Another petition was filed with the Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday, May 18, challenging the Commission on Elections’ (Comelec) ruling which denied the moves to disqualify presumptive president Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. from the last May 9 presidential election.
Both petitions pleaded the disqualification of Marcos and a stop to the canvassing by Congress of the votes cast in his favor.
However, the second petition moved further by pleading the SC to “declare the candidate with the most number of votes, Maria Leonor Gerona Robredo, as the winner of the recently concluded presidential election” if the Comelec’s ruling is reversed.
As of last Friday afternoon, May 13, Marcos was on top of the partial and unofficial count of votes with 31,104,175 votes as against Robredo’s 14,822,051 votes based on data from the Comelec Transparency Media Server.
Marcos’ running mate, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte, also maintained a huge lead among other vice presidential candidates with 31,561,948 votes as of May 13.
Congress was reported to be starting its canvass of votes for president and vice president on May 24 and will proclaim the winners thereafter.
The SC is still on its decision-writing recess until June 10. The first full court session is expected to be held on June 14, SC Spokesperson Brian Keith F. Hosaka confirmed.
SC sources said that the first petition, which was filed last May 16, has been raffled and assigned to a justice who will make the initial study and submit a recommendation on the plea for TRO. It is expected that the second petition will be consolidated with the first case.
But the same sources said that as of noon on Wednesday, May 18, the justice in charge of the petition has not submitted any recommendation on the plea for TRO in the first petition.
The new SC case was filed by petitioners led by Bonifacio Parabuac Ilagan, Saturnino Cunanan Ocampo, Maria Carolina Pagaduan Araullo, Trinidad Gerilla Repuno, Joanna Kintanar Carino, Elisa Tita Perez Lubi, and Liza Largoza Maza. They are all members of the Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses and Martial Law (CARMMA).
Named respondents aside from Marcos and the Comelec were the Senate and the House of Representatives.
The second petition told the SC that Marcos’ “failure to file his ITRs (income tax returns) on four (4) consecutive years that he was Vice Governor and Governor of Ilocos Norte from 1982 to 1985 cannot be regarded as a simple omission.”
“It shows an utter disregard of the laws which, as chief executive of the province of Ilocos Norte, Respondent convicted candidate Marcos, Jr. took an oath to uphold. It is the repeated, deliberate, willful, and intentional violation of the tax code that makes such violation a crime involving moral turpitude,” it said.
It thus implored the SC “to declare that Respondent convicted candidate Marcos, Jr. is perpetually disqualified and cannot run even for the lowest elective position, let alone for the highest one.”
The petition also told the SC:
“Being perpetually disqualified from running for public office, Respondent convicted candidate Marcos, Jr’s votes are stray votes and should not be considered and counted.
“Section 72 of the Omnibus Election Code provides that any candidate who has been declared by final judgment to be disqualified shall not be voted for.
“Decisions of this Court holding that the second-placer cannot be proclaimed winner if the first-placer is disqualified or declared ineligible should be limited to situations where the certificate of candidacy of the first-placer was valid at the time of filing but subsequently had to be canceled because of a violation of law that took place, or a legal impediment that took effect, after the filing of the certificate of candidacy.
“In this case, Respondent convicted candidate Marcos, Jr. was already disqualified long before he filed his Certificate of Candidacy. Simply put, he should not have been allowed to run for public office to begin with.
“If the certificate of candidacy is void ab initio (void from the start), then legally the person who filed such a void certificate of candidacy was never a candidate in the elections at any time. All votes for such non-candidate are stray votes and should not be counted. Thus, such a non-candidate can never be a first-placer in the elections.
“If a certificate of candidacy void ab initio is canceled one day or more after the elections, then all votes for such candidate should also be stray votes because the certificate of candidacy is void from the very beginning. This is the more equitable and logical approach on the effect of the cancellation of a certificate of candidacy that is void ab initio.
“As provided for in Section 2, Rule 58 of the Rules of Court, only the Honorable Supreme Court has the power to issue the prayed injunctive relief to restrain the Congress of the Philippines from canvassing the stray votes cast in favor of respondent convicted candidate Marcos, Jr.
“Without this injunctive relief, a disqualified candidate will be allowed to sit as president when he should not have been allowed to run for the presidency to begin with.”
Please also read: From RTC to SC: Bongbong Marcos’ tax cases https://mb.com.ph/2021/12/04/from-rtc-to-sc-bongbong-marcos-tax-cases-2/