Were it not for an act of judicial somersault, Senator Grace Poe could not, by now, be running for president of the Philippines.
Before Tuesday, March 8’s 9-6 Supreme Court ruling allowing Poe to run, the prevailing view, it seems, in the high court, was that the freshman senator lacked the 10-year residency required of Philippine presidents or candidates for president.
But it seems the tribunal ruled on a technicality, that is the Commission on Elections committed grave abuse of discretion, amounting to lack of jurisdiction when the latter disqualified Poe as a candidate for president.
The main issue thus before the Supreme Court became whether the Comelec gravely abused its discretion in canceling Poe’s Certificate of Candidacy due to her alleged “false representation.”
As explained by former Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban in his Inquirer column March 6, “Before any CoC can be cancelled by the Comelec, the statements must be (1) material, (2) false, and (3) made with a deliberate intent to mislead, misinform, or hide a fact, or to deceive the electorate as to one’s qualifications.”
In Poe’s cases, Panganiban said the questioned statements are definitely material because they refer to her citizenship and residency. But are they false?
Some of the justices seem to believe that Poe told the truth, or at least had some factual and legal bases in making them.
Additionally, Justice Francis H. Jardeleza also wondered whether the Comelec deprived Poe of due process, which would ipso facto void the poll body’s decision.
In the oral arguments, the question was whether, in fact and in law, the entries on Poe’s citizenship and residence were true or false.
If the statements were true, then Poe’s CoC (Certificate of Candidacy) could not be cancelled. In her statements were false, still her CoC could not be cancelled if she made them in good faith with no intention to deceive the electorate.
Panganiban cites the case of FPJ in Tecson vs Comelec (March 3, 2004), on the Comelec’s authority to cancel the CoC of a presidential candidate.
In the FPJ case, the petition prayed for his cancellation of his CoC because he stated therein that he was a natural-born citizen when, allegedly, his parents were foreigners.
FPJ’s mother, Bessie Kelly, was an American, and his father, Allan Poe, was a Spaniard, being the son of Lorenzo Pou, a Spanish subject. It was further claimed that FPJ was an illegitimate child who followed the citizenship of his American mother.
Lorenzo Pou died on Sept. 11, 1954, at 84. If Pou was 84 when he died, therefore, he was born in 1870, when the Philippines was under Spanish rule. And nationals during that time were considered Filipinos by the “en masse” Filipinization authorized in 1902. In the Supreme Court’s ruling on FPJ in 2004, eight justices held this view—Pou was a Filipino or presumed him to be a natural-born Filipino.
The Court in 2004 ruled: “…[W]hile the totality of the evidence may not establish conclusively that respondent FPJ is a natural-born citizen … he cannot be held guilty of having made a material misrepresentation in his [CoC]… which, as so ruled in Romualdez-Marcos vs COMELEC, must not only be material, but also deliberate and willful.”
Besides, then Justice (later Chief Justice) Reynato S. Puno pointed out on the same FPJ case: “Given the indecisiveness of the votes of the members of this Court, the better policy approach is to let the people decide who will be the next President. For on political questions, this Court may err but the sovereign people will not. To be sure, the Constitution did not grant to the unelected members of this Court the right to elect in behalf of the people.”
Comes now the Supreme Court, again with its unelected members, ruling on the qualifications of a candidate for President—Grace Poe.
Unelected but appointed to the high court on sheer merit, the justices are like Gods of the Olympus ruling on mortals—and using the law and the Constitution in the strictest sense of their verbiage.
A 70-page dissenting opinion penned by SC Associate Justice Mariano del Castillo is now circulating among media circles. The jurist can be quite intractable in his views. He thinks Grace lacked the qualifications of a candidate for president. Specifically, Grace lacks the 10-year residency.
Del Castillo and five other justices wanted to uphold the Comelec’s unanimous ruling that Poe lacks the qualifications of a candidate for president. She is not a natural-born Filipino and she has not met the 10-year residency.
Del Castillo’s opinion was initially the draft ruling of the high court. This draft rejected Grace Poe’s defense of honest mistake when she declared “six years and six months” of residency in her 2012 Certificate of Candidacy for senator. If indeed that was the case, then Poe would lack the 10-year residency by today, being short of six months.
Fortunately for Poe, nine justices thought her declaration was “an honest mistake.” And when the Comelec disqualified her, the poll body committed a “grave abuse of discretion.”
Del Castillo disagrees with the 9-6 ruling. He thinks their Court should have agreed with the Comelec that Poe “knowingly made a false material representation in her 2015 CoC sufficient to mislead the electorate into believing that she is eligible and qualified to become president.”
Del Castillo thinks Poe failed to present evidence showing she had intended to re-establish a new domicile in the Philippines prior to taking her oath of allegiance to the Philippines on July 7, 2006.
“Since the petitioner took her oath of allegiance in July 2006 and renounced her US citizenship in October 2010, both less than 10 years prior to the May 9 elections, she could no longer prove compliance with the 10-year residency requirement,” the jurist points out.
Del Castillo sneers at Poe’s claim of honest mistake, noting it was “shrouded in doubt.” She was maintaining a house in the US, which she bought in 1992, and subsequently bought a residential house in the US in 2008, three years after her claimed intent to remain in the Philippines for an indefinite period of time.
Poe’s stay in the Philippines starting from May 24, 2005 was not permanent and could not be included in counting the length of her residency because she arrived in Manila as an alien with a balikbayan visa, Del Castillo notes.
“It was merely temporary. At most, her stay in the Philippines would only be for one year [under Republic Act 6768]. This only proves that her stay was not impressed with animus manendi, i.e. the intent to remain in or at the domicile of choice for an indefinite period of time,” the justice argues.
True, Poe acquired a condominium unit in San Juan and a house and lot in Corinthian Hills, Quezon City. But these purchases did not establish domicile as they could just be for investment purposes, Del Castillo muses, citing the February 2013 decision on Jalosjos vs Comelec.
Del Castillo believes Poe renounced her US citizenship only to meet the requirement for her appointment as chairperson of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board.