PARTY-LIST SOLON ASKED SC TO DISQUALIFY GMA IN HOUSE
BID
MANILA,
FEBRUARY 5, 2010
(STAR) By Delon Porcalla - Party-list Rep. Risa Hontiveros
of Akbayan asked the Supreme Court yesterday to disqualify President Arroyo from
seeking a congressional seat in her home province of Pampanga in the May 10
elections, insisting that the Chief Executive will be violating the 1987
Constitution.
Hontiveros, a senatorial candidate of the Liberal Party, elevated her petition to the high tribunal after the Second Division of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) dismissed the disqualification case she filed against Mrs. Arroyo.
“GMA’s candidacy in Pampanga offends the time-honored principle of fair play in our democracy and assails the spirit and text of our Constitution,” she said, asking the SC to issue a temporary restraining order on the inclusion of Mrs. Arroyo’s name in the ballot.
“A local candidate is only allowed to spend P1.50 per voter, while GMA spent P459 million in infrastructure projects in her district last year alone,” Hontiveros said in a statement.
“A congressional candidate cannot have campaign posters bigger than two feet by three feet, but GMA can produce - using government funds - tarpaulins that are half as wide as Commonwealth Avenue,” Hontiveros pointed out.
“A candidate for congressman is barred from conferring with the Board of Election Inspectors, but GMA can - and actually did - call a Comelec commissioner to secure her votes. The injustice and unfairness of her candidacy is patent,” she added.
Hontiveros said she decided against elevating her case to the seven-man poll body, and went directly to the SC “due to lack of time and because the issue is of transcendental importance.”
“There is simply no time. Based on its own rules, the earliest time that the Comelec could issue a decision would be on Feb. 8, or a day after the printing of the ballots. They could easily argue that the case is already moot and academic,” she argued.
No less than the commissioners in the second division, headed by former justice Nicodemo Ferrer, have acknowledged that the case is of “transcendental importance since it involves no less than the President of the Republic herself.”
Hontiveros claimed that the Comelec committed “grave abuse of discretion” when it ruled against her petition and explained that Mrs. Arroyo is not prohibited by the Constitution to run for a lower position.
“The Comelec erred in its reading of Section 4, Article XII of the 1987 Constitution. We believe that provision makes two prohibitions - an absolute ban on any re-election for an incumbent president, and a prohibition on re-election for the presidency against an individual who succeeded as president and who has served as such for more than four years,” she said.
She also argued that the injury being prevented by the prohibition against an incumbent president’s re-election for the presidency likewise exists in his or her candidacy for lower position.
“As she has done in the past, GMA can use the entire resources and machinery of the State to influence the result of the elections or to give herself undue advantage,” she reiterated.
“This makes her contenders vulnerable. If presidential candidates are protected from the muscle-flexing of an incumbent president running for re-election for the same position, then the same protection must be extended to candidates for lower positions,” Hontiveros said, citing the equal protection clause of the Constitution.
The President’s election lawyer Romulo Macalintal dismissed yesterday the petition of Hontiveros as “nothing but a mere scrap of paper.”
“Like a vagrant, that petition has no visible means of legal or factual support aside from being a harassment suit intended for media mileage,” Macalintal said
He said the petition was premature because a motion for reconsideration should be first filed with the Comelec, hence the Supreme Court has no jurisdiction.
“If Ms. Hontiveros is really sincere in leveling the playing field between incumbent and non-incumbent, then she should not only run after President Arroyo,” Macalintal said.
“She should ask incumbent Senators (Manuel) Villar, (Benigno) Aquino, and (Richard) Gordon to resign as senators so presidential bets (Nicanor) Perlas and (John Carlos) De los Reyes would also have a level playing field,” he said. With Edu Punay, Paolo Romero
Pastor Quiboloy is GMA's new spiritual adviser By Paolo Romero (The Philippine Star) Updated February 05, 2010 12:00 AM
[PHOTO AT LEFT - Pastor Apollo Quiboloy]
MANILA, Philippines - President Arroyo has included among her spiritual advisers , head of the Davao-based Christian sect Kingdom of Jesus Christ, the Name Above Every Name (KJC).
Mrs. Arroyo met with Quiboloy for the second time over dinner at the KJC compound in Davao City on Wednesday.
Palace officials said among the President’s spiritual advisers are Catholic Church leaders Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal and Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales, as well as key ministers of the Iglesia ni Cristo, and heads of Christian evangelical churches.
Quiboloy is also from her hometown of Lubao in Pampanga. The Christian sect claims to have over six million followers.
Mrs. Arroyo also had a private meeting with Cardinal Vidal in Cebu earlier that day.