The plan of the Interior department to ask the Commission on Elections to disqualify politicians implicated in illegal drugs and corruption in the coming 2019 midterm polls is unconstitutional, an election lawyer said Thursday.
Romulo Macalintal said under the Omnibus Election Code and the Local Government Code, only candidates convicted of a crime with finality were disqualified from seeking an elective post.
“To disqualify based on said list will violate the constitutional right of a person to presumption of innocence and right to due process or opportunity to be heard in any case, be it criminal or administrative,” Macalintal said.
He was reacting to the plan of DILG officer-in-charge Eduardo Año to submit a formal recommendation to the Comelec to disqualify those in the government’s drug list and alleged corrupt individuals from seeking an elective post.
“We will submit our recommendations. If the Comelec will approve it, they will be disqualified,” Año was quoted as saying.
But Senator Francis Escudero said Thursday only the people convicted of a crime could be disqualified to run for public office.
He said the PDEA’s drug list was merely “validated” by it and its intelligence agencies and not by a court of law.
“While the DILG means well, those in the list [that has never been made public] were never afforded the right to due process, hence it cannot be used against them by the DILG’s mere say so,” said Escudero, a lawyer.
Macalintal said the DILG will use the existing ‘narco list’ and the corruption reports against local officials through hot line 8888 and the presidential complaint desk in coming out with the recommendation.
But he said there were several candidates who were in prison and yet they were allowed to run and serve while in prison.
“In a word, the final judgment is an indispensable requisite to disqualify any candidate running for an elective office,” he said.
He said the Comelec should stay focused on ensuring the conduct of peaceful and honest elections and not be distracted by such a baseless request.
“It will be a waste of time for the DILG to ask the Comelec to disqualify candidates in the 2019 elections based merely on an alleged list of persons allegedly involved in illegal drugs,” Macalintal said.
The DILG says that, since July 2016, around 300 local officials were either suspended or dismissed due to corruption allegations.
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