Barely a few days after they filed their respective Certificates of Candidacy at the head office of the Commission on Elections, Senators Grace Poe and Gregorio “Gringo” Honasan II quickly embarked on a disinformation campaign through the news media—disinformation because both candidates made less-than-truthful statements about their respective candidacies.
Last week, Estrella Elamparo, a lawyer and registered voter, filed a suit with the Comelec seeking to cancel or deny due course to Poe’s Certificate of Candidacy for President on the grounds that Poe is not a natural-born citizen of the Philippines, and that she does not meet the 10-year residency requirement for the presidency mandated by the Constitution.
Valenzuela City Mayor and Poe spokesman Rex Gatchalian immediately denounced the disqualification suit, branding it a strategy intended to subvert the will of the people. Gatchalian also complained that the suit smacks of harassment because the issue about Poe’s citizenship is already pending before the Senate Electoral Tribunal.
Poe’s lawyer added that their camp is aware of who are behind the disqualification suit and other “evil plans” against his client.
The arguments raised by Poe’s camp are hollow and completely off-tangent. Disqualification suits are allowed under the Omnibus Election Code so that persons who are legally disqualified from running for office are prevented from doing so. The elimination of the disqualified assures the electorate that whomever they vote for, if victorious, will not be subsequently unseated from office. This way, the precious votes of the sovereign Filipino people will not be wasted on disqualified candidates. How then can a disqualification suit, one allowed by law at that, constitute harassment against Poe?
Poe’s claim that the disqualification suit is intended to subvert the will of the people is a misleading, desperate appeal to emotion. It is also premised on the self-serving assumption that Poe will win the presidential derby.
By denouncing the disqualification suit, Poe herself subverted the will of the people. Since the Constitution was ratified by the people, its provisions embody the will of the people. Considering that the Constitution mandates that only natural-born citizens of the Philippines are qualified to run for President, that mandate also embodies the will of the people. Thus, when a registered voter seeks to disqualify a presidential candidate on the ground that the candidate does not meet the constitutional requirements for that office, the disqualification suit is deemed authorized, likewise by the will of the people. Being so, what is Gatchalian complaining about?
Contrary to what Poe’s spokesman claims, the citizenship issue against Poe currently pending before the SET does not bar or hold in abeyance the disqualification suit filed against her in the Comelec. In the first place, the two cases are different. The petition against Poe in the SET seeks her ouster from the Senate, and has no legal tie to Poe’s moist eye for Malacañang. On the other hand, the petition filed against Poe before the Comelec seeks to disqualify Poe from running for President. Secondly, a ruling of the SET is not binding on the Comelec in issues involving the qualifications of candidates for President. In other words, both cases can proceed independently of each other because the SET has no jurisdiction over disqualification cases against candidates for President, and the Comelec has no jurisdiction over disqualification cases against incumbent senators. To insist otherwise, as Gatchalian does, is to allow either tribunal to usurp each other’s jurisdiction.
Whether or not Poe’s camp knows who is behind the disqualification case in the Comelec is immaterial. Even assuming that the said disqualification suit has the blessings of Malacañang, or of any of the other candidates for President, that fact alone is not enough reason to label the disqualification case as one of other “evil plans” of Poe’s challengers.
According to Poe’s camp, Poe expects more disqualification cases against her in the next few weeks, and that she is ready to face them. If so, then Poe should focus her attention on defending her candidacy instead of making less-than-truthful statements about her electoral bid for the highest office in the land.
Like Poe, Honasan has not been above-board in his statements to the news media regarding his candidacy for vice president under the United Nationalist Alliance headed by Vice President Jejomar Binay. In a recent television interview, Honasan claimed that he was nominated by the party in accordance with its internal procedures. When Honasan was asked how that was possible, when it seems like it is Binay himself who personally calls all the shots in UNA—including the choice for the party’s vice presidential candidate—Honasan avoided the question by giving evasive, circuitous answers. All in all, the interview revealed that Honasan is a typical politician and a specialist in making equivocal, meaningless statements.
Everyone monitoring the political scene, Honasan included, knows that as early as July this year, Binay had been shopping around for a vice presidential candidate. By August, Binay’s first choice was Poe, and by early October, Binay seemed open to an alliance with Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., who had already announced his plans to run for vice president. A few days before the start of the week-long period for filing Certificates of Candidacy, Binay finally announced that Honasan will be his running mate. And so it came to pass that Binay settled for Honasan.
Perhaps Honasan peddled that story about the UNA nominating him, because he is uncomfortable admitting that he is Binay’s third choice. Even so, Honasan’s refusal to tell the truth about his last-minute selection by Binay is already an indication that Honasan can be expected to make less-than-truthful statements to the people in the event that he succeeds in his bid for the vice presidency.