Persons do not know how to handle power if they cannot readily give it up or still crave for it after having a considerable taste of it. They should not be entrusted with power any longer because they have already become addicted to it. Power should be withheld from them as they need rehabilitation just like rehabilitating drug addicts who should be weaned away from drugs in order to be cured of addiction.
In the coming May elections, the persons who fit this description especially after the COMELEC allowed them to further run for public office are incumbent President Gloria Arroyo and her predecessor, deposed President Joseph Estrada.
Arroyo would still like to continue in power as Congresswoman of the second district of Pampanga after holding the most powerful position in the land and serving as President for almost a decade. Erap on the other hand would like to be elected President again after being deposed and subsequently convicted but pardoned for the crime of plunder.
The Arroyo case may not really be on all fours with Estrada’s case and the COMELEC ruling allowing her to run for Congresswoman actually stands on more solid legal grounds. She is not running for re-election because she knows very well that the Constitution expressly prohibits her from doing so; and her expert advisers can no longer find any loophole or “gray area” for her to make another test case out of it. But her unprecedented and condescending move of running for a much lower position after occupying the highest post does not also look so good, upright and sincere in the eyes of many. It has only elicited a lot of well founded suspicions that she is out to retain the same kind of power by using her allies in Congress to change the form of government and make her Prime Minister. Such a scenario seems farfetched but under the present dispensation, people have already learned to expect the unexpected.
On the other hand, the COMELEC ruling on the Erap case precariously stands on more shaky legal grounds. In his case, his legal experts have somehow managed to twist and turn the somewhat clear Constitutional provision on the issue of his eligibility for reelection as President, and convinced the COMELEC that said provision does not apply to him because “reelection means running for the same position as the one currently held and/or occupied”.
According to the COMELEC “reelection” is an “election that immediately follows a preceding election or an election of an incumbent to the same office to which he was elected in the immediately preceding election”. In junking the petitions for Estrada’s disqualification, the COMELEC practically did a Pontius Pilate by letting the people decide on whether Estrada would sit again as President instead of ruling on his eligibility to run again for President.
The COMELEC gave a very narrow interpretation of the Constitutional provision. It altogether ignored the word “any” used in qualifying the word “reelection”. If the COMELEC considered that word then it would easily and clearly see that “reelection” here is more encompassing as to include not only the election of the incumbent President to the same position but also the election to the Presidency of anybody who has already been previously elected as President, whether an incumbent or not. In other words, what the Constitution prohibits is election to the presidency more than once; so a person who has already been elected as President cannot run again for President whether he finishes his term or not. This is the plain meaning of the phrase “any reelection”.
Indeed, the record of the framers’ deliberations in formulating Section 4 Article VII shows that they considered the salutary provisions of the 1935 and the 1973 Constitution regarding the Presidential term, then retained the six-year term in the 1973 Constitution but eliminated the unlimited number of reelection therein allowed by banning any reelection. In doing so, the framers also disallowed the two consecutive terms in the 1935 Constitution but compensated it by increasing the four year term fixed therein, to six years.
Thus it is clear that the intent of Section 4 Article VII is to limit (1) the number of times a person can be elected as President and (2) the maximum period a person can serve as President by succession and by direct vote of the people. As to the number of times, a person can be elected only once whether he finishes his term or not. As to the maximum period of service as President — a person who succeeds as President can only serve for four years while a person elected as President can only serve for six years.
Specifically, the pertinent provision of Section 4 says that “The President shall not be eligible for reelection. No person who has succeeded as President and has served as such for more than four years shall be qualified for election to the same office at any time”.
In determining the intent of this law, its entire text must be considered, reconciled and given consistency and same effect. Hence the phrase “any reelection” used in the first sentence should be given the same meaning as the phrase “election to the same office at any time” found in the succeeding sentence. Following this interpretation, it is quite clear that the law intends to bar both an elected President and one who merely succeeded to the post but has served for more than four years, from running for the same office at any time. It is not the intent of the law that a person who has already been elected President can run again for the same position at another time while a person who has not been elected but only succeeded as President and served for less than four years. cannot anymore seek the same position at any other time.
The Supreme Court (SC) should therefore resolve this issue with dispatch by upholding the intent of the law that has been disregarded by the COMELEC. If by any chance however the SC still upholds the COMELEC on this issue, then the Filipino people as final arbiter can still uphold the intent of the law by rejecting Estrada at the polls.
Indeed, not only Estrada but Arroyo had their opportunity to serve our country as President. Their dismal performance while in office has in fact brought us into this situation where the clamor for change has become so urgent especially because of massive and uncontrolled graft and corruption in government. They should heed this clamor by withdrawing from the race already. If they still don’t, then the electorate should not vote for them and their ilk anymore.
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