Ex-lawmaker seeks removal of Rep. Quimbo from House ranks

A quo warranto petition seeking the removal of Marikina Representative Stella Quimbo was filed with the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET).

In his petition, former ABS party-list representative Eugene de Vera argued that Quimbo was disqualified from running for office and being a member of the House because the Philippine Competition Law, which created the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) in which Quimbo served as a Commissioner, prohibited a previous PCC Commissioner from immediately running for office.

Section 8 of the PCC law says that “Commissioners will not be qualified to run for any office in the election immediately succeeding their cessation from office, provided that the election mentioned hereof is not a barangay election or a Sangguniang Kabataan election.”

“By reason of respondent Quimbo’s ineligibility for the said position, she should be ousted and dropped from the rolls of the House of Representatives,” de Vera, who lost to Quimbo in the May 2019 polls, said in his petition.

Quimbo was appointed as PCC Commissioner in January 2016 and was supposed to serve as such for seven years.

She, however, resigned in 2018 and filed her candidacy for congress in November of the same year.

De Vera said that since Quimbo was among the signatories of the Implementing Rules and Regulations and she willfully violated the law and should be ousted for such action.

De Vera then urged the HRET to declare him the duly elected congressman and the tribunal needed to direct the Speaker of the House to officiate his oath of office and include his name in the roll of members of the chamber.

Sought for comment, Atty. Beng Sardillo, counsel of Quimbo, said de Vera's interpretation of the law is "self-serving, erroneous, and has no legal basis.

She urged de Vera to move on and accept his defeat instead. — DVM, GMA News