Sole judge on presidential bets’ qualifications

A “recipe for disorder” was how Inquirer’s Dec. 5 editorial put it, referring to any further delay in the resolution of the questions surrounding Sen. Grace Poe’s participation in the 2016 presidential race. It noted the opinion of former Commission on Elections chair Sixto Brillantes who charged the current Comelec’s second division with grave abuse of authority for disqualifying Poe to run for president. It decried that, as Brillantes would have it, the “nation will have to endure a prolonged period of instability as the PET [Presidential Electoral Tribunal]—if indeed it has the sole power to decide such things—deliberates on whether a duly elected candidate should be deprived of the popular mandate.”

To clear the “mess and uncertainty,” let us check the prevailing law and jurisprudence. Article VII of the existing Constitution provides: “The Supreme Court sitting en banc shall be the SOLE JUDGE OF ALL CONTESTS relating to the election, returns and QUALIFICATIONS of the President or Vice President…” (underscoring supplied). And as stated in the 2005 case of Fernando Poe Jr. vs. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, all the justices of the Supreme Court sit as members of the PET in such cases.

What does “sole judge” mean? In plain English, it is the “exclusive” repository of the power to say, in this case, whether a president-elect is qualified or not to sit as president. In the 2010 case of Macalintal vs. PET, the Supreme Court said: (1) “Verba legis dictates that whenever possible, the words used in the Constitution must be given their ordinary meaning…” (2) The Comelec has the power to pass upon the qualifications of elective city, provincial or regional officials; the House of Representatives upon the qualifications of members of the House of Representatives; and the Senate Electoral Tribunal upon the qualifications of senators.

The Supreme Court’s jurisdiction as the PET can “only be invoked after the election and proclamation of the President or Vice President. . . ” for there can be “no contest before a winner is proclaimed” (Macalintal vs. PET). Thus, the current Comelec has evidently arrogated unto itself an authority that is vested only in the PET. There has been no election yet, much less any winner proclaimed!

Recall that those who were minded to file a disqualification case against former president Joseph “Erap” Estrada (who ran again for president in 2010 despite the constitutional prohibition against such reelection) had the good sense to wait for the result of the election. Any such case filed before then would have been premature—a colossal non-issue and even a more monumental waste of everyone’s time because, as it turned out, Erap lost to Noynoy Aquino.

—MARIUS V. CANONOY, canomarivil@gmail.com