ALL three petitioners whose disqualification cases against presidential candidate Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr had been junked by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) First Division have filed motions for reconsideration (MRs).
Petitioners led by Bonifacio Ilagan filed their MR before the Comelec en banc yesterday, saying the First Division has erred in its decision promulgated last week.
“It should be noted that qualifications for public office are continuing requirements and must be possessed not only at the time of appointment or election or assumption of office but during the officer’s entire tenure. Once any of the required qualifications is lost, his title may be seasonably challenged,” said the petitioners in their 26-page petition.
On Monday, Abubakar Mangelen asked the Comelec en banc to reverse the decision of the First Division. Yesterday morning, the Akbayan party-list group also filed its own MR before the Comelec en banc, saying Marcos should be disqualified as he was convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude when he failed to file his income tax returns for four years.
“When the Respondent decided to evade his duty of filing his income tax returns for the years 1982-1985, he was robbing the government of the opportunity to ascertain the correct income taxes due from him. It was a continuing act of dishonesty and injustice that spanned 12 years until his conviction in 1995,” said Akbayan.
The petitioners led by Ilagan said Marcos’ repeated violations of the law on taxes is a grave offense that makes him disqualified from holding the highest post in the land.
This is in contrast to the controversial ruling of the First Division, which said that his failure to file his income tax returns is “not inherently wrong”.
“It bears stressing that the legal obligation to file an income tax return was already present in the original 1977 NIRC. He could have simply filed a belated income tax return, and yet he continued to not do so in violation of law,” said the petitioners.
“With due respect to the Honorable Commission, it is submitted that it is the repeated, deliberate, willful, and intentional violation of the tax code that makes such violation a crime involving moral turpitude,” they added.
Last week, the Comelec First Division unanimously dismissed the three consolidated petitions filed against Marcos due to its “lack of merit”.
