In more than 66,200 words and 200 pages (as a journalist who used to be paid by the word, both in pesos and in dollars, I know the value of verbiage), the reply to Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio’s dissenting opinion on the Grace Poe vs. Comelec case was actually made by Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno who penned a concurring opinion to the entire court’s 9-6 decision on March 8. The ruling allowed the senator to run in the May 2016 presidential elections while glossing over questions on whether she is a natural-born Filipino and that she has lived in the Philippines for at least 10 years prior to this year’s election.
Carpio does not believe Poe meets both minimum qualifications for president—a natural-born Filipino and a resident of this country in the last ten years. He also contends there is no majority SC decision from among the court’s 15 jurists, as to Poe’s being natural born. His math shows seven in favor, five against, and three having no opinion.
Sereno’s math reckons 13 justices who voted on the issue and seven is majority of 13, and majority, in law, and in plain arithmetic, is one half plus one. Half of 13 is 6.5, you add one and you get 13.5. Since human bodies cannot be physically divided without being dead, seven is, to use Sereno’s language “a clear majority.”
The chief cites the Court’s internal rule which says “All decisions and actions in Court en banc cases shall be made up upon the concurrence of the majority of the Members of the Court who actually took part in the deliberation on the issues or issues involved and voted on them.”
Now, did the three justices who had no opinion, take part in the deliberations? If you say they did, it will confuse your math.
Using my Rule No. 1 that the “Boss is Always Right” and my Rule No. 2 that says “When the Boss is Wrong, Refer to Rule No. 1,” I clearly say Chief Sereno is right.
It is basic in business, in management and in any major organization, that you cannot undercut the boss. Otherwise, you are ousted, or else, put up your own organization. Note that the Supreme Court is not just a major organization. It thinks of itself, often, as a separate republic of the Philippines. What the Supreme Court says is the law of the land, even if it is wrong, which unfortunately, is sometimes, often.
So why did the Supreme Court favor Poe and allow her to run for president?
We are indifferent, Sereno says in effect. She pontificates:
“It is important for every member of this Court to be and to remain professionally indifferent to the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. Whether it turns out to be for a candidate who best represents one’s personal aspirations for the country or who raises one’s fears, is a future event we must be blind to while we sit as magistrates. We are not the electorate, and at this particular juncture of history, our only role is to adjudicate as our unfettered conscience dictates. We have no master but the law, no drumbeater but reason, and in our hearts must lie only the love for truth and for justice. This is what the Constitution requires of us.”
She then cites a precedent—“the principles that Justice Angelina Sandoval-Gutierrez evoked in her concurring opinion in Tecson v. COMELEC, the landmark case involving as respondent a presidential candidate for 2014, the late Ronald Allan Kelly-Poe:
“Let it not be forgotten that the historic core of our democratic system is political liberty, which is the right and opportunity to choose those who will lead the governed with their consent. This right to choose cannot be subtly interfered with through the elimination of the electoral choice. The present bid to disqualify respondent Poe from the presidential race is a clear attempt to eliminate him as one of the choices. This Court should resist such attempt. The right to choose is the single factor that controls the ambitions of those who would impose through force or stealth their will on the majority of citizens. We should not only welcome electoral competition, we should cherish it. Disqualifying a candidate, particularly the popular one, on the basis of doubtful claims does not result to a genuine, free and fair election. It results to violence. x x x. We have seen Edsa I and Edsa II, thus, we know that when democracy operates as intended, an aroused public can replace those who govern in a manner beyond the parameters established by public consent.”
In effect, the highest court of the land is saying that in this year’s presidential election, the more the merrier, especially given the choices—who are described by critics as, and not necessarily in order of quality or popularity—an alien, a thief, a killer, an incompetent lackey, and one not necessarily in the pink of health who declares God refuses to let her die.
Thus, asserts my chief, Sereno:
“When the people vote on May 10 (wrong date–asl) and cast their ballots for President, they will be exercising a sovereign right. They may vote for respondent Poe, or they may not. When they vote, they will consider a myriad of issues, some relevant, others trivial, including the eligibility of the candidates, their qualities of leadership, their honesty and sincerity, perhaps including their legitimacy. That is their prerogative. After the election, and only after, and that is what the Constitution mandates, the election of whoever is proclaimed winner may be challenged in an election contest or a petition for quo warranto. Where the challenge is because of ineligibility, he will be ousted only if this Court exerts utmost effort to resolve the issue in a manner that would give effect to the will of the majority, for it is merely sound public policy to cause elective offices to be filled by those who are the choice of the majority.”
It still boils down to plain arithmetic. Majority. The will of the majority. Or something less than that—a plurality. A clear plurality. With five candidates for president, the 2016 winner is not expected to score a clear majority on election day. Not even the Supreme Court can make that as clear as day.
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