A DAY before the nine-member Senate Electoral Tribunal decides on the disqualification case filed against Senator Grace Poe over her citizenship, the presidential front runner said she felt nervous and sad.
But she remained confident that the tribunal, led by Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, would rule in her favor because the truth would prevail: that she is a natural-born Filipino citizen.
“We are fighting for the truth, but of course there are political considerations for others,” Poe said.
“I hope they will think that the law was meant to uphold justice.”
SET member Senator Nancy Binay had earlier assured reporters she would be objective in her decision. Her father, Vice President Jejomar Binay, is also running for President in the May 2016 elections,
Another SET member, Senator Bam Aquino, was named campaign manager of the ruling Liberal Party. The party’s national chairman, President Benigno Aquino III, is his first cousin.
Carpio was also among the justices who voted on the disqualification of Poe’s adoptive father, the late Fernando Poe Jr., when he ran for President in 2004.
Poe said that on her case, the interpretation of the law lay in the hands of the SET members whom she believed would be on the side of truth.
“Perhaps the law is not literal but this is oftentimes used not as an injustice,” Poe said. Instead, it is something that will bring about justice, so that’s for me. The most defenseless here in our country are the children.”
Poe said she she keeps on praying and hoping that everything will be fair. She would be most happy if the SET members would be on her side.
Her case is a heavy burden on her part because she is carrying hundred of thousands of children who are similarly situated like her—a foundling. She has been pushing for their rights.
Before she was adopted, Poe was found abandoned by her biological parents in a church in Iloilo. She was later adopted by FPJ and his wife actress Susan Roces.
Should the SET disqualify her, Poe said, she could appeal the decision but the situation of other foundlings would be endangered.