MANILA, Philippines -- Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said it would be “foolish” of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to run for Congress next year because it would mean she has to give up her presidency.

“I am not very sure of the Constitution, but I think she has to be automatically resigned as president,” Enrile said in an interview over dzBB.

“It will be most foolish of her to do that because people might say, ‘you are deemed resigned,’’’ he said.

But Enrile said if President Arroyo were to run as “Emperor,” which is a higher position, then that would be “a different matter.”

Enrile, however, repeatedly said he did not think President Arroyo would run for a congressional seat in her home province of Pampanga.

The President, he said, probably just did not want to disclose her plans after she steps down in 2010. If she says she doesn’t want to be in politics anymore, she will be “a lame duck,” Enrile said.

Enrile criticized former president Fidel Ramos’ suggestion for Ms Arroyo to reveal her 2010 political plans. What Ramos did was “beyond his prerogative,” he said.

“You don’t lecture a sitting President, no matter who you are,” Enrile said.

The President’s election lawyer, Romulo Macalintal, disagreed with Enrile’s take on the Constitution.

In a statement e-mailed to the Philippine Daily Inquirer yesterday, he said the President didn't need to resign, neither was she deemed resigned, if she would file her candidacy for another elective post, presumably for a congressional seat in Pampanga, in the 2010 polls.

Macalintal, who represented Ms Arroyo during the 2004 presidential elections, said that both the Supreme Court and the Omnibus Election Code recognized that an elective official’s certificate of candidacy didn’t mean his or her resignation.

“[It] used to be that, under Section 67 of the Omnibus Election Code, an elected official is automatically resigned once he files a Certificate of Candidacy for a position different from the one he is holding in an incumbent capacity,” Macalintal said.

“However, this section was expressly repealed by Section 14 of Republic Act 9006…. [As] a consequence thereof, we saw the phenomena of senators running for mayor or president who still retain their senatorial positions even if they lose in the mayoral or presidential election,” he added.

Macalintal said that only appointive officials were deemed resigned from their positions once they filed their certificates of candidacy.

Opposition lawmakers have warned that the President’s silence on her post-2010 political plans bolstered fears she was contemplating staying in power much longer.

Bayan Muna Representative Satur Ocampo said Ms Arroyo’s silence fueled suspicion of a “devious plot to stay in power beyond 2010.”

It implied that the President had something up her sleeve that was “extraordinary” from what the Constitution planned for outgoing presidents, added Rep. Teddy Casino, also of Bayan Muna.