Hundreds of supporters of a senator aiming to be the Philippines’ next president rallied outside the Supreme Court yesterday, as it heard arguments against her disqualification from the race.
The supporters carried placards and banners declaring their support for Senator Grace Poe and chanted her name as she arrived to attend the hearing at the high tribunal.
The Commission on Elections (Comelec) had disqualified Poe because she failed to meet a 10-year residency requirement for presidential candidates and was not considered a natural-born Filipino.
In a statement, the 47-year-old first-time senator said she was confident that the law would be on her side.
“I don’t believe in the view of some who think that a foundling is a stateless person or one without nationality when they were born,” she said. “It is the law’s responsibility to protect the right of the weak and the powerless.”
Poe was abandoned as a baby on the steps of a church in the central city of Iloilo and was adopted by a late Filipino action movie star, but the identities of her biological parents are not known.
She renounced her citizenship in 2001 to reside in the US with her husband, but later returned and became a dual Philippine-US citizen.
Other contenders for the presidency are current Vice President Jejomar Binay, former interior secretary Mar Roxas, Rodrigo Duterte, a tough-talking mayor of a southern city, and veteran Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago.
More than 18,000 positions are up for grabs in the Philippines’ general elections on May 9, 2016, including president, vice president, senators, congressional representatives, provincial governors, city and town mayors and vice mayors.
Earlier, Poe personally witnessed oral arguments on her disqualification case at the Supreme Court (SC).
She was accompanied by her mother, actress Susan Roces.
Only 13 justices were on hand because Justice Arturo Brion is on leave and Justice Martin Villarama Jr retired last Friday.
The senator, however, slipped out in the middle of the oral arguments.
Before the en banc session started, Poe expressed confidence that the law will side with her and all abandoned Filipino children who could be stripped of their right to a nationality.
“If someone can prove that this child has foreign blood, then the responsibility to prove this lies with the other camp. The burden of proof does not belong to foundlings,” she pointed out.
Late in December, Poe was disqualified from the presidential race by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) on grounds that she is not a natural-born Filipino and she failed to meet the residency requirement.
The High Court, however, stopped the poll body from dropping the senator from the list of presidential candidates.
Associate Justice Mariano del Castillo asked Poe’s counsel Alex Poblador if Poe used her US passport in 2011.
Poblador told the court that Poe’s dual citizenship allows her to continue using her American passport. Poe’s camp had admitted that the last time the senator used her US passport was on March 9, 2010. Del Castillo also asked Poblador about the error Poe made in her certificate of candidacy wherein she stated that she resided in the Philippines for six years and six months.
Poblador said it was an honest mistake and there was no intent to deceive the public.
Poe went out of the session hall before Associate Justice Antonio Carpio started grilling Poblador. Carpio took Poblador to task for citing the proceedings of the 1934 Constitution. The magistrate said Poe’s camp failed to quote completely deliberations between Constitutional Convention delegates Nicolas Rafols, Ruperto Montinola and Manuel Roxas pertaining to inclusion of foundlings as a class of persons considered as Philippine citizens.