Abuse of discretion

The Constitution allows the judicial courts “to determine whether or not there has been a grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction on the part of any branch or instrumentality of the government.”

At the rate the Commission on Elections has been seeing its decisions, including unanimous ones, overturned by the Supreme Court, Comelec officials should just quit and let the SC do the work of the poll body. Or else, after repeatedly committing “grave abuse of discretion” as ruled by the SC, Comelec officials should be impeached.

In just one day, the Comelec saw two of its major decisions overturned by the SC: its disqualification of Sen. Grace Poe from the presidential race for failure to meet both citizenship and residency requirements, and its rejection of the issuance of voter receipts – a decision meant to deter vote-buying and save time and resources.

The SC, which has taken its sweet time resolving Poe’s disqualification case, refused to grant the Comelec’s request for a one-week extension of the deadline to argue against the petition for vote receipts, and unanimously overturned the poll body’s unanimous decision.

Comelec Chairman Andy Bautista lamented that implementing the SC order would require the reconfiguration of 92,500 SD memory cards and retraining of over 277,000 election inspectors. The Comelec must hold a bidding for the supply of around 1.2 million additional rolls of thermal paper and 92,500 receptacles for the receipts. Bautista has warned that as a result, the elections may have to be postponed.

In reaction, Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno said the Comelec ignored a non-extendible deadline to respond to the petition and failed to see that the receipts are mandated under the poll automation law. 

Perhaps the Comelec is guilty of incompetence in failing to understand “non-extendible” and in misinterpreting the law. This is bad for Bautista, a former law dean who was also considered for an SC seat. But generally, there ought to be a presumption of regularity in the way government agencies carry out their functions, or else the SC could find itself reviewing all orders, policies and decisions of all offices including regulatory bodies.

The Comelec, a constitutional body, has been rendered inutile – little more than a gofer of the SC, its decisions ignored and its deliberations nothing but a waste of time, resources and people’s money. The Comelec has been reversed in its efforts to prevent the abuse of the party-list system, regulate campaign finance and prevent premature campaigning. It does not have the final word on the eligibility of candidates or in resolving electoral protests.

With the SC taking on anything and everything including all electoral protests and poll-related issues, the high tribunal – already suffering from case overload, which has further slowed down adjudication – should expect to find itself swamped soon with election cases.

The incoming leadership of the executive and legislative branches must consider sitting down with the senior officials of the judiciary to prevent this situation from getting out of hand.

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The SC can check the executive and legislative branches for grave abuse of discretion. But who checks grave abuse in the judiciary? The nation can’t afford to keep impeaching SC justices, although these days there’s hissing about impeachment plans, promising exciting times ahead in the next administration.

Rival camps are said to be furiously working to unearth the rumored 100 million reasons for the SC’s 9-6 ruling favoring Poe. A businessman working for an industrialist is suspected of providing the persuasive argument.

President Aquino, whose anointed is seeing more rats abandoning ship after the ruling on Poe, jumped into the fray the other day. P-Noy questioned the SC ruling not on the issue of residency, where Poe appears to have been allowed to get away with an “honest mistake,” but on the more complicated issue of citizenship.

Judging from the “confused” P-Noy’s comments, he’s not looking at the debate over the citizenship of foundlings, but at the constitutional description of a “natural-born citizen” – a requirement for a president of the republic.

Section 1, Article IV of the Constitution describes a “natural-born citizen” as someone who is a citizen of the Philippines “from birth without having to perform any act to acquire or perfect their Philippine citizenship.” Those seeking Poe’s disqualification argue that she had to perform an act to reacquire and perfect her Philippine citizenship.

Poe has said she renounced her Philippine citizenship “for love” and moved with her husband to the United States where they raised their family. If ever, he will be the first American First Spouse and their kids the first American children of a Philippine president.

When you have a worthy candidate like Poe, it’s fine to argue for vox populi vox Dei, to let the people decide and do away with the niceties of the Constitution and election rules. Poe’s supporters stress that it would be a shame to deprive Filipinos of such a choice for the nation’s highest post.

But what happens when the same arguments used in her favor are invoked by unpopular or venal candidates? Whatever jurisprudence is set will have to be applied to future controversies.

Interestingly, Section 5 of Article IV may be a ground for challenging dual citizenship rights: “Dual allegiance of citizens is inimical to the national interest and shall be dealt with by law.” But there are many provisions in our precious Constitution that have not been carried out.

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P-Noy said the other day that all along, he had thought that when he appointed Poe as chair of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board, she had already renounced her US citizenship.

His belated wading into the controversy is curious, considering that the solicitor general who is supposed to represent the government had argued for Poe and against the Comelec, while four of his SC appointees also voted for Poe.

People are wondering if P-Noy’s statements on the SC decision are merely for show, part of efforts – not too convincing so far – that Poe is not his Plan B, and that it’s not 2010 all over again when he was suspected of secretly supporting Jejomar Binay instead of Mar Roxas.

Whether or not P-Noy’s sentiments on the SC ruling are genuine, he has put the tribunal on the spot again. Not that it will change the status quo; the SC isn’t about to yield an inch of power. SC justices are living up to their name: they are the gods of Padre Faura.