Senator Francis Escudero said on Sunday he hopes the Supreme Court justices will stop the Commission on Elections from “bullying” Senator Grace Poe when the magistrates convene on Jan. 19 to hear the oral arguments on her petitions.
Escudero said certain actions of the Comelec which led to its Dec. 23 decisions upholding Poe’s disqualification from the presidential race “constitute grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction.”
“If it’s not bullying or harassment, I don’t know what it is,” said Escudero, referring to the way the poll body handled Poe’s disqualification cases.
The leading vice presidential candidate lamented how Comelec acted with dispatch on Poe’s disqualification ahead of the obvious nuisance candidates like those calling themselves “Lucifer” and “Intergalactic Ambassador.”
He noted that the poll body also refused to consolidate the four petitions against Poe.
“To top it all, the Comelec threw out her appeal two days before Christmas,” he said.
“The Comelec worked overtime in order for the en banc to disqualify her two days before Christmas and the holidays, thus giving her very little time to seek redress,” Escudero said.
The only good thing, he said, is that the magistrates led by Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno made themselves available even during their recess to grant Poe a much-needed relief.
By issuing two restraining orders in favor of Poe, Escudero said the court has once again showed that it is just and impartial.
He accused Comelec of pretending to be an independent commission when it has actually been acting as Poe’s inquisitor and persecutor. He said Comelec is wrong, unfair and a bully.
Meanwhile, if the decision to grant the restraining orders was any indication, the Supreme Court would act swiftly and impartially on the two sets of disqualification cases against Poe, the lawmaker’s lawyer said.
Lawyer George Garcia said the Supreme Court can rule as early as this month on the case of Poe.
“I believe that because this is a case of transcendental importance. The Supreme Court will give priority to this,” said Garcia in a statement issued on Sunday.
As this developed, the three justices in the Senate Electoral Tribunal who earlier dissented in the majority decision declaring Poe qualified to run for senator in the 2013 elections cannot be compelled to inhibit themselves from the resolution of her appeals at the Supreme Court, a noted election lawyer said on Sunday.
Romulo Macalintal stressed that the participation of Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio and Justices Teresita de Castro and Arturo Brion in the disqualification case before the SET cannot be used as ground for their inhibition in the resolution of Poe’s petition before the high court assailing the Comelec decision to disqualify her from running for president in the May 2016 elections.
“There is no legal nor factual justification to inhibit Justices Carpio, De Castro and Brion from participating in the cases assailing the majority decision,” Macalintal said.