Constitution’s framers bungled their job

The news item “1987 Constitution framer willing to file complaint vs Duterte’s VP run” (7/8/21) was quite a head-scratcher. Lawyer Christian Monsod, one of the framers of the current Constitution, just showed us how they really bungled the job entrusted to them by the people. He is now sounding the alarm that President Duterte may be making a mockery of the constitutional prohibition against his “reelection” to the presidency via the “backdoor.”

If the framers’ intent was really to limit any president’s term to only six years, as Monsod now says, why could they not have that limit written in plain and simple English? At least two former presidents have already monkeyed around with that provision. Joseph “Erap” Estrada ran again for president about 10 years after his incumbency ended. Gloria M. Arroyo ran right away for Congress and put herself third in the line of succession to the presidency by once bagging the speakership.

Estrada’s lawyers had made the good argument that the prohibition applied only to a sitting president seeking immediate “reelection.” No one dared to get him disqualified under the explicit terms of the Constitution. He almost won, had Noynoy Aquino not entered the race in the wake of his iconic mother’s death which galvanized the nation to long again for the “Cory magic.”

While Arroyo did not try the “backdoor,” she made herself available just in case the president, the vice president, and the Senate president suddenly disappeared or got abducted by aliens! Her run for a congressional seat after her presidency ended raised no eyebrows. It was seen by everyone as perfectly legit.

Now comes the classic and shameless case of a “backdoor” shenanigan. Monsod and everyone else with even just half a brain can see what President Duterte is really up to. His preferred choice to be his running mate for president is Sen. Bong Go (“Duterte now somewhat ‘sold on idea’ of VP run,” 7/8/21), the only one he trusts and “can work with”—who, as everyone knows, will gladly resign as “president” and return to being his errand boy.

Can Monsod stop Mr. Duterte? As the saying goes, it’s a snowball’s chance in hell. There is only one candidate who can make Mr. Duterte irrelevant as far as mass appeal to a vast number of voters among us is concerned. If we survived almost six years of Mr. Duterte’s “Kill, kill, kill” style of governance, we surely can live with nothing but this candidate’s “good intentions,” one who is at least brave enough to “slug it out” with a bully. Yes, he can. Sen. Manny Pacquiao is the man.

ARNULFO M. EDRALIN
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