STATEMENT OF SEN. FRANCIS "CHIZ" ESCUDERO
ON THE DECISION OF THE COMELEC AGAINST SEN. GRACE POE

The Commission on Elections (COMELEC) is both wrong and unfair and a bully.

Sen. Grace Poe has been nothing but honest, candid, forthright and open with respect to her citizenship, nationality and residency to the Filipino people. She has answered every question with candor and honesty both before the COMELEC and before the Filipino people. How dare they say that she "deliberately attempted to mislead the electorate."

It is actually the COMELEC that is misleading the electorate and bullying Sen. Poe by:

1) Pretending to be an independent Commission when they have actually been acting as Sen. Poe's inquisitor and persecutor, and plain and simple bullying her.

• They acted with dispatch on her DQ case even before the candidate who claimed his name was "Lucifer"

• They refused to consolidate the four cases, which are all the same except for the names of the petitioners, if only to require Sen. Poe to answer/appear in the two divisions of the COMELEC and be disqualified, not only once but twice, and a third time by the en banc following what appears to be a well written script or play.

• By working "overtime" in order for the en banc to disqualify her a day before Christmas and the holidays thus giving her very little and difficult time to seek redress in the Supreme Court; and

2) Claiming to have the power to decide over her qualification to run when in fact only the Supreme Court can, either sitting en banc or as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, decide with finality on such issues.

Christmas is always a time for loving, sharing and giving. And it seems that the COMELEC has imbibed the Christmas spirit by loving and sharing and being giving to the opponents of Sen. Poe but not to her, not to us, and certainly not to the Philippine electorate.

However, inspite of all of these, I am eternally hopeful that the truth will always prevail and Sen. Poe will overcome the difficulties being thrown her way and come out a stronger person and candidate for president.