MANILA — President-elect Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. has urged the Supreme Court to dismiss a petition seeking to cancel his certificate of candidacy (COC) filed by civic leaders, arguing that it is now the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) which has jurisdiction to look into his eligibility.

“[I]t is respectfully prayed of the Honorable Court to protect the free choice of the Sovereign Filipino People that their president is respondent Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ R. Marcos Jr. (BBM) and to dismiss the instant Petition for Certiorari dated May 16, 2022 for lack of jurisdiction and/or complete lack of merit,” Marcos told the high court through lawyer Estelito Mendoza, in a comment filed on Tuesday.

Civic leaders led by Fr. Christian Buenafe had sought the cancelation of Marcos’ certificate of candidacy (COC) at the Comelec, accusing Marcos of material misrepresentation because he supposedly lied under oath in his COC that he is qualified to run for president despite his tax conviction.

Pres-elect Bongbong Marcos urges SC to dismiss petition to cancel his COC filed by civic leaders, arguing that it is now the Presidential Electoral Tribunal which has jurisdiction to look into his eligibility. "Protect the free choice of the Sovereign Filipino people." pic.twitter.com/vEbNt0ewyS

— Mike Navallo (@mikenavallo) June 1, 2022

But the Comelec, both at the division and en banc level, junked the petition.

Petitioners went to the Supreme Court accusing the poll body of committing grave abuse of discretion in dismissing the case and asked the high court to stop the canvassing of votes and the proclamation of president.

The high court however asked respondents Marcos, Comelec, the House of Representatives and the Senate to file their comments, instead of issuing a temporary restraining order.

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Marcos, who previously said SC has no jurisdiction to stop the canvassing and proclamation of winners, now argues that the high court has lost jurisdiction over the case after Marcos’ proclamation because it is the Presidential Electoral Tribunal which is the “sole judge” of all contests relating to election, returns and qualifications of the president, citing section 4, Article VII of the Constitution.

Supreme Court magistrates sit as members of the PET in deciding election contests.

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“Notably, the Rules of the Presidential Electoral Tribunal do not provide for the remedy of certiorari as a means to question the eligibility of the President. Thus, it is respectfully submitted that the Honorable Court must dismiss the instant petition for lack of jurisdiction,” Marcos’ comment said.

Even assuming the SC still has jurisdiction, Marcos further argued the petition lacks merit.

The Comelec’s ruling that there was no false material representation is entitled to great weight, he said, and the poll body correctly ruled the peitition to cancel his COC was subject to summary dismissal.

Marcos said the grounds raised by petitioners were not material to his eligibility because based on the Constitution, the president is only required to be a natural-born citizen of the Philippines, a registered voter, able to read and write, at least 40 years old on the day of the election and a resident of the country for at least 10 years immediately prior to the election.

Petitioners had claimed Marcos falsely represented he is qualified to run for president when he was supposedly convicted of tax evasion, an offense involving moral turpitude and which should have carried more than 18 months imprisonment.

In addition, the National Internal Revenue Code includes a provision perpetually disqualifying from holding public office any public officer convicted of a tax offense while in office, they said.

Marcos has maintained he was only convicted of non-filing of tax returns, not of tax evasion.

In his comment, he said the accessory penalty of perpetual disqualification from holding public office was “never imposed against him” — not in the regional trial court nor in the Court of Appeals rulings.

Unlike the Revised Penal Code which deems accessory penalties written into a judgment of conviction, the NIRC, Marcos said, does not automatically impose the penalty of perpetual disqualification upon conviction.

Marcos also denied he was still a public officer at the time the filing of his 1985 income tax return became due in March 1986.

The Marcos family fled the Philippines in February 1986 following a peaceful revolt.

“[T]he entire government was toppled down on February 25, 1986. As a result, BBM, through no fault of his own, was forced to leave the Philippines, abandoning his position as Governor of Ilocos Norte in the process,” he argued.

“Even when BBM was finally allowed to return to the Philippines in 1991, he did not make any attempt to reclaim his position as Governor of Ilocos Norte. Neither did he try to get the emoluments and salaries appertaining to such position for all the years which he was supposed to hold it. Therefore, contrary to Petitioner’s allegation, BBM acquiesced to his unlawful ouster as governor that fateful month of February 1986. Hence, for all intents and purposes, BBM was no longer a public officer on March 18, 1986,” he added.

The president-elect added he had no intention to mislead, misinform and deceive the electorate when he filed his COC, as he was not aware of the consequences of his conviction.

“Whether BBM was aware of his conviction and the finality thereof is not at all in issue. Rather, what is in issue is whether BBM was aware of the effects of his conviction at the time he filed his COC,” he said, citing the absence of any indication he was perpetually disqualified in the CA ruling, the NIRC or in other SC cases.

He also raised his previous successful bids for governor of Ilocos Norte in 1998, 2001 and 2004, for the House of Representatives in 2007 and for the Senate in 2010.

He also ran but lost for vice president in 2016.

“In all those years of running for office and of serving the public as an elected government official, his eligibility has never been questioned.

Marcos went to the extent of mentioning conflicting positions on the issue of different legal experts — from retired Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio to University of Santo Tomas Faculty of Law Dean Nilo Divina and former Justice Secretary Alberto Agra.

“Indeed, when even the pillars of the legal community cannot agree on the matter, BBM, as a layman, cannot be faulted if his interpretation of a difficult question of law should later on turn out to be erroneous. Certainly, an error in the interpretation of a difficult question of law cannot and should not be equated to a deliberate and malicious intent to misrepresent a material fact,” he said, stressing that there must be malicious intent to deceive for there to be material misrepresentation.

Marcos asked the Supreme Court not to “defile the sovereign will of the Filipino people” and to look at the outcome of the recent polls in deciding the petition, which sought to declare Marcos to have never been a candidate and to instead proclaim the eligible candidate with the next highest number of votes as president.

“To allow the defeated and rejected candidate to take over is to disenfranchise the citizens representing 58.77% of the votes cast, without fault on their part,” he said.

“If all of these do not yet suffice, BBM’s vote of 31,629,783, is more than twice as many as the vote of Leni Robredo with 15,035,773 votes, the voice of the Filipino electorate is true and clear that they do not only find grounds to disqualify BBM, but they want him to be the President of the Republic of the Philippines,” he added.

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