Noynoy Aquino Update 4/19/2010

LP ASKS SC TO NULLIFY COMELEC RULING ON NP-NPC MERGER

SEEKS TRO ON COMELEC’S DOMINANT MINORITY PARTY DEBATES

The Liberal Party today asked the Supreme Court to nullify and reverse the Commission on Elections (Comelec) decision to recognize and formally accredit the bogus alliance between the Nacionalista Party and the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NP-NPC).

At the same time, the LP urged the High Court to stop the Comelec from implementing its decision in its deliberation on who should be the dominant minority party in the May 10 national and local elections.
LP lawyers filed a 53-page Petition for Certiorari and Prohibition with Urgent Application for Temporary Restraining Order status quo ante and/or writ of preliminary injunction before the Supreme Court in Baguio City.

The LP reiterated the NP-NPC alliance was a bogus coalition formed solely to rob from the Liberal Party the recognition as the Dominant Minority Party, which it held during the 2007 senatorial elections.
Quoting from the dissenting opinion of Comelec Commissioner Rene Sarmiento, the LP insisted that the NP-NPC merger was a “sham, highly dubious and shameless.”

It pointed out anew that even NPC chairman Faustino Dy Jr., who signed the resolution for the NP-NPC alliance on behalf of the NPC, had admitted under oath before the Comelec that, despite being required under the Constitution and By-Laws of the NPC, the resolution on the coalition with NP was neither approved nor ratified by the NPC National Convention, the party’s highest policy-making body.
It noted that Dy had also admitted before the poll body that he did not consult NPC members whom he knew or believed would not agree to the merger. Also, it argued that the NP and the NPC have candidates running against each other for national and local positions in various areas during the May elections.
It also added that, “the absurdity of the purported coalition is epitomized by the supposed NP-NPC Coalition resolution, which allegedly adopted, as the Coalition’s senatorial candidate, the entire senatorial slate of the NP, to the exclusion of NPC senatorial candidates Tito Sotto and Ompong Plaza.”
“The NP-NPC was never formally, and much less, genuinely organized by the NPC. It was but a mere piece of paper purposely designed to emasculate the chances of other registered political parties who rely on their own truthful qualifications in their application for the dominant minority party status,” it argued.
LP lawyers lamented that despite glaring evidence that the coalition was unauthorized, “the Comelec, nonetheless, in grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess in jurisdiction, granted the petition for registration of the NP-NPC Coalition ratiocinating that since no written opposition was filed by any NPC member to the supposed coalition, the NPC membership has purportedly accepted the same.”
On top of this, they alleged the Comelec, in grave and capricious exercise of discretion, took cognizance of the illegal NP-NPC merger “even if its Rules of Procedure and the explicit ruling of (the SC) require that the petition should have first been heard by a division of the Commission.”
“The Comelec disregarded its own rules and established jurisprudence in taking cognizance of the petition for registration at the first instance,” they said, adding: “To top it all, and in grave abuse of its discretion, the Comelec en banc acted on the petition for registration even if it was filed way beyond the deadline it had already set for the registration of political parties and even if there was no compelling reason for the Comelec to suspend its rules and/or adopt a liberal construction of its rules.”
“The fatal deficiencies and/or infirmities accompanying the filing of the petition for registration of the purported NP-NPC Coalition would have warranted its outright dismissal by the Comelec. Yet, instead of relegating the petition to the dustbin of history for being an outright mockery of our election laws, the majority of the Comelec Commissioner had even given life to it by granting the petition and causing the registration of the purported NP-NPC Coalition,” the LP argued.
The LP insisted it was necessary for the SC to step into the case, noting the proximity of the May 10 elections and a scheduled deliberation by the Comelec en banc on the applications for recognition as the Dominant Minority Party. “Unless a temporary restraining order and/or writ of preliminary prohibitory injunction is issued, (Comelec) will proceed, which clearly constitute a violation of (the LP’s) right to party representation in the Commission on Appointments, perpetrate and perpetuate a brazen constitutional breach and will result in irreparable damage and injury to petitioners.”
It stressed: “A coalition of political parties must not be just a piece of paper that can be registered whimsically, most especially when such purported coalition is not only dubious in its existence but is also severely tainted with bad faith and is intended to have undue advantage against those who are faithfully complying with the law.”