There is no reason that we should rejoice at the rotten decision rendered by the Supreme Court giving a green light to a former alien to run for the highest position of the land. It was an insult to the entire Filipino people who are supposed to honorably defend being called Filipino citizens. The decision is both unprecedented and disgraceful because never in its illustrious history has the august body come out with such a shoddy and bankrupt verdict reversing the decision of the Commission on Elections by a vote of 9-6 in favor of Grace Poe’s eligibility to run for the office with high court telling the people to wait for the issuance of their written decision. On top of that, the high court gave the go signal despite the glaring findings that she committed material misrepresentation of being a citizen and allegedly fulfilling the residency requirement.
Many patriotic Filipinos are in rage because they feel the decision effectively reduced them to idiots blindly concurring with that rotten ruling as though it was handed to them by gods in the temple of Parthenon, unmindful that it is equally soaked with suspicion of corruption. The public, through the social media, cannot hide its outrage and contempt at the manner in which our supposedly honorable magistrates trashed our Constitution. The decision was apologetic to the cause of what many believe is a “Manchurian candidate” of the US and the oligarchy. To forgive her act of committing material misrepresentation or to put it bluntly, her commission of perjury can never be interpreted as an honest mistake. Those miserable justices who voted to condone her act betrayed their duty to defend the Constitution from all attempts to distort it.
The Filipino people have yet to read that crafted decision that is meant to deceive the people of her claim of having complied with the Constitution even if they would residually come out with a mangled interpretation of the charter. Those lousy magistrates, in truth, amended by judicial legislation the Constitution, for effectively they trashed Section 2, Article VII of the Constitution requiring that a candidate for President should be a natural born citizen, and that he or she has complied with the residency requirement of 10 years’ stay in the Philippines immediately preceding such election.
As one lawyer would ask, how could those lousy magistrates vote to reverse the decision of the Commission on Elections on the ground of grave abuse of discretion when it should be Grace Poe who should explain before the high court the findings of the Comelec that “she committed material misrepresentation in her CoC, and to escape responsibility, conveniently changed her story in the subsequent CoC” which she filed. Those contemptible justices placed the high court on the defensive when it entertained the petition on the basis of grave abuse of discretion thereby reducing them to the status of lawyers for Poe who was disqualified by the Comelec.
Poe does not stand as wholly innocent to claim lack of due process because she now carries the burden of proving otherwise, that she did not commit such material misrepresentation. In fact, that finding made by the Comelec should have been respected by the high court, as it is not a trier of facts, but the ultimate interpreter of what the Constitution provides. The high court should have stuck to the findings of facts by the Comelec.
Alas, instead of giving respect and credit to the findings of the Comelec, it usurped the power of the Comelec, and worse, went beyond by speculating and assuming Poe did not deliberately intend to mislead, misinform or hide the facts to lend credence to her claim but merely committed an honest mistake when clearly she committed perjury to fraudulently claim eligibility for the office.
The court should objectively judge the case on the basis of the evidence presented. It has no business extending to her the liberality of honest mistake and good faith because she is running for the highest office of the land of which the fate and future of the more than 100 million Filipinos would be in the hands of one who have a doubtful and questionable loyalty. The court should only apply the law as stated in her affidavit and of the evidence she presented. It cannot go on reading what’s in her mind. To quote Justice Mariano del Castillo, “These statements could even be interpreted as part of Poe’s misrepresentation regarding her qualification and eligibility to run for president… Poe should have made the correction “at the earliest opportunity before the proper forum.”
Most damaging, “Poe failed to present evidence that would show she had intended to reestablish 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.” Del Castillo added, “Poe’s claim was “shrouded in doubt” in light of her maintaining a house in the US, which she bought in 1992, and the subsequent purchase of a residential house in the US in 2008, three years after her claimed intent to remain in the country for an indefinite period of time.”
He went on to state that “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 here as an alien with a balikbayan visa. 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 justices who voted in favor of Poe truly made a fool of themselves by interpreting the Constitution to accommodate one ambitious alien who is suspected to be a stooge of the moneyed-class. Even as senator, she already exhibited her hubris to ignore the cry for justice of the people by her stubborn refusal to submit a report of the Senate Investigation of the Mamasapano murder of the SAF 44 members in abeyance to the wish of her now broker-patron.
The courts can, in fact, decide to deny her Filipino citizenship because the grant of citizenship is a matter of privilege that it can even be denied to her even if there is no finding that she committed material misrepresentation and falsification. But how could she, when as found out, she committed martial misrepresentation about her eligibility? Poe is not only unworthy of becoming a citizen, but that our lousy justices led the way for her to make a travesty of our Constitution by letting us swallow their rotten and unpalatable decision.
rpkapunan@gmail.com