A NOTED election lawyer has questioned the legal capacity of those asking the Commission on Elections to cancel the Certificate of Candidacy for president of Senator Grace Poe.
Poll lawyer Romeo Macalintal said on Saturday that while former Senator Francisco Tatad, lawyer Estrella Elamparo and law school dean Antonio Contreras have the right to file the petition as registered voters, they are not really “parties-in-interest.”
He said that Section 2, Rule 3 of the Rule of Court (which applies to Comelec cases) defines a “real-party-in-interest” as one who “stands to be benefited or injured by the judgment in the suit, or the party entitled to the avails of the suit.”
“Their legal interest to disqualify Poe is limited to asking the Comelec to deny or cancel her CoC. They have no legal capacity or personality to ask the Comelec to delete Poe’s name from the official ballots because such action is no longer legal but already in the realm of politics,” Macalintal argued.
He said Comelec rules allows “any registered voter to file a verified petition to deny due course to or cancel the CoC for any elective office” but since the petitioners do stand to benefit or be injured, they cannot ask the poll body to delete her name from the ballot.
“Their petitions will be tainted with politics if, at this stage of Poe’s cases, they would ask for the deletion of her name from the ballots, since their only legal right is to seek the cancellation or denial of Poe’s CoC which they had already attained at the Comelec level and waiting final ruling from the Supreme Court on Poe’s appeal,” the lawyer said.
“The real party in interest or the person who might be ‘injured’ in case Poe’s name is included in the official ballots are those other candidates who filed CoCs for president but who have not filed such cases against Poe,” Macalintal said.
“Hence, the issue of whether or not Poe’s name should be deleted from the ballots would come as a legal consequence of whatever final verdict the Supreme Court will render on Poe’s cases, without Tatad, Elamparo, and Contreras asking for it,” he added.