(Part 2)
As stated in last Tuesday’s column, nine justices of the Supreme Court decided that the Commission on Elections committed a grave abuse of discretion when it disqualified Senator Grace Poe from the presidential elections set for May 2016.
The nine justices opined that Poe committed “honest mistakes” when she declared under oath or made it appear in her certificate of candidacy for president that she was born to Fernando Poe Jr. and his wife even if she knew she is a foundling, and also when she indicated in her 2013 CoC for senator that she had been a resident of the Philippines for six years and six months only, which means that by May 2016, she will be six months short of the ten-year residency requirement under the Constitution.
Unless Poe is manifestly incompetent at her age of 48, it is difficult to see how she is unable to know that being born of particular parents is different from being a foundling. For the same reasons, it is unthinkable how Poe was unable to figure out that nine years and six months do not sum up to 10 years. It’s either Poe was deliberately lying, or she should go back to school.
Declaring that Poe committed “honest mistakes” is one thing. Explaining the legal basis for that conclusion (which is required by the Constitution) is another. Aside from assumptions and conclusions, no legal basis has been advanced by the nine justices in support of the finding that the Comelec committed grave abuse of discretion. Therefore, the denial of the motions for reconsideration filed in the Supreme Court, without stating the legal basis for the denial, is not in accord with the Constitution.
The Presidential Electoral Tribunal angle is also disturbing.
Three justices said that the PET has the exclusive power to pass upon the qualifications of a presidential candidate, and only after his proclamation by Congress as the winning candidate.
That view deprives the Comelec of its powers and functions under the Constitution to resolve all questions affecting elections, which necessarily includes the qualifications of candidates for president, vice president, senators, and representatives, when such questions are raised prior to their proclamation as winning candidates. Jurisprudence states that the electoral tribunals enter the picture only after the candidate concerned is proclaimed a winner. Therefore, until and unless a proclamation of the winning candidate for president has been made by Congress, the Comelec, and not the electoral tribunals, has the power to decide questions concerning the qualifications of all candidates for president.
Why should the constitutional qualification of a candidate be decided only after he is proclaimed president, and not before such proclamation? Deciding upon the constitutional qualifications of a winning candidate only after proclamation constitutes disenfranchisement of the electorate.
Candidates for president must comply with the requirements provided in the Constitution for election thereto. Therefore, although it is the sovereign right of every voter to elect the presidential candidate of his choice, that right is premised on the assumption that only those candidates who comply with the constitutional requirements for the presidency may seek the people’s mandate on election day. Those who do not comply with the requirements of the Constitution have no right to participate in an election the rules of which are meticulously recited in the Constitution. This necessarily means that the Comelec has the power, if not the duty, under the Constitution, to weed out the misfits from the list of candidates the voters may choose from.
Under the Constitution, if the Comelec errs in its judgment, corrective relief from the Supreme Court may sought. That is the reason why CoCs for president must be filed months before election day so as to allow the Comelec sufficient time to pass upon the qualifications of candidates for the highest office in the land.
If the Comelec were deprived of the power to pass upon the qualifications of a candidate for president, and that power is left to the PET to exercise only after that candidate is proclaimed, voters will be disenfranchised.
For example, if Poe is proclaimed the winner in the presidential election and Poe’s qualifications are left to the PET to decide, and the PET eventually rules that Poe is disqualified, Poe will be unseated as president, and the winning candidate for vice president shall replace her. Poe’s voters end up disenfranchised.
On the other hand, if Poe had been disqualified prior to the elections, then her erstwhile voters can still choose whom to vote for among the remaining candidates for president. Nobody gets disenfranchised.
Even if he meets the constitutional requirements for election to the presidency, the second placer in the presidential race will end up holding the proverbial empty bag, and his supporters will be unduly deprived of their choice for president. In the end, the candidates who obey the Constitution will end up punished for their compliance with the fundamental law. The people, in turn, will end up with a vice president getting the presidency to which he was not elected in the first place. If the vice president does not belong to the political party of the unseated president, that will create serious problems.
There is also the political consideration to reckon with.
Once a presidential candidate is proclaimed the winner, his supporters will surely pressure the PET by insisting that the will of the people should be respected. The PET will be hard put to overcome that pressure. If the PET yields to the pressure, that is not sovereignty upheld. That is allowing mob rule to prevail over the Constitution.
Poe’s victory in the Supreme Court may be described in this wise—a largely inexperienced and lackluster senator who once renounced the Philippines for a comfortable life as an American, and whose husband and children are ineligible to vote for her, got away with a wholesale violation of the Constitution just to satisfy a selfish craving for the highest office in the land.
