It's not the motives
There are now at least three disqualification cases filed against Senator Grace Poe, all of them seeking to bar her presidential bid in 2016 on grounds of constitutional infirmity. In all of the three cases, there is a mighty effort on her part and on the part of her supporters to discredit them for being supposedly politically motivated.
That, of course, still needs to be proven. But even granting, for the sake of argument, that all the three cases are politically motivated, does it follow that the cases are henceforth invalid? The Constitution is very clear in cases like Poe's -- only a natural born citizen can become president, and she is certainly not a natural born citizen.
Poe is a foundling. As such, she could not be a natural born citizen because her parents are unknown. Poe and her camp initially tried to court the emotions and sympathy of people by trying to make it appear that she is being belittled and demeaned on account of her being a foundling. That is not so. Never in her life was Poe subjected to any form of ridicule, harassment, limitation or constraint because she was a foundling.
The cases against her are not because she is a foundling but because as a foundling there is no way of determining who her real parents were. Consequently, because her biological parents are unknown, she could not be considered a natural born citizen. Nobody is depriving Poe of her citizenship. It is only being qualified. And until she can produce proof of who her biological parents are, she will remain forever not a natural born citizen.
Of course the issue has divided the nation, more so because Poe has gained some popularity in the polls. Those who have been drawn to her side will naturally tend to defend her to the limits that they are able. In fact, a former chief justice and a noted election lawyer have both argued in favor of Poe. But since the camp of Poe itself has brought up the matter of motives, maybe they too have their own, this being the season of politics.
But let it be said that just because one is a former chief justice and another is a noted election lawyer doesn't mean that they are always legal correct, that their opinions are unassailable and beyond reproach. Indeed, in the Poe case, wherein both said the matter should not be left to judges to decide but should be settled by the people directly, I think both legal luminaries overlooked one important detail.
The provision requiring one to be a natural born citizen when seeking the presidency has included in the Constitution for a very important reason. It cannot be left to the vagaries of time nor to the shifting moods of the public. As a former chief justice and a noted legal lawyer, it is incredible for both legal eagles to be willing to be bound to a patently infirm legal opinion just to give vent to what political motives may be driving them.
I am aghast that both of them would even think of throwing to the people what is very expressly provided in the Constitution. If the natural born citizen provision was intended to be treated frivolously, why was it included in the Constitution in the first place? In fact, why would anyone even care if a candidate is a natural born citizen or not if the matter is all up to the voters.
In almost any form anyone has to fill out for whatever purpose, there is always a small box to fill that asks whether one is a Filipino or not. In other words, citizenship must be a very important detail about a person that could not just be relegated to public approval. If that were so, then we might as well stop including that box for citizenship that we must fill out in every legal form, because they are useless in the eyes of the ex-chief justice and the election lawyer.
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