Marcos Jr.’s disqualification ‘antidemocratic’?

In his commentary titled “Antidemocratic move” (11/16/21), San Beda University’s Department of Political Science chair Gian Paolo Ines made the argument that the disqualification complaint filed against Bongbong Marcos is antidemocratic. “After all, the Filipino people, as the true sovereign, should be given the right to choose their leaders through the ballot box,” he stressed. “That choice should not be limited or taken away from them through any form of legal maneuver.”

We submit that Professor Ines got it all wrong. His opinion is too simplistic to merit the scantiest consideration. If we were to follow his way of thinking to its logical end, an argument could be made that President Duterte should have been allowed to run again for president and we should have also left it to the sovereign people “in whom (ultimately) sovereignty resides” to decide whether or not he deserves a second term.

That Mr. Duterte’s “reelection” is prohibited by the Constitution itself, while Bongbong’s bid is hobbled only by a mere legislative enactment that categorically disqualifies him from holding any public office due to his final conviction as a tax evader, is really of no moment. The law, whether enshrined in the Constitution or passed in Congress by representatives of the people, is the law and is enforceable equally.

And it should not matter that his disqualification is raised only now. Any lawyer will inform Ines that there is no prescriptive period for the filing of such a petition. That Bongbong has gotten away with his mockery of the law for so long (having been elected to and had held various public offices despite that threat of disqualification) is no argument to make a wrong right. The law is not rendered useless by the lack of enforcement. There is always a day of reckoning.

George del Mar, [email protected]