By ELLEN T. TORDESILLAS
SOME of those who have ambitions to become president in 2016 are reportedly thinking of ways how to stop Grace Poe, whose political trajectory is consistently ascending since she was elected senator two years ago.
This has become urgent with President Aquino’s recent meeting with her on the possibility of running for higher office in 2016.
One of the issues Poe’s prospective political opponents have prepared to raise is her citizenship.
It is a known fact that the 2013 senatorial race topnotcher was a foundling. She was found in Jaro Cathedral in Iloilo City. A kind woman took care of her and later gave her to the then King and Queen of Philippine Movies Fernando Poe, Jr and Susan Roces.
There are, of course, juicier version of her parentage. One is that she is allegedly the daughter of Susan Roces’ sister, Rosemarie Sonora, with the late President Ferdinand Marcos.
The lady senator knows about the rumor. She reportedly once joked with fellow senator, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, J; “Magkapatid daw tayo?”
But it is not a joking matter for those whose political ambitions she would be derailing. Social Weather Stations’ March 2015 survey showed Poe closing on consistent frontrunner Vice President Jejomar Binay.
SWS survey on presidential possible candidates showed Poe’s rating going up by 10 percentage points, from 21 percent last December to 31 percent last March. Binay rating, on the other hand, continues to go down from 37 percent last December to 36 percent last March.
Poe said there was no talk about what position Aquino would like her to run in 2016 except that he wants someone with a high chance of winning to continue what he has started after he is out of Malacañang.
Poe has been impressive in her first two years as senator, showing diligence, competence and principled position in issues confronting her and the Senate.
In an institution where a number of its members have been implicated in corruption, she has remained untainted. The only issue her non-supporters can raise is her citizenship, the same issue that hounded her father, Fernando Poe, Jr in the 2004 elections against Gloria Arroyo. (The Supreme Court eventually dismissed the case but it distracted FPJ from the campaign.)
The Philippine Constitution requires the president of the Philippines to be “a natural-born citizen of the Philippines, a registered voter, able to read and write, at least forty years of age on the day of the election and a resident of the Philippines for at least ten years immediately preceding such election.”
Since Grace Poe’s biological parents are unknown, her non-supporters are asking: “How sure is she that she is a natural-born citizen of the Philippines?
A source close to Poe’s camp said they are aware of that issue to be raised against her if and when she decides to run for the presidency. They are ready to answer that.
One of the legal instruments that they are citing is the U.N. Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness that states, “A foundling found in the territory of a Contracting State shall, in the absence of proof to the contrary, be considered to have been born within that territory of parents possessing the nationality of that State.”
Expect this issue to reach the Supreme Court.
