THE Supreme Court (SC) has compelled the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) to appear during arguments on the petitions filed by Sen. Grace Poe questioning the Commission on Elections (Comelec) resolutions that nullified her certificate of candidacy for president.
In an advisory released on Thursday, the Court en banc ordered the OSG to participate in the oral arguments despite Solicitor General Florin Hilbay’s earlier manifestation he will not represent the Comelec in the consolidated cases.
Hilbay has manifested that their office would instead represent the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET) in a separate petition filed by Rizalito David before the High Court.
The Solicitor General’s mandate is to represent government agencies in various cases before courts.
Hilbay would be given 10 minutes to present their position on the eligibility of Poe for the presidency—independently of the positions of the Comelec, Poe and the four disqualification petitioners against her.
“The Solicitor General, as the Tribune of the People, is directed to participate in the oral arguments despite his manifestation that he will not represent the public respondent in these consolidated cases,” the SC said in its five-page guidelines.
He is specifically ordered to appear in the oral arguments “not necessarily to submit a comment, but only to provide his views.”
The High Court made the order after it has decided not to consolidate the SET and Comelec cases involving Poe.
The OSG has already submitted its position on the citizenship issue in its comment on David’s petition and argued that the SET was correct in ruling that Poe is a natural-born citizen based on evidence like her physical features and circumstances surrounding her abandonment and discovery.
In the same guidelines issued on January 14, the other parties were likewise given 10 minutes each to present their arguments before the interpellation of justices.
Based on the guidelins, the oral arguments would focus on two main legal issues: whether Poe commit material misrepresentation in her certificate of candidacy for the presidency filed last October in claiming that she is a natural-born Filipino citizen and she would meet the 10-year residency requirement before the May 9 polls.
Lawyers of parties appeared before the High Court on Thursday morning in the preliminary conference for the oral arguments.
After the closed door meeting, Poe’s counsel George Garcia revealed to reporters the parties were told to refrain from discussing merits of the cases in public.
“We were told that this is a very legal and technical issue, which should be made a political issue,” Garcia said. But he immediately clarified that there was no gag order issued by the High Court.
He explained they were told to “refrain from doing anything inside the session hall during the oral argument that might enflame the already very heated arguments.”
The four petitioners in the Comelec disqualification cases against Poe—former Sen. Francisco Tatad, De La Salle University Prof. Antonio Contreras, former Government Service Insurance System counsel Estrella Elamparo and former University of the East College of Law Dean Amado Valdez—also attended the conference.