Half-baked

She can run… but if she wins, she could be unseated.

This is how my non-lawyer’s mind understands that Supreme Court ruling on the disqualification cases against Sen. Grace Poe. I hesitate to call it a decision because this has to be the most indecisive SC ruling ever in Philippine jurisprudence.

The SC, the nation’s highest court, has abdicated its role as the court of last resort and tossed its duty to the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, which is chaired by the chief justice and whose members include politicians. I thought the PET resolved only protests on the vote itself and not the qualifications to run.

Whatever the PET decides, does it go back to the SC? Only the high tribunal can rule on questions involving constitutionality. Why does this question have to go through this tortuous route before it is resolved?

There are specific constitutional provisions on qualifications for the presidency, which only the Supreme Court can interpret, so it cannot toss the resolution to the PET or the people. It must rule based on the law. Especially because it recently ruled clearly on a similar question, in the case of Regina Ongsiako-Reyes, who was unseated as Marinduque congresswoman over the US citizenship that she renounced.

Reyes is not a foundling; there is no question that she was born to Filipino parents. Does the SC’s double standard have anything to do with the fact that Reyes’ opponent, who has been ordered by the SC to replace her, is Lord Allan Jay Velasco, son of SC Associate Justice Presbitero Velasco Jr.?

If it’s true that some magistrates were moved by pity for Poe, they have no business dispending blind justice and should quit or be removed from office.

If the rumors, now even stronger, about the 100 million reasons behind the ruling are true, then that’s all the more reason to remove from the SC those who gave us this bizarre ruling.

Even Poe, while welcoming the green light for her to run, should demand clarity from the SC before election day on the issues that led to the cases filed against her. In case she wins, it spells trouble for her administration – and prolonged instability for the nation – to leave these questions about her eligibility hanging.

She could end up like Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, whose ascent to Malacañang courtesy of people power was legitimized through a creature concocted by the SC called “constructive resignation” (whose creator is among the biggest defenders of the SC ruling on Poe). GMA spent much of her nine years dealing with political turbulence due to a questionable mandate, first from constructive resignation and then from the “Hello Garci” controversy, wheeling and dealing for her political survival.

The EDSA Dos crowd had such high hopes for the overachieving workaholic GMA, but she eventually got swallowed up by the system. Transactional politics becomes harder to resist when you have to fend off impeachment every year and discourage coup attempts and mutinies.

* * * The Commission on Elections is tasked by law to determine the eligibility of people to run as candidates. Since the SC took on Poe’s case and tossed aside the Comelec rulings disqualifying Poe, the high tribunal effectively sent word that it had the final say on candidacies.

Now it has tossed the eligibility question to the PET, which can settle the issue only after the elections.

Why do we then waste time screening aspiring candidates for their eligibility? If we go by the SC decision, anyone who wants to run should be allowed to, regardless of constitutional and election requirements. Eligibility? Just let the people decide, since vox populi is higher than the precious Constitution that we refuse to amend.

Since the PET has the final say (before the issue goes back to the SC), all the presidential hopefuls dismissed as nuisance bets last year by the Comelec should demand that they also be allowed to run and their names included in the ballot. Almost all of them at least are unquestionably natural-born Filipinos, and most of them are not former dual citizens.

Philippine citizenship should bear more weight than one of the principal reasons for being declared a nuisance candidate in the presidential race: the lack of capability to mount a nationwide campaign. That rules out candidates with modest resources; it’s an anti-poor rule.

Since questions regarding qualifications to run for elective office are best settled through vox populi, we should just abolish the constitutional provision plus the rules used by the Comelec in assessing the eligibility of each prospective candidate.

Again, it’s useful to remember one of the earliest observations about vox populi, given by Anglo-Saxon scholar Alcuin to the medieval emperor Charlemagne, about “those people who should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since the righteousness of the crowd is always close to madness.”

Even if you don’t associate madness and mob rule with the voice of the people, there are specific requirements enshrined in the Constitution for becoming president of the Philippines. They must be applied in determining the eligibility of candidates. The interpreter of constitutional provisions cannot shirk its duty.

With the half-baked decision, it’s not surprising that the Supreme Court cannot perform its other task, which is to supervise lower courts and improve the delivery of justice. Lawyers’ groups must express their views on Poe’s case and press the court for decisive clarity.

As the final arbiter of the law, the SC must lead in upholding the law and following its own rules. The SC cannot simply order the Comelec and the nation to proceed, with legal questions unresolved, simply because it says so.