POE WON'T BE DISQUALIFIED OVER RESIDENCY ISSUE, SAYS LAWYER

The camp of Sen. Grace Poe on Thursday expressed optimism on the outcome of her disqualification case in the Supreme Court as it dismissed speculations that she will be disqualified from the presidential race allegedly due to lack of residency.

Poe's counsel George Garcia said they are confident the high tribunal will set aside the decisions of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) canceling the lawmaker's certificate of candidacy (COC) for president because of alleged "material misrepresentations" regarding her citizenship and residency.

"Judging from the comments of the justices during the oral arguments, we believe they saw wisdom in our arguments against the Comelec rulings which are obviously premeditated and tainted by bias," Garcia said.

Garcia also slammed attempts to preempt the SC decision amid rumors that majority of the magistrates are out to disqualify her for her supposed failure to satisfy the 10-year residency requirement for presidential candidates.

He said Poe's opponents are now harping on the residency issue after they failed to prove their claim that she is not a natural-born Filipino citizen.

"Obviously, her opponents want to highlight the residency issue because they failed to prove their case against Sen. Poe over the issue of citizenship," Garcia said. "In fact, even the justices provided the legal bases that foundlings are natural-born Filipinos during the extensive oral arguments."

Garcia said the argument that Poe has not met the 10-year residency requirement is "also doomed to fail."

"Sen. Poe has already provided factual and legal bases to prove that she satisfied the 10-year residency requirement," Garcia pointed out.

The SC is scheduled to conduct a full court session on March 8 to tackle Poe's consolidated petition against the Comelec. It is expected to come out with a decision anytime as it had deemed the case submitted for decision after the parties filed their respective memoranda on Feb. 22.

In the memorandum she filed through her legal team, Poe insisted that the Comelec denied her of her right to due process when it disregarded overwhelming evidence proving that she is a natural-born citizen and that she has been a resident of the Philippines since May 24, 2005.

She maintained that foundlings like her are considered natural-born Filipino citizens based on the generally accepted principle of international law, which presumes foundlings to be citizens of the country where they were found.

Poe also argued that the Comelec "ignored settled jurisprudence and disregarded the evidence on record" when it ruled that Poe made a false material representation in her COC as to the period of her residence before the May 9 polls.

Based on records, Poe began to settle permanently in the Philippines on May 24, 2005. After that, she enrolled her children to local schools in June 2005, purchased a property in the late 2005, constructed her family home in Quezon City in early 2006, and sold their U.S. property in 2006.