Image: Reuters Berita 24 English - Local media said that the Philippines Supreme Court turned down the last attempt to get President -elect ...
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| Image: Reuters |
Berita 24 English - Local media said that the Philippines Supreme Court turned down the last attempt to get President-elect Ferdinand Marcos disqualified from last month's election on Tuesday, making it possible for him to take office later this week.
Marcos, 64, won the election on May 9 by a huge margin. He is the son and namesake of the Philippines' notorious late dictator who ruled for 20 years. He will be sworn in on Thursday for a six-year term.
Activists had asked the highest court to overturn the election commission's decision to throw out their petitions, which asked that he be kicked off the ballot because of tax problems from decades ago, which they said made him ineligible to run for office.
The consolidated cases were thrown out by the Supreme Court justices unanimously, the news said. A request for confirmation was not answered right away, and the court's decision had not yet been made public.
The Marcos camp had been saying for a long time that the petitions were just an attempt by his opponents to hurt his campaign. When asked to comment on the decision, his team didn't do so right away.
A government commission found that the patriarch of the Marcos family ruled for 20 years. During that time, he, his family, and their friends made about $10 billion in illegal money.
The Marcos family has said that they are innocent.
Since they came back from self-imposed exile in the 1990s, when they had fled a "people power" revolution in 1986 that got rid of the last Marcos government, they have been in court many times.
