House won’t recognize SC justice’s son – Gonzales

MANILA, Philippines - The Marinduque election controversy is far from over even with the insistence of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) that the proclaimed winner, Regina Ongsiako Reyes, was a disqualified candidate.

The House of Representatives will not recognize Lord Allan Jay Velasco, who Reyes beat and who the Comelec wants to belatedly proclaim as the new winner.

Velasco is the son of Supreme Court (SC) Justice Presbitero Velasco Jr.

“As far as the House is concerned, the duly elected representative of the lone district of Marinduque is Regina Reyes,” Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II said yesterday.

“She was the one who has been proclaimed by the provincial board of canvassers, and she has taken her oath before Speaker (Feliciano) Belmonte and has assumed office,” he said.

On Reyes’ part, she said she would raise her disqualification in the appeal she would file with the SC asking the tribunal to reconsider its ruling last June 25 that the Comelec still had jurisdiction over the issue.

Gonzales said the Comelec lost its jurisdiction over Reyes’ case the moment the provincial canvassing board proclaimed her winner, and any question after that about her election and qualification should be resolved by the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET).

“We have to be consistent with the Constitution, which says that the HRET shall be the ‘sole judge’ of all questions about the ‘election, returns and qualification’ of a House member. We also have to be consistent with our assertion that the HRET’s jurisdiction begins with the proclamation of a congressional winner,” he said.

In line with this stand of the House, Gonzales said the chamber is also recognizing Angelina Tan as the winning candidate in the fourth district of Quezon.

Reyes belongs to the ruling Liberal Party (LP), to which Belmonte and Gonzales also belong, while Tan is a Nationalist People’s Coalition member.

The Comelec has annulled the proclamation of both Reyes and Tan. In Tan’s case, the Comelec wanted her opponent, Wigberto Tañada Jr., who she beat by more than 4,000 votes, as the winning candidate. The Tañadas are LP members.

Gonzales said Velasco should now pursue the election protest he has filed against Reyes shortly after the latter was proclaimed winner.

“He should pursue that in the HRET, which is the proper forum and whose jurisdiction over his case he has already recognized,” he said.

Like Velasco, Tañada has filed an election protest against Tan with the HRET.

Velasco wielded influence?

In a press briefing the other day, Reyes hinted that Associate Justice Velasco allegedly wielded his influence in the tribunal’s recent decision annulling her proclamation.

But Velasco yesterday denied Reyes’ insinuation that he used his influence in the disqualification case against her. 

“The allegation that he wielded his influence in the case is baseless and malicious. Being a lawyer and an officer of the court, Atty. Reyes should have been circumspect in her statements,” Velasco’s office said in a statement.

Reyes said she is convinced that the SC allegedly sped up the resolution of her case since it failed to ask the comments of those involved in the case before issuing a ruling.

She also alleged that she was not given fair treatment by the Comelec and the SC because she was not given a chance to prove that she is indeed a Filipino citizen.

Reyes presented to the media proof that she is a natural-born Filipino, and that she was able to comply with the requirements under Republic Act 9225 in renouncing his foreign citizenship, which she acquired when she married an American citizen in the United States.

Reyes also lamented that the Comelec and SC supposedly gave credence to a published article of an unknown blogger who claimed that she is an American citizen, when the truth is, she was born in the Philippines, her parents are both Filipinos, and she also has an affidavit of renunciation of foreign citizenship.  â€“ With Edu Punay, Paolo Romero