THIS being the last Sunday of the year, and still within the Yuletide, I will be less combative and, in the spirit of the season, I shall try to be more filled with joy that the newborn Babe was brought into this troubled world.
I shall begin with the justices of the Supreme Court who supported agile views, and those who opposed them, in the leading case of Eleazar Quinto vs. Commission on Elections, G.R. No. 189696, promulgated Dec. 1, 2009.
My special sympathies go to Justice Eduardo Antonio Nachura, who was my companion in teaching Constitutional Law in San Beda College and impressed upon our students that ?the highest function of authority is to uphold liberty.? He expressed lessons of freedom and democracy that revealed his stature as a freeman and showed his acumen in the Quinto case.
My inclination is in favor of the dissenter, but you know me as someone who is always for the underdog.
There are justices who are not often wrong not only in their opinions but also in their independence of judgment as manifested in the previous case. They are Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno, and Justices Antonio S. Carpio, and Conchita Carpio-Morales. They are scholars of the first caliber who would honor any tribunal in the world for their loyalty to the rule of law.
I hope that when the Supreme Court sits down to discover a common ground for action it will be their loyalty to the Constitution. It is on the Court that God has reposed the glory of being the savior of the nation, who can win for us the greatest good for the greatest number.
The appointive officials, expecting the officials on the side of Malacańang to deny the motion for reconsideration, filed their certificates of candidacy without heed to the prevailing rule before their decision. They disregarded the rule that their decision was as lifeless as a bill that had not yet been approved.
They forgot that the rule that was controlling was not yet Quimpo vs. Commission on Elections. It was still Sec. 67 of the old election laws that called for the automatic resignation of elective and appointive officials upon the filing of their certificates of candidacy.
The words in the controlling opinion of the decision do not have any sacerdotal or permanent condition as to give them the permanence of the Ten Commandments. Unless the decision itself has become final and executory because the adverse party has not taken steps to correct it, it will become binding on him as part of the law of the land.
In the current case, the decision rendered by the majority members is not yet binding because it is still subject to a motion for reconsideration. The Court may reverse its ruling. Members who had supported the original majority decision may change their original persuasion and join the dissenting justices, making them the controlling justices.
A case in point is Secretary of Justice vs. Lantion, where the private party demanded information regarding the criminal cases for which he was sought to be extradited. The demand was granted by an 8-4 vote, but was later denied also by an 8-4 vote on the ground that the matter was still under study by the secretary of justice.
?To be sure, private respondent?s plea for due process deserves serious consideration involving as it does his primordial right to liberty. His plea to due process, however, collides with important state interests which cannot also be ignored for they serve the interest of the greater majority. The clash of rights demands a delicate balancing of approach which is a ?fundamental postulate of constitutional law.? The approach requires that we take conscious and detailed consideration of the interplay of interests observable in a given situation or type of situation. These interests usually consist in the exercise by an individual of his basic freedoms on the one hand, and the government?s promotion of fundamental public interest or policy objectives on the other.?
Similar action may be taken in the Quinto case.
