Philippines bars frontrunner from 2016 race

MANILA: The Philippines’ Commission on Elections has disqualified a frontrunner in the 2016 presidential race amid questions about her citizenship, an official said on Wednesday.

Grace Poe, a neophyte senator, has been topping opinion surveys but has faced disqualification for failing to prove that she is a natural born citizen.

Poe is an adopted daughter of a late Filipino action movie star, but the identities of her biological parents are not known.

Andres Bautista, head of the Commission on Elections, said the body voted 5-1-1 to uphold a decision by division to disqualify Poe.

But Poe is still able to appeal her case before the Supreme Court, and her name would not yet be stricken from the ballots that are being printed until a final decision is issued on her candidacy.

“Right now, her name is on the ballot as we speak. She is still in the list,” Bautista said in a press conference.

Poe’s lawyer said her camp has until Monday to file an appeal with the Supreme Court and seek a temporary injunction.

Lawyer George Garcia said: “By Monday, they can remove the name of Poe in the list of candidates if we don’t get a status quo ante order or a temporary restraining order,”

Poe, 47, was abandoned as a baby on the steps of a church in the central city of Iloilo and raised by the late actor Fernando Poe Jr.

While Poe renounced her citizenship in 2001 to reside in the United States with her husband, she later returned and became a dual Philippine-US citizen.

“I’m a true Filipino who has lived in our country for more than 10 years,” Poe said in a statement. – dpa