Nobody is certain when the four disqualification cases filed against presidential candidate and incumbent senator Grace Poe before the Supreme Court will be resolved. Some political personalities warn that if the Supreme Court does not resolve the Poe cases soon, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) will not have enough time to finish the printing of ballots needed for the May 2016 elections.
As of now, however, there is no need to panic. The Supreme Court is aware of the importance of resolving Poe’s disqualification cases as promptly as possible. On many occasions in the past, the Court arrived at its judgment soon enough to allow the Comelec ample time to act accordingly. Recent memory discloses that no national election was ever aborted simply because of a pending election dispute either in the Supreme Court or in the Comelec. Nonetheless, the sooner the said disqualification cases are resolved with finality, the better it will be for the Comelec.
A Poe supporter lamented in a letter recently published in another newspaper that Supreme Court Justices Antonio Carpio, Teresita Leonardo-de Castro, and Arturo Brion should have inhibited themselves from further participation in the Poe cases in the Supreme Court because the three justices have already ruled in the disqualification case filed in the Senate Electoral Tribunal that Poe is not a natural-born citizen of the Philippines.
That lamentation ignores the fact that there are two sets of disqualification cases currently pending against Poe in the Supreme Court.
The first set emanates from a case which seeks to unseat Poe from the Senate on the ground that Poe is not a natural-born citizen of the Philippines—which the Constitution requires. That case was filed in the SET by Rizalito David, an election watchdog. Justices Carpio, De Castro, and Brion were among the nine members of the SET, with Justice Carpio as its chairman. The other tribunal members were senators.
After due proceedings, the SET voted 5-4 in favor of Poe, and dismissed the disqualification case. The three justices and one senator voted against Poe. Senator Cynthia Villar later admitted to the news media that the decision of the majority was premised on political, rather than legal, considerations. David appealed the SET decision to the Supreme Court.
When the decision of the SET became the subject of an appeal before them, this time no longer as SET members but as magistrates of the Supreme Court, Justices Carpio, de Castro, and Brion inhibited themselves from participating in the proceedings arising from the said appeal.
The second set pertains to four separate disqualification cases against Poe, filed in the Comelec by four different parties. These cases seek to disqualify Poe from running for president on the ground that she is not a natural-born citizen of the Philippines—which the Constitution likewise mandates.
After the Comelec resolved the four cases against her, Poe appealed to the Supreme Court. Because Justices Carpio, de Castro, and Brion had nothing to do with the ruling of the Comelec against Poe, they decided not to inhibit themselves in Poe’s appeal.
Their decision not to inhibit themselves is not surprising to one who knows the intricacies of case law. A justice of the Supreme Court is not required to inhibit himself in a case, even if the resolution of the case requires reliance on an earlier, but separate, judicial pronouncement or decision wherein the justice had participated. Thus, as long as the subject of the appeal before the justice is not the actual ruling wherein he had earlier cast his vote, the justice concerned need not inhibit himself, even if the resolution of the appeal may happen to depend wholly or partly on the doctrine established in a previous but separate decision he happened to have signed.
For example, during the regime of constitutional authoritarianism under the 1973 charter, many decisions of the Supreme Court involving constitutional issues were repeatedly, and sometimes even routinely resolved, by the incumbent justices of that period by relying on judicial precedents which bear their previous participation. The late Justice Claudio Teehankee was one of them.
Meanwhile, Poe announced that one does not have to be in government for so long to be president. Poe was obviously referring to her brief stint in public service consisting of three years as the top government censor, and two and a half years as a pro-administration senator.
Three years in appointive administrative office and almost three more in elective legislative office do not translate to a sufficient track record for the presidency. Look at President Benigno Aquino III. His record of public service far exceeds Poe’s, and yet he has demonstrated unprecedented incompetence in running the country. Aquino’s administration will be remembered for failed ventures like the Philippine Truth Commission which Aquino created but which the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional in December 2010; for his illegal executive order on casual employees in the government; and for his stealthy plan to dismember the Republic of the Philippines through the legally-flawed Bangsamoro Basic Law, which he personally endorsed and pursued, but which, fortunately for the Filipino people, Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. dismantled.
If Poe’s supporters intend to identify her with the late Corazon Cojuangco Aquino, who won the presidency despite being devoid of any experience in public service, they had better think twice. As president, Mrs. Aquino expanded casino operations in the country. She also released from detention communist leaders who eventually continued, and up to today, continue to destabilize the government. Land reform under Mrs. Aquino was a sham, as seen by her relentless efforts to keep the family’s landholdings in Tarlac exempted from the coverage of the agrarian reform law.
Because the presidency is all about executive power, competence for this office demands extensive experience in executive work. Grace Poe does not have that requisite experience to warrant her ambitious desire for the highest office of the land.