BILANG PILIPINO | Guanzon challenges Comelec ruling that Marcos Jr did not commit moral turpitude

February 11, 2022 , 04:19 PM

By Clarist Zablan

(February 11, 2022) – A former poll body official on Friday disputed the decision of her former colleagues to dismiss the disqualification petitions against the only son and namesake of the late dictator and allow him to seek the presidency, describing the arguments as “atrocious logic.”

Rowena Guanzon, who retired as Commission on Election (Comelec) commissioner last week, said Aimee Ferolino, who penned the decision, made a mistake to assume that Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s tax conviction was merely mala prohibita – or merely prohibited by law but not evil in itself – to argue that he did not commit a crime of moral turpitude.

She also challenged Ferolino’s opinion that the tax conviction does not involve moral turpitude because it did not involve fraud, noting that she relied exclusively on the elements of the offense without considering the surrounding circumstances.

“An offense may involve moral turpitude under one set of circumstances while, in a different set of circumstances, it does not involve moral turpitude,” Guanzon said in a statement. “Ferolino chose to turn a blind eye to the circumstances surrounding Marcos, Jr.’s offense.”

Ferolino’s Resolution is a must read for lawyers and non lawyers. Atrocious logic. It is fraught with grammatical and typographical errors. pic.twitter.com/5ANQyQaDnH

— Rowena Guanzon (@rowena_guanzon) February 11, 2022

Guanzon said the former senator had repeatedly failed to file his income tax returns (ITR) for four years from 1982 to 1985 as a local government official and it could only have been done deliberately, which constitutes a crime of moral turpitude.

“Is he (Marcos Jr) stupid that he did not know that he should file an ITR?” she said. “Doesn’t he claim to be an Oxford graduate? Why doesn’t he know something as basic as that?”

The Comelec first division, which Guanzon previously presided, released the decision on Marcos Jr’s disqualification cases a week after she retired.

Last month, Guanzon leaked to the press her own decision in favor of the petitions, claiming that Ferolino was influenced to stall the resolution of the cases to exclude her vote, which Ferolino has denied.

Ferolino, in her decision, said the tax law specifying a perpetual disqualification for tax convictions does not apply as it only took effect in 1986. It also agreed that Marcos Jr did not voluntarily and intentionally violated laws in his non-filing of ITRs.

Akbayan Citizens’ Action Party and the group of Martial Law victims led by Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses (CARMMA), who separately filed two of the three petitions, have expressed plans to appeal their cases to the Comelec en banc. The third petition was filed by Abubakar Mangelen, who leads an opposing faction of Marcos Jr’s political party.

One more disqualification petition against Marcos Jr, filed by a group from his family’s bailiwick in the Ilocos Region, is still pending with the second division. A motion seeking to reverse the junking of a petition to cancel his certificate of candidacy was also filed last month.

(MM)

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