THE LAW dean of the University of Santo Tomas, Nilo Divina, said that the petition seeking to disqualify Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos, Jr. from the presidential race in 2022 will likely fail for lack of merit.

“As I see it, the petition to cancel BBM’s certificate of candidacy is bound to collapse once evaluated by the Comelec because it appears to be defective in form and offers insufficient legal basis to obtain its desired judgment,” Divina said.

“It’s ad hominem, or an attack against the character of the respondent, that may weaken the petitioners’ position. It is the law, always, that matters,” he added.

Last week, civic leaders filed a 57-page petition before the Commission on Elections. They asked the poll body to nullify Marcos’ Certificate of Candidacy because it contains “multiple false material representations.”

The petitioners pointed out that Marcos is not eligible to run for any public office because he was convicted.

“Specifically, Marcos falsified his Certificate of Candidacy when he claimed that he was eligible to be a candidate for President of the Philippines in the 2022 national elections when in fact he is disqualified from doing so,” they said in a statement.

However, Marcos’ party, Partido Federal ng Pilipinas, pointed out that the petitioners failed to attach the certified true copy of the final judgment that supposedly found Marcos guilty of a crime.

In 1997, the Court of Appeals fined Marcos for his failure to file income tax returns for the period 1982 to 1985.

However, legal experts said that Marcos was not convicted of a crime of moral turpitude, a requirement for the disqualification of a candidate.