Disqualify Tulfo, Comelec asked
Two registered voters and an antigraft nongovernment organization have asked the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to disqualify administration senatorial candidate Erwin Tulfo for not being a Filipino citizen, for being a member of a political dynasty and for having been convicted of a crime of moral turpitude.
In their 22-page petition filed on Tuesday afternoon, registered voters Berteni Causing and Diosdado Calonge, and the Graft-Free Philippines Foundation Inc. said Tulfo, currently an ACT-CIS party list representative, was convicted of four counts of libel, which the Supreme Court upheld with finality in September 2008.
They said that under Section 12 of the Omnibus Elections Code, any person who has been sentenced by final judgment for, among other offenses, a crime involving moral turpitude, shall be disqualified from running for and holding any government office, unless granted a plenary pardon or amnesty.
Court order defied?
Moreover, they presented copies of orders from the Pasay regional trial court that convicted Tulfo, where it was supposedly not stated definitively that he had paid the fines and damages meted out against him.
The petitioners claimed that due to his conviction, Tulfo was disqualified from running for or holding public office for 20 years, or five years for every libel count.
Tulfo and other officials of the tabloid Remate were convicted of libel over a series of columns he wrote in 1999. The high tribunal fined the respondents P6,000 each in lieu of imprisonment and ordered them to pay the complainant P1 million in moral damages.
Causing, a vlogger, was disbarred by the Supreme Court in 2023. He filed a certificate of candidacy for senator for this year’s election but was declared a nuisance candidate.
Calonge, a former prosecutor from the Office of the Ombudsman, ran for the second district of Quezon City in the 2022 elections but lost to Tulfo’s nephew, Ralph.
The petitioners also claimed Tulfo has been a US citizen since 1991 and that he served in the US Army and obtained a US passport under the name Erich Sylvester Tulfo.
“[T]here is no evidence that Erwin is now a Filipino or that he has not lost his Filipino citizenship. The burden of proof to prove he is a Filipino citizen rests on [his] shoulders,” the petitioners said.
Political dynasty
They also said that with Tulfo running with his brother Ben, and with their brother Raffy already an incumbent senator, and their sister Wanda and Raffy’s wife and son running for House seats, the family violated the ban on political dynasty and the guarantee to equal access to opportunities for public service provided under the Constitution.
In a statement, Tulfo said he has not yet received a copy of the disqualification case filed against him by Causing.
