Ex-ombudsman's daughter's disqualified transport group seeks SC reprieve

GMA News January 7, 2013 6:35pm

A transport party-list group, whose nominee is the daughter of former Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez, has asked the Supreme Court to stop the Commission on Elections from disqualifying it in the May 2013 elecions.

In a petition for certiorari with prayer for the issuance of a temporary restraining order, the Alliance of Concerned Transport Organizations (ACTO) said the poll body "gravely abused its discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction" when it withdrew on December 19 last year an August 13, 2012 resolution granting the group's petition for registration/accreditation for the upcoming elections.

ACTO said its membership is made up of drivers and operators of small-time jeepneys, tricycles and transport vehicles.

In its decision, the Comelec said "there is doubt whether it can truly represent all the sectors its seeks to represent when conflict of interest arises and that its second nominee has not shown that she actually belongs to the marginalized and underrepresented sector as contemplated by [the Party-list System Act]."

ACTO's second nominee is Margarita Gutierrez, daughter of Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez, who resigned right before the start of her impeachment trial in 2011.

The transport group said neither the 1987 Philippine Constitution nor the Party-list System Act requires a partylist nominee to belong to the "marginalized and underrepresented" sector which he or she represents.

ACTO said a nominee only needed to be a "bona fide member" of the group.

"The latter himself or herself may be one schooled in the law and have enough connections in society to be able to participate in emanignful legislation that would benefit not just the sector but the whole counrty," the group said.

In its petition, ACTO also claimed their rights to due process and equal protection of the laws were violated when its registration was reversed. "No prior notice and hearing was afforded to ACTO of the reasons or grounds for the reversal of the resolution allowing its registration."

ACTO also cited media interviews of Comelec chairman Sixto Brillantes in which he reportedly admitted that the law does not define "marginalized" and "underrepresented."

The group also belied Comelec's claim that a conflict of interest might arise between ACTO's operator-members and driver-members.

ACTO insisted that even its operator-members should be considered "marginalized" since they are "principally small individual operators who also drive their own vehicles and not large rich transport corporations or groups which own fleets of vehicles."

"Comelec's discussion of conflict of interest is highly theoretical and academic and not supported by facts and figures about the transport sector," the group said.

Since the Comelec disqualified a number of party-list groups late last year, a deluge of petitions questioning the Comelec's move has flooded the high court.

To date, the high court has issued status quo ante orders in favor of 52 disqualified party-list groups.

The SQA orders directed the Comelec to observe the status before the disqualification resolutions were issued last year.

This meant that the disqualified groups that were able to secure SQAs from the high court would still have to be included on the ballots that the Comelec would be printing starting this month.

The SC is set to tackle on Tuesday the new petitions contesting the disqualifications handed down by the Comelec. — BM, GMA News