Grace Poe Says She’s Running For Women
Grace Poe is just apart of where women have been trending for quite sometime.
Supreme Court of the Philippines rules Senator Grace Poe can run for President. The court ruled Tuesday that she’s eligible to run for president in the elections, which are set for May 9. The country’s electoral commission disqualified her from the race in December.
Grace Poe For President
Voting 9-6, the high court reversed the Commission on Elections’ decision to cancel Senator Poe’s Certificate of Candidacy and ruled that the independent presidential aspirant has met the requirements to run for president. The Supreme Court determined that Ms. Poe is a natural-born Filipino, even though she was found abandoned in a church as a baby, which raised questions about her origins. She was later adopted by movie stars Susan Roces and Fernando Poe Jr. The court also accepted her claim that she returned to the Philippines from the U.S. in 2004 after her father died.
Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago has previously held that under the Constitution, Poe is not a natural-born Filipino so she is not qualified to run for President. Santiago, a recognized constitutional law expert who is seeking the presidency for the third time, explained that Poe could not be legally considered a natural-born citizen since she could not establish that at least one of her biological parents is a Filipino.
Poe was leading in the Laylo Research Strategies poll at 26%. That put her narrowly ahead of her three main rivals, Vice President Jejomar Binay, Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte and former Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas, who all clocked in at 22% to 24% support.
According to Edna Co, political science professor at the University of Phillipines, the ruling will certainly provide momentum for Poe’s campaign, but the race will remain close. Amongst other issues, Poe must now convince voters that she is up to the task of steering the developing economy despite being a relative political novice. She was elected to the Senate in 2013 and is the youngest candidate in the presidential race by a decade.
“This is not just my victory…this is a victory for the oppressed, of every woman,” Poe said as she addressed a gathering in Manila. “Let us make 2016 as the year when women win in government.”
A popular young politician with citizenship issues? That would never happen in the United States. A woman? President? In the United States?
