Resolution of appeal on Estrada disqualification sought

A lawyer on Wednesday asked the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to immediately resolve an appeal asking the poll body to reconsider its decision allowing former President Joseph “Erap" Estrada to join the 2010 presidential race. "The long delay in the resolution of this important case... must be addressed not only with dispatch but with effectiveness in order to avoid confusion among the minds of the electorate on whether or not the former president is legally qualified to run again," Evillo Pormento said in a three-page resolution. Last January, the Comelec Second Division allowed Estrada to run in the May polls. Pormento filed a motion for reconsideration two days later. (See: Comelec allows Erap to run for President in May 10 polls) In his motion for reconsideration, the lawyer said that the poll body division should review the Constitution once more to see that it had erred in its decision. Pormento cited Article VII, Section 4 of the Constitution as basis for saying that a president, incumbent or not, shall not be eligible for any reelection. The case, however, has since been pending with the Comelec en banc. On Tuesday, Comelec Commissioner Rene Sarmiento said that they intend to settle all the pending disqualification cases with the Comelec en banc "soon." Estrada won in the 1998 elections but was ousted in the EDSA 2 People Power uprising of 2001 amid an impeachment case on corruption charges. He was later convicted of plunder, sentenced to life imprisonment, and disqualified from seeking any public office by the Sandiganbayan in 2007. A month later, however, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo granted him executive clemency, in the process restoring his civil and political rights, including the right to seek public office. Estrada has consistently claimed he should still be eligible for reelection because he is not an incumbent president and because he did not actually finish his six-year term. —Kimberly Jane T. Tan/JV, GMANews.TV