Philippine presidential hopeful wins reprieve from disqualification

The Elections Commission last week disqualified Senator Grace Poe's candidacy for president in 2016 due to questions over her citizenship.

 

Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, acting on behalf of the tribunal, which was on recess, directed the commission "to cease and desist from implementing" Poe's disqualification "until further orders" from the court.

 

She also gave the commission 10 days to answer Poe's petition for the Supreme Court to overturn its decision to cancel her candidacy and remove her from the list of nominees.

 

"This means that Senator Grace Poe's name will not be removed from the ballot list that (is) set to be printed soon by the Commission on Elections," Poe's lawyer George Garcia said.

 

"This is temporary relief, but we no longer have fear that the senator's name will be stricken off the ballot without the court hearing the case first," he told a Manila radio station.

 

Sereno set oral arguments on Poe's petition for January 19.Poe, 47, is an adopted daughter of a late Filipino action movie star, but the identities of her biological parents are not known.

Last week, the commission voted to uphold a decision to disqualify Poe, ruling that she was not a natural-born Filipino citizen, as required by law. Poe was abandoned as a baby on the steps of a church in the centralcity of Iloilo and raised by the late actor Fernando Poe, Jr.

 

She renounced her citizenship in 2001 to reside in the United States with her husband, but later returned and became a dual Philippine-US citizen. Other presidential candidates are Vice President Jejomar Binay, former interior secretary Mar Roxas, Rodrigo Duterte, the tough-talking mayor of a southern city, and veteran Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago.

 

More than 18,000 positions are up for grabs in the May 9 national elections including president, vice president, senators, congressional representatives, provincial governors, city and townmayors and vice mayors.//DPA