The Philippine Supreme Court yesterday began studying files on the eligibility of presidential frontrunner Fernando Poe to contest the May 10 election, and officials said a delay could lead to weeks of campaign confusion.
Movie star Poe, a political novice whose Philippine citizenship has been questioned, holds a commanding lead in opinion polls over President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and four others vying for the nation's highest office.
"Considering the urgency, and this is my personal opinion, maybe some time in the next two weeks," Gleo Guerra, senior chief staff officer at the Supreme Court, said on television yesterday in comments on the potential timing of a ruling.
PHOTO: AP
The court asked for position papers to be submitted on Monday after it heard arguments on Thursday about Poe's birth out of wedlock in 1939 to an American mother and a father who was born during the US occupation of the Philippines early last century.
But Guerra said the 14 justices could yet decide they lack jurisdiction to rule on the citizenship issue.
Under that scenario, they could send the case to a lower court or stand aside entirely, leaving in place two rulings by the election commission that stated Poe is eligible to run.
If the Supreme Court does take up the case, its decision may not come until early March, leaving voters and investors with no clear picture of the presidential line-up until at least a third of the way into the three-month campaign period.
The tension has already bubbled into isolated violence, and uncertainty over Poe's citizenship -- a prerequisite to run -- further undermined the fragile peso, which touched an all-time low of 56.35 against the dollar yesterday.
Police used truncheons and water cannon on Thursday to block rock-throwing Poe supporters from marching to the Supreme Court.
Poe's wife called for calm at a peaceful rally by about 3,000 people at a Manila park and his campaign team has been careful to avoid threatening riots.
Shamans in Peru on Monday gathered for an annual New Year’s ritual where they made predictions for the year to come, including illness for US President Donald Trump and the downfall of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. “The United States should prepare itself because Donald Trump will fall seriously ill,” Juan de Dios Garcia proclaimed as he gathered with other shamans on a beach in southern Lima, dressed in traditional Andean ponchos and headdresses, and sprinkling flowers on the sand. The shamans carried large posters of world leaders, over which they crossed swords and burned incense, some of which they stomped on. In this
Near the entrance to the Panama Canal, a monument to China’s contributions to the interoceanic waterway was torn down on Saturday night by order of local authorities. The move comes as US President Donald Trump has made threats in the past few months to retake control of the canal, claiming Beijing has too much influence in its operations. In a surprising move that has been criticized by leaders in Panama and China, the mayor’s office of the locality of Arraijan ordered the demolition of the monument built in 2004 to symbolize friendship between the countries. The mayor’s office said in
‘TRUMP’S LONG GAME’: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said that while fraud was a serious issue, the US president was politicizing it to defund programs for Minnesotans US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday said it was auditing immigration cases involving US citizens of Somalian origin to detect fraud that could lead to denaturalization, or revocation of citizenship, while also announcing a freeze of childcare funds to Minnesota and demanding an audit of some daycare centers. “Under US law, if an individual procures citizenship on a fraudulent basis, that is grounds for denaturalization,” US Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. Denaturalization cases are rare and can take years. About 11 cases were pursued per year between 1990 and 2017, the Immigrant Legal Resource
‘RADICALLY DIFFERENT’: The Kremlin said no accord would be reached if the new deal with Kyiv’s input did not remain within the limits fixed by the US and Russia in August Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is to meet US President Donald Trump in Florida this weekend, but Russia on Friday accused him and his EU backers of seeking to “torpedo” a US-brokered plan to stop the fighting. Today’s meeting to discuss new peace proposals comes amidst Trump’s intensified efforts to broker an agreement on Europe’s worst conflict since World War II. The latest plan is a 20-point proposal that would freeze the war on its current front line, but open the door for Ukraine to pull back troops from the east, where demilitarized buffer zones could be created, according to details revealed by
RSS