assisting the two groups in his personal capacity and not as a part of the coalition supporting the candidacy of Vice President Leni Robredo.

He said one group is composed of victims of human rights abuses during martial law, led by Bagong Alyansang Makabayan chair Carol Araullo, while the other is composed of civil society and professionals led by Rommel Bautista.

Calleja said they will either file a motion to intervene and join the earlier petition filed before the Comelec or file a separate petition for disqualification against Marcos.

While Marcos’ camp maintains that he is eligible to run for public office, noting that the case does not involve a crime of moral turpitude, Calleja said he disagrees because repeated failure to file income tax returns may be seen as such.

No involvement from Robredo

Asked about claims that her camp is behind the petition, Robredo said “it does not make sense” considering the she already ran against Marcos in the past.

“If we want to have him disqualified, we should have done it when we both ran for VP. We already fought in 2016 and we won without that,” she said.

Former Supreme Court associate justice Antonio Carpio, who leads 1Sambayan, was among those who first raised the issue of Marcos’ conviction for failure to file his ITRs.

While there are those who reached out to him about filing a petition, he maintained that he is not part of it.

Former SC spokesman Theodore Te is the one who represents the group that filed the petition. – Janvic Mateo, Edu Punay