How to legally disqualify Duterte, Poe

SINGAPORE—Davao Mayor Rodrigo Duterte and Sen. Grace Poe may be disqualified from the presidential race by lawyers. Frustrated Filipinos defer to arbitrarily declared legal experts, whose pronouncements become headlines no matter how outlandish.

Even media hesitate. A newspaper stated that Duterte’s partymate, Martin Diño, “reportedly filed a COC for mayor of Pasay City, not for president,” but is afraid to read Diño’s one-page certificate of candidacy (COC), shared all over social media.

Duterte filed his candidacy beyond the deadline, using the substitution rule. An Inquirer editorial (“Mocking election laws,” Opinion, 11/26/15) criticized Duterte for abusing the rule, which protects political parties from a candidate’s death or incapacity.

Inexplicably, Diño filled out a COC “for mayor.” He typed “Pasay” in the blank for city. Although the COC was captioned “president,” lawyers read a document’s body, not the caption.

PDP-Laban argues that Diño’s intent was clear. He filed the COC at the Commission on Elections, not Pasay City Hall. Comelec notified Diño that he may be disqualified as a nuisance candidate unable to conduct a presidential campaign.

Procedural nuances aside, in case of doubt, election law must err on the side of giving voters greater choice.

Poe faced four issues (her COC, residency, citizenship at birth, and citizenship upon return from the United States) in three tribunals (Senate Electoral Tribunal or SET, and in the Comelec’s first and second divisions [C1D and C2D]).

C2D rejected her 2016 COC because it states a longer residency than her 2012 COC for senator. C2D presumed, without need for further evidence, that the latter is truthful because she would not state the shorter residency against her interest were it not true.

Poe claims she made an honest mistake in her 2012 COC. She stated her residency as of the COC’s date, not the election date, and the question in the COC form has been reworded.

C1D rejected Poe’s claim that she was a Philippine resident since 2005. C1D argued she made frequent US trips after 2005, even though her children were studying in Philippine schools and she had sold her US home.

C2D invoked an alleged rule—Commissioner Luie Guia in C1D disagrees there is such a rule—in the 2002 Coquilla Supreme Court decision that a former Filipino cannot be resident until he reacquires citizenship or holds an alien certificate of registration.

This contradicts how citizenship and residency are two independent concepts. It is unnatural and no balikbayan prioritizes legal papers upon returning home.

Coquilla was a unanimous Supreme Court decision penned by retired Justice Vicente V. Mendoza, the legendary strict interpreter of law, whose mantle has passed to Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio. However, Coquilla mainly discussed how the facts were so unusual that the justices found no concrete evidence of Coquilla’s residence until he reacquired citizenship.

Then 61, a naturalized US citizen and retired from the US Navy, Teodulo Coquilla returned to his Eastern Samar hometown and announced he would run for mayor. He traveled back and forth to California before he reacquired his citizenship months before the election.

The Coquilla decision’s background discussion said an ACR (reacquisition of citizenship) would be definitive proof of residency. It never said this is the only proof, and cited no legal footnote that would support such a rule.

I checked Coquilla’s history when I discussed it in a past column. Coquilla has been cited only once, in passing, in the 2008 Velasco decision for a possible rule that one may not be resident unless a citizen. Five of the nine other decisions (Gayo, Ugdoracion, Mitra, Mitra, Arnado) citing Coquilla point to it for the general rule that there is no rule, and one proves residence through any kind of evidence of intent to permanently return. Peter Michael Dizon of the Quasha law firm, in a little-read blog post, was the sole anti-Poe writer who focused on it before the Comelec decisions.

Before we curtail balikbayan rights, media should challenge Philippine Law Journal student editors to itemize each case on balikbayan candidates. It should take a competent student an hour. I did this and could not find a single case pronouncing the alleged Coquilla rule.

The Comelec rulings that Poe is not a natural-born citizen follow the SET justices’ dissents (summarized in “Trust Sotto over Carpio in SET ruling?” Opinion, 11/30/15). There is arguably no existing Philippine rule, as the justices argued. We must give weight to the right to nationality by granting it to foundlings at birth, and respect SET members Bam Aquino and Pia Cayetano for arguing this against extreme political interest.

Sole Comelec dissenter Christian Lim argued that the Comelec cannot rule on Poe’s citizenship merely for procedural reasons, though he accepts her evidence on residency.

Finally, Justice Arturo Brion in the SET and the C1D argue that our 2003 dual citizenship law violates the Constitution by recognizing former Filipinos as natural-born if they reacquire citizenship. However, the Constitution explicitly contemplates a law on reacquiring citizenship. The law is uniquely worded as recognizing former Filipinos as never having lost citizenship. Thus, it recognizes, not grants, citizenship.

Brion concedes that the Supreme Court already upheld this concept, favoring dual citizens. C1D claims this only benefits Filipinos who served in foreign armed forces.

Law is worthless if it fails to resonate with the citizens it binds. Voters must realize that candidates may only be disqualified if we accept very strict interpretations in legal issues simpler than they seem. We have all the right to believe that choice, not narrow reading, is best for democracy.

* * *

React: oscarfranklin.tan@yahoo.com.ph, Twitter @oscarfbtan, facebook.com/OscarFranklinTan.