Team DailyPedia
In an interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer last November 23, veteran election lawyer Romulo Macalintal explained why he believes that Mayor Rodrigo Duterte’s substitution for Martin Diño as a presidential candidate under the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) party is invalid.
Diño, the current chairman of the VACC (Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption), may have announced that he was running for president, but his COC (Certificate of Candidacy) however, shows that the position he wrote down is for Mayor of Pasay City.
“Duterte [therefore] cannot sub for Diño as [a] candidate for president. Diño’s COC appeared to be defective; hence [it] cannot be the basis of any substitution because it is as if Diño never filed such COC,” the Inquirer quotes Macalintal.
The lawyer also recalls Diño as one of the candidates yet to be judged by the Comelec as a nuisance candidate. “If Comelec later determines that Dino is a nuisance candidate for president,” Macalintal explains, “then with more reason that Duterte cannot sub for Diño. When a candidate is declared a nuisance, his COC is denied due course or cancelled—the effect of which is that it is as if no COC was filed.”
Aside from these technicalities, Macalintal also shares his doubts regarding Duterte’s motivations for seeking the highest position of the land. On November 21, Duterte announced he was running for president due to his disappointment with the Senate Electoral Tribunal’s (SET) ruling junking Senator Grave Poe’s disqualification case. A lawyer by profession, Duterte believes that Poe is not a natural-born citizen.
“…his stated reason for running may not augur well or be disappointing to the electorate who expected a Duterte running for good governance and not due to any emotional feeling over the fate of the candidacy of any presidential aspirant,” Macalintal explains. “Why should Poe’s qualification be the motivating factor for Duterte to run? Why not a desire to really and fully serve the people?”
