Battery of Lawyers Asks SET to Dismiss Petition Questioning Poe’s Citizenship

(PNA) – A battery of lawyers of Senator Grace Poe on Tuesday asked the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET) to dismiss a petition questioning the senator’s citizenship, saying it is “insufficient in form and substance.”

In 107-page reply to the quo warranto petition filed by defeated senatorial candidate Lito David last Aug. 6, Poe’s lawyers said the lady senator is a natural born Filipino and has met the residence requirement when she ran and won as No. 1 senator in 2013 midterm elections.

Led by Atty. Alexandor Poblador, the lawyers of Poe asked the SET to dismiss the petition, saying it was filed “beyond the period prescribed in Rule 18 of the SET Rules.”

”The qualifications of a Senator may only be questioned within ten days upon being proclaimed as a Senator,” Poe’s lawyers said in a summary statement of the answer to David’s petition.

They said that the citizenship of Poe could be questioned “at any time”, only if she had changed her citizenship after her proclamation or if she intentionally kept secret her citizenship.

” From the very start, the entire country knows that Senator Grace Poe is a foundling and was adopted by a kind-hearted couple, FPJ and Susan Roces,” they said.

As stated in Poe’s birth certificate, she was found abandoned in the Parish of Jaro in Iloilo City on Sept. 3, 1968 by a certain Mr. Edgardo Militar.

Poe said she felt relieved that they had already submitted her answer to the petition.

”For me, it is one of relief. We have submitted all the necessary documents including my birth certificate, certificates of the Bureau of Immigration,” Poe said in a media interview.

Poe’s camp also asked the SET to cite David in direct contempt for willful and deliberate forum shopping.

The SET has also been asked to cite the petitioner indirect contempt and punish him with Php30,000 fine and six-month imprisonment for failure to inform the tribunal of the filing and pendency of his complaint with the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

Aside from Poblador, Dino Vivencio Tamayo, Justine Christopher Mendoza and Sandra Magalang served as lawyers of Poe or Maria Grace Natividad Sonora Poe Llamanzares. (PNA) RMA/JFM