Disgraceful decision
So the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has gone ahead and done it. Against the law, against logic, against all notions of fairness, reason and plain good sense, it has accepted Ronald Cardema et al.’s petition for last-minute substitution as nominees of the party list group Duterte Youth.
The ruling effectively puts Cardema a step closer to becoming a party list representative — an “incoming congressman,” indeed, as he so presumptuously announced on his Facebook page way before any official word from the poll body.
It is a disgraceful decision. What, for starters, is so difficult to understand about the wording of the law that says a youth sector nominee “must at least be 25 but not more than 30 years of age on the day of the election”?
Cardema is 34 years old. His three substitute co-nominees are all above 30 as well. As Comelec Commissioner Rowena Guanzon noted in her dissent from the majority decision: “By their own admission and declaration, they are more than 30 years of age on Election Day… Their ineligibilities are beyond dispute.”
The Comelec’s resolution granting Cardema’s petition appears now to have been a foregone conclusion, from the way Comelec Chair Sheriff Abas had earlier tried to dodge the question of Cardema’s eligibility with a mealymouthed explanation.
“Hindi namin na-discuss ’yun (We failed to discuss that),” he said in May, when the poll body first announced it was granting due course to Cardema’s petition because the former National Youth Commission (NYC) chair supposedly did manage to submit his substitution papers on time.
But why on earth wasn’t it discussed? Abas could only shrug his shoulders: Whether Cardema was eligible or not given the legal age limit, he said, was a matter that should be resolved by the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal.
Set aside for now the flagrant irregularity that Cardema did not resign his NYC post during the election even as he was also the head of Duterte Youth. Or the fact that he filed his petition on May 12, a Sunday, around 5:30 p.m., in violation of previous Comelec resolutions invalidating petitions filed on nonworking days and beyond office hours. Mind only that he is, beyond dispute, ineligible under the law for the post he lusts after.
But five of the seven Comelec commissioners (commissioner Luie Tito Guia abstained) still decided to accept his plea for substitution — because, said the poll body in its Resolution No. 10529, the corresponding withdrawal documents filed by the Duterte Youth’s original five nominees (in what was obviously a preordained attempt to give way to Cardema) were “in compliance” with party list laws.
That’s an exceedingly narrow, blinkered ground to walk on. Consider what those Duterte Youth ex-nominees submitted as reasons for their mass withdrawal — and note how seemingly laughably easy the Comelec commissioners could be made to believe such fakery: Per an ABS-CBN report, “Cardema’s wife withdrew because she could ‘no longer fulfill the expectations set forth by the party,’ the same Comelec resolution showed. The party list’s second nominee Joseph De Guzman said he wanted to support the group’s cause ‘away from public opinion,’ while third nominee Benilda De Guzman withdrew her candidacy to pursue her ‘passion for teaching.’ Other original nominees Arnaldo Villafranca and Elizabeth Anne Cardema said they backed out as nominees to enjoy ‘privacy’ and ‘fulfill’ their obligations with their respective families.”
But those weren’t the reasons Cardema cited when he earlier justified his group’s bid for nominee substitution. What he said in May was entirely different, if no less nonsensical: The Duterte Youth nominees allegedly suddenly got cold feet at the idea of debating with leftist representatives (“Sinasabi lang sa akin ng ating wife, ‘nakakatakot naman ‘yan, lalabanan natin ‘yung mga leftists…” — My wife told me, it’s so scary to face off with the leftists), and so, Cardema declared, “I’d be in the best position to debate in Congress.”
What a crock of bull. And that goes as much for the Comelec’s latest decision, for which it should hang its head in shame. If the poll body thinks the direction it’s taking in this case somehow reflects well on it in some way, that it could be seen as an indication of basic fairness and integrity on its part and not, in fact, manifest partiality for an administration minion, it is gravely mistaken. And if the members of the Duterte Youth, whoever they are, think someone like Cardema is the best person to represent them in the national discourse, how low they must think of themselves.
