Petitioners committing same mistake

This is regarding the petition for certiorari filed in the Supreme Court to have the ruling of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) en banc dismissing all the disqualification cases against Ferdinand Marcos Jr. reversed.

Sad to say, the petitioners are committing the same mistake they did before the Comelec: Opening the door wide open to the issue of whether or not Marcos Jr. made a false statement in his certificate of candidacy that he was never convicted of any crime “involving moral turpitude,” which under the Omnibus Election Code would have warranted the cancellation of that certificate and rendered his election to the presidency at naught.

Considering how the Comelec mainly zeroed in on that issue in light of a Supreme Court ruling that “failure to file income tax returns”—the crime Marcos Jr. was convicted of—did not involve “moral turpitude,” the petitioners should have given that mumbo jumbo a rest. We see no reason to expect the Supreme Court wanting to get its foot in its mouth on that. Their focus should have only been on Marcos Jr.’s final conviction under the Tax Code of 1977, which ordained “perpetual disqualification from holding public office” as a result thereof, PERIOD! That martial law decree (Presidential Decree No. 1158) was dead-serious about tax collection and brooked no BS about “moral turpitude”!

Then we’ll see how the Supreme Court can weasel its way out of the plain language of that law.

DINO M. CAPISTRANO
[email protected]