Foundlings collateral damage should Poe be disqualified

WITH KEEN interest, I have been following developments pertaining to the disqualification case against Sen. Grace Poe. Like the majority of Filipinos, I go for the underdog.  Should Poe be disqualified from running for president, the innocent and hapless foundlings found in the Philippines would be collateral damage.

After Poe filed her certificate of candidacy for president, petitions for her disqualification popped up one after the other—one in the Senate Electoral Tribunal and four in the Commission on Elections—questioning her citizenship and residency. This did not happen three years ago when she ran for senator and when she was still the most sought-after running mate of presidential candidates Vice President Jejomar Binay and former interior secretary Mar Roxas.

The Comelec could have freed itself of the burden of attending to the disqualification cases early on had it considered the legal viewpoint of veteran election lawyer and former Comelec chair Sixto Brillantes Jr: The issue is beyond the Comelec’s and the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction; only the Presidential Electoral Tribunal can take it up, if and when Poe wins in the presidential election (“Comelec has no say on Poe DQ,” Front Page, 12/3/15).

But as the obvious harassment persisted, the Comelec en banc issued the decision disqualifying Poe so close to the holiday break, leaving Poe’s camp just one day to get two temporary restraining orders from the Supreme Court. It was good that while it was supposedly in recess, the high court nevertheless issued the TROs. Can we expect the Court to show the same fairness when Poe’s petitions for the reversal of the Comelec’s rulings reach it?

For now, Lady Luck seems to smile at Poe. Comelec Commissioner Luie Tito Guia was reported to have said he changed his mind when he found, upon examining Poe’s motion for reconsideration, that there was no falsity insofar as the period of residency was concerned. Also dissenting from the Comelec’s majority decision was its current chair, Andres Bautista, on both questions of citizenship and residency, and Commissioner Al Parreno on residency. Earlier, Commissioner Christian Robert Lim disagreed with the election body’s First Division (which he chaired) on its rulings on Poe, saying that she did not commit material misrepresentation on both issues and that the division does not have the mandate to rule on whether or not she is a natural-born citizen (considering that Poe’s biological parents remain unknown).

More telling was news about the umbilical cord still attached to baby Poe’s navel when she was found. Newborn babies younger than two weeks old cannot be flown in from a foreign country even by international carriers. Just imagine how medical science and technology were back then, almost 50 years ago. The foundling could not have been but born on Philippine soil.

The Scripture says experts in law should not burden people with loads they can hardly carry. Instead they should act to lighten the yoke. Laws should be applied in the interest of justice, not to promote somebody’s selfish agenda.

—ARMANDO LIBRANDO ALPAY, c/o judithalpay@yahoo.com