Ilocano group seeks reconsideration on disqualification case vs. Marcos Jr.

The Pudno Nga Ilokano (Ang Totoong Ilokano) on Monday filed a motion for reconsideration on the Commission on Elections' (Comelec) junking of its petition to disqualify presidential candidate Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.

The poll body's First Division on April 20 junked the final disqualification case against Marcos for "lack of merit."

The petitioners said that Marcos' repeated non-filing of income tax returns “is a deliberate intent to violate the law,” thus it is considered as “a conscious design to evade a positive duty, and a wanton disregard of a legal and social duty.”

“Marcos Jr.’s repeated violation of the law is reflective of and constitutes an act of baseness in the duties which he owes his fellow Filipinos and his country,” they added.

The motion also insisted that Marcos, Jr. was convicted for a crime which carried a penalty of imprisonment of three years for which he should be disqualified from running for and holding any public office.

“What petitioners merely seek is to highlight that the accessory penalties of prison correctional under the RPC, particularly that of ‘perpetual special disqualification from the right of suffrage’ under the Article 73 of the RPC be given supplementary application in this case,” they pointed out.

The petitioners in the disqualification case include Margarita Salonga Salandanan, Crisanto Ducusin Palabay, Mario Flores Ben, Danilo Austria Consumido, Raoul Hafalla Tividad, Nida Mallare Gatchallan, and Nomer Calulot Kuan.

The group earlier stressed that Marcos was convicted eight times by the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 105 in 1995 for failure to file his income tax returns as governor of Ilocos Norte for taxable years 1982 to 1985 and for failure to pay the corresponding deficiency taxes.

The Court of Appeals in 1997 modified the ruling and directed Marcos Jr. to pay the tax deficiencies and fines instead.

In its ruling, the Comelec division said non-filing of income tax returns is not a crime involving moral turpitude.

The division further said: "If failure to file income tax return is considered alone, it would appear that it is not inherently wrong. This is supported by the fact that the filing of income tax return is only an obligation created by law and the omission to do so is only considered as wrong because the law penalizes it."—LDF, GMA News