Outrageous, says petitioner after Comelec junks DQ case vs. Marcos Jr.

One of the petitioners in the disqualification case against  presidential candidate former Senator Ferdinand Marcos expressed her anger over the Comelec Former First Division's resolution dismissing the suit "for lack of merit."

"This is outrageous! Our petition were tight and in accordance with the law. They did not even recognize the separate opinion of the [former Comelec Commissioner] Bing Guanzon," Akbayan's Etta Rosales told GMA News Online.

Retired Comelec Commissioner Rowena Guanzon, then the former Presiding Officer of the Comele First Division, has accused her colleague and Comelec Commissioner Aimee Ferolino of delaying the release of the decision of the disqualification cases vs. Marcos, Jr. to invalidate her vote to disqualify Marcos due to a conviction of a crime involving moral turpitude.

"This is a matter of accountability to the people by complying with their own laws. Obviously they do not know how to follow laws. Shame on them," Rosales said.

The petition to disqualify Marcos was based on the argument that he was barred from holding public office after he was convicted of failing to file his income tax returns in 1982 to 1985. 

Akbayan Partylist nominee and petitioner Perci Cendana said the petitioners would appeal the ruling.

"Yet, the outcome doesn't dishearten us. This is merely a bend in the road, not the end of it. This is just the beginning of our struggle to protect our electoral democracy from fraud and impunity," Cendana said.

"We will appeal to the Comelec en banc and pursue this case to the very end," he added.

Cendana said the resolution was "a major setback for the country's electoral democracy."

"It is a missed opportunity to defend the truth and protect the public from a large-scale election swindle by a convicted tax evader," he added.

Vice presidential candidate Walden Bello said the Comelec ruling "spits in the face of common sense and basic morality."

"This is shown in their extremely insulting justification that 'failure to file ITRs is not inherently wrong in the absence of a law punishing it'," Bello said.

"This development is disappointing but not surprising. The laws of this land have long bent over backwards to serve those with money," he added. —NB, GMA News