The big to-do that greeted former President Joseph Estrada?s declaration of his ?Take 2? run for the presidency means only one thing: his rivals realize he has a big chance of winning, what with his almost hypnotic hold on the masa. The moment Erap files his certificate of candidacy, they said, he would be inundated by suits challenging his qualification to run again for president.

But paradoxically, the administration announced that it would not file a case against the ousted president. Neither would his known rivals for Malacañang?according to them. So who would file the disqualification cases? Publicity seekers, perhaps? Those who regularly file suits in high-profile cases that the news media cover?

The legal opinion on whether or not Erap can still run for president, based on constitutional and legal grounds, is evenly divided. You have, no doubt, read some of these discussions here in the Philippine Daily Inquirer and elsewhere, the latest of which was only on Sunday in the column of former Chief Justice Artemio V. Panganiban. Another was that of former Constitutional Commission member Fr. Joaquin Bernas sometime ago who dwelt on what went on at the Con-Com when that provision on the president?s reelection was debated and drafted. Father Bernas? conclusion was that the intent of the framers of the Constitution was to ban any reelection of any president. Chief Justice Panganiban, on the other hand, posed this question:

?Should Erap be overwhelmingly elected (it is expected that the elections would be over by the time the Supreme Court decides on any case questioning Erap?s qualification to run), will the present Court dare reject him and disregard the sovereign will of the people?? Good question.

A long discussion on the same subject by Margaux Marie V. Salcedo in the June 2008 issue of the Ateneo Law Journal asks the same question. It also makes short shrift of the contention of Father Bernas that the framers of the Constitution wanted an ?absolute? ban on all former presidents. Salcedo said that the Con-Com records show confusion. Two rounds of voting, one in the morning and the other in the afternoon, show opposite results on the issue of an ?absolute? ban (on all former presidents) versus a ?limited? ban (only on the incumbent).

Put to a vote, the sentiment of the entire body was not in favor of an ?absolute? ban, preferring a ban only on an immediate re-election. In the afternoon, however, Commissioner Ambrosio Padilla insisted on eliminating the word ?immediate? in order to impose an absolute ban on re-election. In the voting, the Padilla motion won by only one vote.

However, the most important component of the Constitution, the people themselves, did not contemplate an ?absolute? ban on presidential re-election.

Commissioner Florenz Regalado told the body that the question was never brought to the people in the public hearings held before the plebiscite.

?Opinions in a constitutional convention,? the Supreme Court has declared again and again, ?are of very limited value in explaining doubtful phrases, and are an unsafe guide (to the intent of the people) since the Constitution derives its force as a fundamental law, not from the action of the convention but from the powers (of the people) who ratified and adopted it. The proper interpretation of a Constitution depends more on how it was understood by the people adopting it than the framers? understanding thereof.? This is because:

?The Constitution does not derive its force from the convention which framed, but from the people who ratified it, the intent to be arrived at is that of the people, and it is not to be supposed that they have looked for any dark or abstruse meaning in the words employed, but rather that they have accepted them in the sense most obvious to the common understanding, and ratified the instrument in the belief that that was the sense designed to be conveyed.?

Therefore, we go back to the question posed by Chief Justice Panganiban: If after a campaign in which Erap?s qualification or non-qualification will surely be debated to death, and the people still voted for him, will the present Court dare reject him and disregard the sovereign will of the people? Vox populi, vox Dei. The voice of the people is the voice of God.

In legal lingo, this means that if a candidate has committed a wrong but the people still voted for him, this means that the sovereign people have forgiven him for whatever transgression he has committed and want him to be their elected official. This supersedes any law or legal interpretation.

In Erap?s particular case, this means that whatever they say about his non-qualification, the sovereign people have chosen to overlook that and still want him to be their president.

?With respect as to whether or not a perpetual disqualification from the office of the presidency was contemplated, it appears that the people may not necessarily have been of this sentiment,? wrote Salcedo. Quoting the tribunal, she said, ??as a Constitution is not to be interpreted on narrow or technical principles, but literally and on broad general lines, to accomplish the object of its establishment and carry out the great principles of government?not to defeat them,? it may be necessary to interpret the Constitution in such a way as to throw the choice back to the people, as to whether or not they would want a President to serve them again.?

The high court emphasized in Lambino v. Comelec: ?The first principle enthroned by blood in our Constitution is the sovereignty of the people ? This right of the people to make decisions is the essence of sovereignty? If there is any principle in the Constitution that cannot be diluted and is non-negotiable, it is this sovereign will of the people to decide.?

In short, plain words: ?Let the people decide.?