FIVE senatorial bets of Partido Galing at Puso of independent presidential candidate Senator Grace Poe are confident that their standard-bearer will not be removed from the race to Malacanang in 2016.
Pasig City Representative Roman Romulo, Valenzuela City Representative Sherwin Gatchalian, Bayan Muna party-list Representative Neri Colmenares, ACT-CIS party-list Representative Samuel Pagdilao, and lawyer Lorna Kapunan issued the joint statement after two divisions of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) ordered the cancellation of her certificate of candidacy in the May 2016 polls.
Kapunan said she was disappointed that the Comelec First and Second Divisions ignored all the documents presented to them, proving that Poe has met all the requirements needed for a presidential candidate.
She added that the poll body’s divisions seemed turn a “blind eye” to the evidence, which shows Poe is eligible to join the presidential race.
Romulo, Gatchalian, and Colmenares said Poe’s political rivals are becoming desperate by resorting to technicalities to stop her presidential bid.
Gatchalian said there appears to be “a grand conspiracy to deprive the electorate of their right to choose the country’s next president.”
“This is obviously the handiwork of Senator Poe’s opponents who would rather have her removed from the ballot by technicality than face her in the election and let the voters decide,” Romulo said.
Should attempts to disqualify Poe from the presidential derby succeed, Romulo said her opponents would surely benefit.
Colmenares, for his part, said people are beginning to see the entire plot to stop Poe’s presidential bid “unfold before their eyes.”
He expressed confidence that the Supreme Court magistrates will allow Poe to run for president, if the case is raised to the high court.
“The evil design will not succeed and I’m sure that Senator Poe will prevail in the Supreme Court, which has the final say on the issues concerning her citizenship and residency,” Colmenares said.
Pagdilao said Poe’s fight would continue despite the demolition job against her.
“The fight for Senator Poe will not end. The decision of the Comelec First Division is not an enough basis for Filipinos to lose hope for a real change,” Pagdilao said.
“I hope this would not be a reason to disregard the voter’s voice or to neglect Filipino’s vision of a clean election,” he added.
All of them believed that Poe is a natural-born Filipino citizen and has fulfilled the 10-year residency requirement under the 1987 Constitution.
Meanwhile, allies of administration standard bearer Manuel Roxas II have distance themselves from the latest decision of the Comelec First Division, which cancelled Poe's COC.
Marikina City Representative Miro Quimbo, spokesperson of the Koalisyon ng Daang Matuwid, said that the dissenting opinion of Commission on Elections (Comelec) commissioner Christian Robert Lim who argued that Poe is a natural-born citizen only proves that the administration Liberal Party (LP) or Malacanang has no involvement in the moves to disqualify her from running in next year’s polls.
Lim, an appointee of President Benigno Aquino III, sided with Poe in the latest decision of the Comelec First Division, which favors the petition filed by former Senator Francisco Tatad and two others to cancel and invalidate her COC due to her citizenship and residency issues.
“Now it can be told that all allegations that LP is behind efforts to disqualify Senator Poe from the presidential race are baseless and unfounded. The appointee of President Aquino exercised independence here. I hope that the accusations against LP on this matter will no longer be revived so that we can focus in a better campaign for the interest of the people,” Quimbo said.
Akbayan Party-list Representative Barry Gutierrez, also a campaign spokesperson for the administration coalition, urged Poe’s camp to “set aside their emotions” and simply accept the ruling by the poll body’s First Division.
“Let’s us accept and respect the ruling because that is part of the law and constitutional processes… legal arguments and reasoning should always prevail,” said Gutierrez. (Sunnex)