‘Let the people decide’ is a lofty statement that purports to embody the essence of democracy.
This appears to be the sentiment of the people themselves given the current circumstances of survey frontrunner, presidential candidate Senator Grace Poe.
In the latest The Standard Poll conducted by this newspaper’s resident pollster, Junie Laylo, 60 percent of respondents said Poe should still be allowed to run despite the pending cases against her before the Supreme Court.
She had elevated her cases to the high court, appealing decisions of the Commission on Elections disqualifying her because she was not a natural-born citizen and because she lacked the 10-year residency required of presidential candidates.
In fact, the Comelec said Poe had made material misrepresentations in her Certificate of Candidacy. This tells us so much more than “she is not qualified to run for the highest post in the land.”
Despite the pendency of the cases and the consequent doubts these cast on the senator’s political future, Poe maintains a strong lead in the surveys. And, as the numbers tell us, the people still want her to run—until she is expressly told she cannot.
The overused phrase is dangerous and superfluous at the same time.
Letting the people decide may be interpreted as mob rule, doing away with the need for established institutions like the Comelec, the Supreme Court and the Constitution itself. If we go by this logic of letting the people decide, then why else was the Comelec empowered to distinguish between legitimate and nuisance candidates in the first place? Why does the Supreme Court spend precious time and resources hearing oral arguments? Why does the Constitution identify requirements in the first place? Anybody who is interested should just have been allowed to run.
The truth is, the people have decided already, when they ratified the Constitution that defined not only the qualifications of presidential aspirants but also the mandate of the Comelec and the Supreme Court.
Senator Poe may or may not be declared eligible to run for the presidency. Whatever the decision, we hope it is arrived at through a fair and faithful appreciation of the law—not emotional appeal, and certainly not politics.
And then the people can really decide, not whether a candidate is qualified, but whether he or she would be the kind of leader they need.