Uncertain

It is not true the case is closed. The petitioners questioning the qualifications of presidential candidate Grace Poe have all filed motions for reconsideration, basically asking the High Court to reverse its earlier ruling finding the Comelec in grave abuse of discretion for disqualifying the candidate.

The SC ruling is at best tenuous. It insists the Comelec committed “grave abuse” without clearly resolving the citizenship and residency issues that are the bases of the poll body’s earlier decision to disqualify Poe.

The finding of “grave abuse” rattled many lawyers. The Integrated Bar of the Philippines issued a statement indicating disagreement with the Supreme Court ruling.

In normal cases, “grave abuse” happens when a public agency extends way beyond its jurisdiction and performs an act that is so obviously oppressive and arbitrary. That could hardly be descriptive of the Comelec’s decision to disqualify the candidate. The issues were deliberated extensively before the ruling was arrived at.

The Comelec is a constitutional agency invested with quasi-judicial powers. On any day, the poll body exercises its quasi-judicial powers by holding hearings on petitions of every sort and ruling on the qualifications of prospective candidates.

For the coming elections, for instance, the poll body routinely cancelled the certificates of candidacy of individuals deemed (by even more arbitrary standards) to be mere nuisance and barred party-list groups for being, well, fictitious. Several other presidential candidates, because they were not aligned with major parties, were ruled, rather heavy-handedly, to be incapable of mounting credible national campaigns.

Many obviously nuisance candidates filed petitions with the High Court, claiming the poll body committed grave abuse. All those petitions, until Grace Poe came along, were routinely dismissed by the magistrates.

Poe shares many of the characteristics of the scores of dismissed wannabes. She was not affiliated with a major party. She is an upstart. She had, when disqualified, demonstrated no capacity to mount a nationwide presidential campaign.

Like some of the duly-elected public officials dismissed from office on citizenship and residency questions, Poe was saddled with questions about when she actually reverted to Filipino citizenship and when she actually decided to resettle here. A US Treasury document shows her American citizenship was rescinded only on July 2012. There is no indication on that document on when she actually applied to give up American citizenship. She definitely used her US passport well into the 10-year residency period required for presidential aspirants.

The only difference between Poe and all the others the magistrates routinely allowed the Comelec to disqualify is that she happens to be rating well in the surveys at the time her case was considered. Popularity, however, ought not to figure in the determination of legality. Otherwise, every great constitutional question will be settled by way of public referendum rather than a High Court ruling.

A can of worms, a mountain of scholarly questions, are brought forth by the way the High Court ruled on the Poe cases.

Law dean Amado Valdez filed a strongly argued motion for reconsideration with the SC. In this motion, Valdez reminds the magistrates “(t)he duty of the Highest Court of the land is to forsake and abandon any doctrine or rule found to be in violation of the law in force.”

Valdez argues the Comelec committed no grave abuse of its powers when it disqualified Poe on the finding she failed to meet both the citizenship and residency requirements set under the 1987 Constitution – especially as the poll body found material misrepresentation on the part of the candidate. He finds no reason for the Court to abandon Constitutional dictate to accommodate one candidate.

Otherwise, the rule of law loses its seamlessness and becomes prey to every form of exception.

Until the SC responds more convincingly to the issues raised in the motions for reconsideration, a large cloud of doubt will hang over the Poe candidacy. Hopefully, these motions will be clearly resolved before Election Day – to the satisfaction of our constitutional regime.

Dust

What is it about Mar Roxas that everything he touches turns to dust?

A comic book recently released by the Roxas campaign has become the object of ridicule in social media. The sad thing is the comic book was not intended to be funny at all – although it has turned out to be exactly that.

The matter just turned funnier by the day as Mar defended the comic book and accused those who found it funny as being agents of his rivals. The more he does this, the more humor he generates.

LP spokesman Ibarra Gutierrez adds to the unlikely controversy. He initially denied the LP was involved in this funny project. The artist who did the thing (who turns out to be a solid Duterte supporter) admitted being commissioned by LP bigwigs to do the project.

There is nothing wrong with doing a “komiks” to introduce the candidate. The problem with the Mar “komiks” is that it highlights what should instead be deleted: the man’s controversial role during the Yolanda-induced calamity.

The idiot responsible for the storyline in this “komiks” project should be hanged. The Roxas campaign should concentrate on helping voters forget about Yolanda and think of the candidate’s other merits.

The comic book does the complete opposite. It ties up the candidate with a badly handled calamity. Mar was sent to Tacloban ahead of the storm precisely to enable him to do something heroic. He failed to accomplish the heroic part. He should consign that utter failure to forgetfulness.

It is the untruthfulness of the comic book rendition of events that grates.