Opposition front rules out Roces candidacy if Poe is disqualified

Coalition official says senator Maceda's remark on actress replacing her husband was a joke

Actress Susan Roces will not run as president if her husband, action star Fernando Poe Jr., is disqualified as the presidential candidate of the opposition's Coalition of Nationally United Pilipinos (KNP), a spokesman said yesterday.

Poe is facing a petition filed with the election commission that questions his citizenship.

"The statement of Senator Ernesto Maceda regarding that issue was made in a jest," said Rod Reyes, head of KNP's media bureau. "Susan Roces will not run for the opposition," Reyes said.

Political novice

Many of Poe's supporters said the joke on Roces as a possible replacement for her husband, was made in bad taste.

Poe, a high school drop out, has been accused of being a novice in politics in his new adventure as a presidential candidate of the opposition.

At the same time, Reyes said the opposition will not declare Senator Panfilo Lacson as standard bearer if Poe is disqualified due to his questionable citizenship.

Reyes betrayed the inability of the opposition to unite or have other alternative candidates outside of Poe and Lacson, in case the popular actor is proven to be an American as alleged by lawyer Victorino Fornier.

"It is as if the opposition has limited itself between these two choices," said one critic.

Earlier, Maceda said the opposition will choose Roces if the petition to disqualify Poe succeeds. At the same time, Reyes reiterated the accusation of the opposition that President Gloria Arroyo's "dirty-tactic camp" has masterminded the petition filed at the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to disqualify Poe.

Fornier denied the allegations that the presidential palace has commissioned him to write a petition for Poe's disqualification at the Comelec.

Fornier said Poe is not a natural Filipino citizen, because his father was a Spanish citizen when he married Paulita Gomez in 1935.

Poe's birth certificate said he was born in 1936 to Bessie Kelley who was an American national. The Comelec will hear the case filed by Fornier.