Getting murkier by the minute

There’s a saying that if you gather five lawyers in a room, they will come up with five different interpretations of a single law. This seems to be what’s happening in the disqualification case against Senator Grace Poe before the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET).

Suddenly, every lawyer worth his or her salt has come up with a take on why Poe is a natural-born Filipino, thus the SET has to dismiss the case against her, or that she is a naturalized citizen thus her election as senator should be voided.

The SET declaring Poe a naturalized citizen would not only jettison the adopted daughter of the late Fernando Poe Jr. and Susan Roces out of the Senate, but would also disqualify her as a candidate in the 2016 presidential elections.

As the leading presidential contender who even increased her lead among fellow contenders Mar Roxas and Vice President Jejomar Binay, Poe being barred from a presidential run in 2016 is unthinkable.

On Monday, Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, who chairs the SET, came up with a statement that sent shock waves on the camp of Poe. Being a foundling, Poe is considered a naturalized Filipino under customary international law, said Carpio.

Carpio added that Poe must prove to the SET that she is a natural-born citizen. Making the rounds of early morning television and radio talk shows Tuesday, Poe’s lawyers questioned Carpio’s position.

One lawyer maintained that the burden of proof to show that Poe is a naturalized citizen lies with the party who filed the case against her before the SET, adding that in the absence of proof of naturalization every Filipino must be assumed to be natural-born.

A more senior lawyer contended that under the customary law cited by Carpio, it should be Poe’s blood parents who should be assumed to have been naturalized and not Poe herself.  In such a case, he said that under the Constitution, the child of Filipino citizens, whether the parents are naturalized or natural-born, is considered natural born like Poe.

To resolve this matter beyond the domain of conflicting legal claims, would the blood parents of Senator Grace Poe, if they are still around, come forward?  

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