Marcos Jr.'s party asks Comelec to dismiss all petitions vs. presidential bid

The Partido Federal ng Pilipinas has asked the Commission on Elections to dismiss all petitions against the presidential bid of former Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in Eleksyon 2022 polls for lack of merit.

According to a Comelec order from its Second Division dated December 2, Reynaldo Tamayo, Jr., Victor Rodriguez, and Thompson Lantion as PFP intervenors sought the dismissal of the petition to cancel Marcos Jr.'s COC filed on December 2 for lack of merit.

Marcos, Jr., the son and namesake of the late dictator President Ferdinand Marcos, is the standard bearer of the PFP in the 2022 polls.

The same order also indicated that the PFP also asked the Comelec to dismiss all seven petitions seeking to either cancel Marcos, Jr.'s COC or disqualify him from the 2022 race for the same reason.

These petitions include the one filed by Fr. Christian Buenafe, Kapatid (Families and Friends of Political Prisoners), among others, anchored on the argument that Marcos' conviction involving a Tax Code violation.

They argued that if committed by a public official such as Marcos when he was Ilocos Norte governor from 1982 to 1985, the violation carried a penalty of perpetual disqualification from public office as provided by the same Tax Code.

Petitioners Buenafe, Lim and others responded by filing a December 1 motion asking the Comelec to junk PFP answer "for being defective, dilatory and for being utterly unmeritorious."

In view of the following developments, the Comelec ordered both the petitioners and the camp of Marcos to file their comments on PFP's November 22 and November 24 interventions "within a non-extendible period of five calendar days" from receipt of Comelec's December 2 order.

Comelec's December 2 order was signed by the poll body's Second Division Presiding Commissioner Socorro Inting. -NB, GMA News