SENATOR Grace Poe on Tuesday sought to inhibit three Supreme Court justices who earlier dissented in the Senate Electoral Tribunal’s majority decision declaring her a natural-born Filipino citizen, and therefore qualified to run for senator in the 2013 elections.
Poe, through her lawyer George Garcia, filed a motion seeking to inhibit Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio and Associate Justices Teresita Leonardo-De Castro and Arturo Brion from deliberating on her petitions assailing the Commission on Elections’ rulings disqualifying her to run for president in the May 2016 elections.
Poe filed her motion even as Malacañang insisted that the administration of President Benigno Aquino III had nothing to do with Poe’s disqualification cases.
“The administration has nothing to do with it, and I repeat, we hope and trust that any decision would be fair,” Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. told reporters.
Coloma said in the country’s system of laws, the Comelec was the agency deciding on election cases but its decisions could be appealed to the Supreme Court.
Garcia said the three justices should exclude themselves from Poe’s case since they took part in the SET’s earlier deliberations on the disqualification case filed against Poe by Rizalito David, a losing senatorial candidate in the 2013 elections.
“We filed a motion to disqualify and inhibit the three justice-members of the Senate Electoral Tribunal because they already prejudged the case,” Garcia said.
He said they were not questioning the integrity of the three justices. They only wanted their inhibition because of their membership in the SET.
The Comelec had canceled Poe’s Certificate of Candidacy due to the alleged misrepresentation on her citizenship and residency in the country. The same issue on whether or not she is a natural-born citizen eligible for election to the top national post was resolved by the SET last month in the deliberations where the three justices participated.
The SET did not tackle the residency issue, but David has filed a petition with the high court questioning the tribunal’s majority ruling upholding the eligibility of Poe for senator in the 2013 polls.
In the SET, the three justices ruled that Poe was not a natural-born citizen unless she proved that either of her biological parents was a Filipino.
Poe’s lawyers also sought the consolidation of all the cases involving her qualification for elective posts.
“Perhaps this may be a legal strategy on our part, but our primary purpose really is to expedite the disposition of the cases,” Garcia said.
“If our motion is granted, it will be more convenient for the Supreme Court as it will just come up with a single decision on all three cases.”
The tribunal is set to hear the cases in oral arguments on Jan. 19 next year.