Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio delivered the most stinging rebuke of the Supreme Court and of petitioner Senator Grace Poe who sought the high court’s help to overturn unanimous decisions of the Commission on Elections last December disqualifying her as candidate for president and canceling her Certificate of Candidacy on two grounds—she is not a natural-born Filipino and she lacks the 10-year residency in the Philippines required of Filipino presidents.
On March 8, 2016, the Supreme Court, voting 9-6, allowed Poe to run for president by rejecting her disqualification by the Comelec. Despite its seeming two-thirds majority vote, the Court failed to adequately convince a cynical public that Poe is indeed a natural-born Filipino and that she has lived in the Philippines for 10 years prior to the May 9, 2016 presidential election.
In any case, Grace remains the most popular presidential candidate in the land. She will get anywhere from 25 to 35 percent of the vote in a four-way fight, to eke out a convincing plurality victory. Filipinos don’t give a damn if she is indeed an alien, in the same way they don’t give a damn whether Jejomar Binay (their second choice) is indeed corrupt to the core.
Carpio implies that Poe could still be questioned about her qualifications even if she wins the presidency. If she is disqualified after election, somebody like Bongbong Marcos Jr., a strong frontrunner for vice president, will succeed her.
In biting sarcasm, Justice Carpio, an Ateneo-trained economist and his 1975 UP Law class valedictorian, disagreed with the decision. In his 22,000-word dissenting opinion, he sneers:
“With the ruling of the majority today, a presidential candidate who is deemed a natural-born Filipino citizen by less than a majority of this Court, deemed not a natural-born Filipino citizen by five Justices, and with no opinion from three Justices, can now run for President of the Philippines even after having been unanimously found by the Commission on Elections en banc (COMELEC) to be not a natural-born Filipino citizen. What is clear and undeniable is that there is no majority of this Court that holds that petitioner Mary Grace Natividad S. Poe Llamanzares (petitioner) is a natural-born Filipino citizen.”
“This ruling of the majority will lead to absurd results, making a mockery of our national elections by allowing a presidential candidate with uncertain citizenship status to be potentially elected to the Office of the President, an office expressly reserved by the Constitution exclusively for natural-born Filipino citizens.”
Carpio explains: “This means that the majority of this Court wants to resolve the citizenship status of petitioner after the elections, and only if petitioner wins the elections, despite petitioner having already presented before the Comelec all the evidence she wanted to present to prove her citizenship status. This will make a mockery of our election process if petitioner wins the elections but is later disqualified by this Court for not possessing a basic qualification for the Office of the President—that of being a natural-born Filipino citizen.”
“Those who voted for petitioner would have utterly wasted their votes. This is not how the natural-born citizenship qualification for elective office mandated by the Constitution should be applied by the highest court of the land,” Carpio argues.
“There is no dispute that petitioner is a Filipino citizen, as she publicly claims to be,” the justice concedes. “However, she has failed to prove that she is a natural-born Filipino citizen and a resident of the Philippines for at least ten years immediately preceding the May 9, 2016 elections. Petitioner is not eligible to run for President of the Republic of the Philippines for lack of the essential requirements of citizenship and residency under Section 2, Article VII of the 1987 Constitution. Petitioner’s certificate of candidacy (COC), wherein she stated that she is qualified for the position of President, contains false material representations, and thus, must be cancelled. Petitioner, not being a natural-born Filipino citizen, is also a nuisance candidate whose COC can motu proprio be cancelled by the COMELEC under Section 69 of the Omnibus Election Code.”
Carpio also disagreed with the majority opinion that the Comelec has no power to disqualify a candidate for president and no power to cancel the Certificate of Candidacy of such a candidate. That power, the majority ruled, belongs to the Supreme Court.
Retorts Carpio in his dissenting opinion:
“If one who is obviously not a natural-born Philippine citizen, like Arnold Schwarzenneger, runs for President, the Comelec is certainly not powerless to cancel the certificate of candidacy of such candidate. There is no need to wait until after the elections before such candidate may be disqualified.”
The justice cites Section 2(3), Article IX-C of the Constitution which he says also empowers the Comelec to “[D]ecide, except those involving the right to vote, all questions affecting elections x x x. “ The power to decide “all questions affecting elections” necessarily includes the power to decide whether a candidate possesses the qualifications required by law for election to public office.”
“This broad constitutional power and function vested in the Comelec is designed precisely to avoid any situation where a dispute affecting elections is left without any legal remedy,” Carpio points out.
Clearly, Carpio stresses, “pursuant to its constitutional mandate, the COMELEC can initially determine the qualifications of all candidates and disqualify those found lacking any of such qualifications before the conduct of the elections. In fact, the COMELEC is empowered to motu proprio cancel COCs of nuisance candidates.” He cites the Timbol v. COMELEC ruling of the SC itself.
Under Article II, Section 26 of the Constitution, “[t]he State shall guarantee equal access to opportunities for public service[.]” This, however, does not guarantee “a constitutional right to run for or hold public office[.]” Carpio says to run for public office is a mere “privilege subject to limitations imposed by law.”
Among these limitations is the prohibition on nuisance candidates.
Nuisance candidates are persons who file their Certificates of Candidacy “to put the election process in mockery or disrepute or to cause confusion among the voters by the similarity of the names of the registered candidates or by other circumstances or acts which clearly demonstrate that the candidate has no bona fide intention to run for the office for which the certificate of candidacy has been filed and thus prevent a faithful determination of the true will of the electorate.” x x x. Emphasis supplied by Carpio.
Question: Is Grace Poe a nuisance candidate?