Inane

Sen. Risa Hontiveros found herself in a word war with the irrepressible Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte Carpio. That is a match-up the senator might be hard put to win.

The spat began when the senator called for the resignation of Persida Acosta, chief of the Public Attorney’s Office. Following the Yellow propaganda line intended to spare the administration of Noynoy Aquino blame for the collapse of public confidence in the government’s vaccination program, Hontiveros blamed the Public Attorney for spreading fear.

That demand for resignation caught Sara’s ire. Acosta has scores of cases involving children sharing two characteristics: first, they are dead; second, they have been administered the Dengvaxia vaccine.

What is the Public Attorney to do? She has, in her office, grieving parents who are convinced the massive immunization using a vaccine that has yet to be fully tested was the reason they lost their children. She has filed suit against the senior officials responsible for this program. That is her job.

The House of Representatives panel that conducted public hearings on the Dengvaxia controversy concluded there has been negligence at the very least. The congressmen recommended filing of charges against former president Benigno Aquino III, former budget secretary Butch Abad and former health secretary Janet Garin.

Hontiveros brought the very public spat to new lows by claiming Sara’s attacks against her vindicated her position. Logic does not appear to be her strong suit.

Before this particular word war broke out, the Vice President and several others from her side of the political fence, tried to inflate that incident where a young Chinese student flung her cup of soy pudding at a policeman who prevented her from bringing the drink onto a commuter train. They began indulging in jingoism and called the “attack” an “encroachment” into our sovereignty. They blamed the Duterte administration’s foreign policy for this incident.

For heaven’s sake, what we have here is a young woman with really serious anger management issues. It is only incidental she was of Chinese nationality. Over the past few months, so many full-blooded Filipino motorists afflicted with road rage have assaulted traffic enforcers.

Although this does not qualify, by any measure, as a diplomatic issue, the inane political noise generated by this incident prompted the Bureau of Immigration to take the temperamental student into custody. A deportation case is now being filed – mainly to satisfy the nonsensical noise politicians make.

As we progress deeper into the campaign period, expect more such inane noises to recur. Some politicians are so desperate to gain notice, they will seize every stray incident and try to inflate it into a scandal of faux proportion.

Residence

The Comelec threw out a complaint filed against Sen. Loren Legarda questioning her residency in the province of Antique. Running for governor of that province, Legarda took care to register as a voter in the province way ahead of the residency requirement. That is all that matters.

Over in Taguig, several residents have filed residency cases against spouses Alan and Lani Cayetano because they registered different addresses in the candidacy documents. The two are seeking congressional seats in the city’s two districts. The complaints should be easy to resolve.

The gist of the complaints is ridiculous to say the least. The complainants say the couple ought to be residing at the same address. That concern is beyond the coverage of our electoral laws.

In Neo V. Comelec, the Supreme Court ruled that while “the provisions of the Family Code state the duties and obligations of a husband and wife and their personal relationship with each other,” the Code “does not in any way determine the qualifications of a candidate for an elective office.”

Furthermore, in the Supreme Court ruling in Ilusorio v. Bildner, the magistrates pointed out that marital rights and living in a conjugal dwelling cannot be forced on anyone. The Family Code merely states that husband and wife have equal say in the choice of domicile. The Code does not prohibit them from maintaining different domiciles.

The Court did note, in another case, that the minimum residency requirement is not an empty formalistic one. Its purpose is to prevent “strangers or newcomers unacquainted with the conditions and needs of a community” from seeking elective offices in that community.

In the present Congress, we have examples of spouses representing different districts: Reps. Rodito Albano (NP Isabela) and his wife Mylene Garcia-Albano (PDP-Laban Davao City); Reps. Estrellita Suansing (PDP-Laban Nueva Ecija) and Horacio Suansing (PDP-Laban Sultan Kudarat).

Neither couple had to dissolve their marriage to contend in separate districts. Let’s not bring in the Family Code to sustain what are basically harassment suits.

Of course, who can forget the case of Rep. Imelda R. Marcos. As far as electoral law reckoning is concerned, she was initially a resident of Olot, Leyte when she sought public office representing that constituency. Then she became a resident of Ilocos Norte to represent that area in Congress. She ran where it was convenient but took care to do the paperwork properly.

Ultimately, it is the electing constituency that decides whether a candidate will vigilantly look after the area’s interest and serve with competence.

In the case of the Cayetano couple, the issue is not that they filed different addresses to fulfill the requirements of electoral law. The issue is whether they are familiar with the locality and are ready to serve their people diligently. This is an issue settled by the public record.