miniZibaldone

Philippine Star  "Preventing vote buying" Reversing the Commission on Elections again, the Supreme Court yesterday granted a petition to issue receipts for the automated voting. The unanimous SC vote ordered the Comelec to enable the voter verified paper audit trail or VVPAT feature of the vote counting machines.  The decision has raised concern that vote-buying politicians will again have a way of verifying if they are getting what they paid for through receipts.   [full text] Sun.Star Cebu  "Game-changer?" WHAT an eventful International Women’s Day it turned out to be for Sen. Grace Poe. Voting 9-6, the Supreme Court En Banc reversed yesterday a decision of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and allowed her to run for the presidency.  For voters, the decision offers the chance of greater clarity. With Poe firmly in the saddle, and with much of the speculative melodrama from her disqualification cases now set aside, voters can more clinically assess her...

Inquirer  Grace Poe and presidential candidacy disqualification Disqualified from the presidential race by the Commission on Elections’ Second Division, Sen. Grace Poe isn’t about to throw in the towel. She is pinning her hopes on the Supreme Court, reminding the nation that her late father, Fernando Poe Jr., won his own case for Filipino citizenship in that tribunal. [...]  The Comelec ruling throwing out the senator’s candidacy rested not only on grounds of citizenship—that she is not a natural-born citizen because she was a foundling—but also on a quite unrelated fact: that by allegedly writing on her certificate of candidacy that she was a resident of the Philippines for “6 years and 6 months,” she does not fulfill the constitutional requirement of a 10-year residency for a presidential candidate. [full text] Sun.Star Cebu  on the Rule of Law and Grace Poe “Rule of law” seems to have become the forgotten principle as presidential contenders jockey for politi...