The camp of presidential aspirant BongBong Marcos thanked the Commission on Election (Comelec) after it junked the petition to cancel his candidacy in the 2022 elections.
Marcos’ camp thanked the Comelec “for upholding the law and the right of every bona fide candidate like Bongbong Marcos to run for public office free from any form of harassment and discrimination.”
“The petitioners’ mere creativity for writing and wanting what is not written in the law as basis to cancel the certificate of candidacy of Presidential Aspirant Bongbong Marcos is way too frivolous and unmeritorious to override the basic precepts of the Constitution,” said Marcos’ spokesman, lawyer Vic Rodriguez, in a statement.
In a resolution, Comelec’s second division said Marcos’ representations in his certificate of candidacy, which the petitioners are questioning, are “not false.” The petitioners insisted that the son of dictator Ferdinand Marcos’ tax conviction in the 1990s should disqualify him from running for public office.
“Consequently, the representations of Respondent Marcos Jr. in his certificate of candidacy that he is eligible to be elected to the office of the President of the Philippines and that he has not been found liable for an offense which carries with it the accessory penalty of perpetual disqualification from holding public office are NOT FALSE,” the Comelec division said.
BBM’s camp thanks Comelec for junking disqualification case
“Thus, there is no legal justification to deny due course to or cancel the certificate of candidacy of Respondent Marcos Jr.,” it added.
According to the counsel of the petitioners’ lawyer Theodore Te, they would file reconsideration with the Commission en banc within the five days as provided by the rules.
The petitioners were Fr. Christian Buenafe, co-chairperson of Task Force Detainees; Fides Lim, board chair of Kapatid-Families and Friends of Political Prisoners; Ma. Edeliza Hernandez, executive director of the Medical Action Groupl Celia Lagman Sevilla, secretary-general of the Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearance; Roland Vibal Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates, and Josephine Lascano, executive director of the Balay Rehabilitation Center.
There are still three pending petitions to disqualify BongBong Marcos pending the Comelec First Division and one in the Second Division.
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