VP succeeds Prexy, not Binay or Duterte

By Mortz Ortigoza

 Critics of presidential front runner Grace Poe crowed that big financial contributors from the Top Corporations in the Philippines would shun Poe because of the legal spectre she will be disqualified.

Presidential front runner Grace Poe (Left) and her vice presidential
 tandem Senator Chiz Escudero.

Let’s see the probable arguments of Poe’s PR’s spiensministers on how they will parry this argument and still encourage contributors to open the handle of their faucet for the campaign and up to the May 9, 2016 presidential election.

1.      She files a petition for certiorari with grave abuse of discretion of the Commission on Election to the Supreme Court to settle the questions with finality on her citizenship and residency;

2.      Presently, she filed a temporary restraining order which the High Court granted that would usher too for her name to be included in the ballot. So the fuss that she was out of the race is just plain b*llshit.

3.      Litigation at the Supreme Court takes years as based with the cases of other elective officials like those decisions in the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET), Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET) that have been appealed to the SC that took years and where many of them handed sometime to the petitioners a month before the elective official terms end. Since people rooted for her, as seen in the past surveys where she was No.1, there is a big chance she would be elected.

4.      Incase she becomes president and later disqualified by the SC, either presidential rival Rodrigo Duterte or Jejomar Binay who becomes No.2 in the race could not succeed her. Law of succession says it would be the Vice President that replaced the president not the No.2 elected presidential candidate.

The wisdom of the law is that the people did not elect either Duterte or Binay. But they elected whoever vice president who won the 2016 electoral race. So the No. 2 man becomes No. 1, that’s how simple the logic there.

5.      So if you’re a contributor, you analyzed the legal implications how your millions of pesos bring you advantage and protection in the next six years of the new political dispensation. The poser here: Would it be from countless millions of pesos of returns or bust because you listened to a wrong advice?

 (You can read my selected columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too at totomortz@yahoo.com)