Ma Elisa P Osorio
BusinessWorld Online
25 January 2005
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo yesterday asked the Supreme Court, sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), to dismiss the election protest questioning her victory in the last Presidential elections lodged by the late Fernando K. Poe, Jr. (FPJ).
In a 31-page comment, Mrs. Arroyo argued that the protest filed by Mr. Poe should be dismissed because the protest filed by the late actor "died with him."
In the same filing, she said the motion to intervene filed by the widow of Mr. Poe, Jeusa S. Poe, better known as Susan Roces, should likewise be dismissed for lack of legal standing.
Mrs. Arroyo reasoned that Ms. Roces was not a presidential candidate in the May 10, 2004 elections.
"Being a non-candidate, intervenor [Mrs. Roces] could not have personal knowledge of the alleged grounds for the election protest and the alleged flawed proclamation since it was not her votes that were allegedly affected," Mrs. Arroyo said.
Upon the death of Mr. Poe, his right was extinguished and no substitution could be allowed, she said.
"The right to file the election protest is therefore personal and non-transmissible, non-transferable, non-delegable," Mrs. Arroyo said.
"She [Mrs. Roces] has no personal stake or interest in the outcome of the instant election protest," Mrs. Arroyo said.
The rules of the Presidential Electoral Tribunal provide that only the candidate who received the second or the third highest number of votes may lodge a protest.
"Under the PET Rules, the option to contest the presidential elections is given to the second or third placer, not to the spouse, the legal heirs, political party and even to any voter," Mrs. Arroyo said.
She added that Mrs. Roces could not pursue the election protest on account of public interest.
Mrs. Arroyo said no less than the legal counsel of Ms. Rocess, Sixto S. Brillantes, Jr. argued before the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET) in the case of Abadilla v. Ablan that "the widow of the deceased is not a proper party to replace the deceased protestant in an election protest.
Mr. Brillantes also argued in the Abadilla case that "a public office is personal to the incumbent and is not a property which passes to his heirs."
"The right to contest an elective office is also personal to the contestant and does not survive his death nor is it transmitted to his legal representative or heir," Mr. Brillantes said.
"Strictly speaking, it is not correct to say that an election protest must be commenced or maintained in any event on the sheer justification that the true will of the voters must be ascertained," he said.
Mrs. Arroyo said in the Abadilla case, even if the presentation of evidence was terminated before the protestant died, the widow was still not allowed to substitute and the protest was dismissed.
In another HRET case -- Alberto v. Tapia -- the ruling was "the widow of deceased protestant has no legal right to prosecute this electoral protest in substitution of her deceased husband as, in the first place, no such right survives the death of the husband."
Back to FPJ's electoral protest | Democracy Files
