A first case that confounds everyone

It’s baffling how government functionaries keep making decisions that insult our intelligence. Take the hullabaloo about the Commission on Elections’ ruling that Sen. Grace Poe made a deliberate “misrepresentation” about her “natural-born” citizenship. Were it merely an “honest mistake,” the Comelec would most likely have let it slide and granted her the benefit of the doubt for, indeed, it was a difficult legal question.

We have read so many divergent opinions on the matter. A former Supreme Court chief justice no less (now Inquirer columnist Artemio Panganiban) has expressed the view that Poe, a foundling found in the Philippines, is deemed a “natural-born Filipino at birth.” Three incumbent Supreme Court justices sitting in the Senate Electoral Tribunal have opined that she could only be deemed a “naturalized” Filipino and thus disqualified from running for president. The other five members of the SET thought otherwise and ruled that she was “natural-born” at birth and is qualified for president.

Deans of law schools and law practitioners themselves cannot agree. Opinion-makers in various media outlets are hopelessly at loggerheads. The thing is, it’s a case of first impression that confounds everyone. Until the Supreme Court en banc settles that conundrum with finality, everyone’s opinion is as good as the other’s. So why, for Pete’s sake, would the Comelec label Poe’s assertion as a “natural-born” Filipino a deliberate lie and punish her for it? Hello, anybody home?!

—GRACE PO-QUICHO,gpq_rstu@yahoo.com.sg