Should Erap run again?

MANILA, Philippines - Overshadowed for now by the bigger political stories, former President Joseph Ejercito (Erap) Estrada’s announced bid to run again has energized his old supporters and fans while rekindling dormant and residual passions in civil society and sectors of the mainstream press. No other presidential bid has elicited such strongly conflicting emotions from the public.

Elected president in 1998, Erap was ousted in 2001. He spent the next six years in detention before he was finally convicted by the Sandiganbayan of plunder, for which he sought and was granted presidential pardon. Given our single-term presidency, many say he cannot run again. His lawyers, however, assure him he still can. Estrada himself says, “let the people decide.”

The issue is constitutional rather than political. The Supreme Court will have to rule on it, if and when the question is raised before it. And it will have to rule according to the Constitution.

Sec. 4 of Article VII of the Constitution provides: “No President shall be eligible for any reelection.” “Any reelection” means reelection at any time, whether immediately after the end of the President’s term or after an interval of one or several terms. The ban appears absolute. But the matter does not end here. 

The President is “elected by direct vote of the people for a term of six years which shall begin at noon on the thirtieth day of June next following the day of the election and shall end at noon of the same date six years thereafter.” This term may be legally shortened only by death, permanent disability, removal from office, or resignation. A president who has served his full term may not run again. Similarly, one whose term has been shortened by any of those means.

Estrada’s term was cut short, but not by any of those means. He did not die. Nor was he permanently disabled. Nor did he resign. Nor was he removed from office by operation of the Constitution. In Estrada v. Arroyo the ponencia says he did resign — “constructively,” without having to submit a letter of resignation. The majority of the Court, however, does not support that finding. And erstwhile Justice Secretary Hernando Perez tried very hard to convince Estrada to write a letter of resignation long after he had left Malacañang. 

It is an undisputed fact that then Supreme Court (SC) Chief Justice Hilario Davide, Jr. swore in Mrs. Arroyo before 11 other SC justices and a sizeable EDSA crowd a little after high noon of Jan. 20, 2001, while Estrada was still having lunch with some of his friends and supporters in Malacañang. He finally left his official residence around 3 p.m.

Most of the justices tend to agree: Estrada was driven out of Malacañang. That kind of removal, however, is not contemplated in the Constitution. The only way of removing a president under the Constitution is upon conviction in a Senate impeachment trial. And although Estrada was impeached, the trial was aborted before it could judge the accused. .

So, since Estrada did not die, did not resign, was not permanently disabled, was not removed after due process, but simply found himself out of the presidency after two and a half years of his six-year term, how does the reelection ban apply to him?

The court may have to interpret the law in his favor, unless the pardon he got from Mrs. Arroyo turns out to be conditional rather than unconditional. But Albay Governor Joey Salceda, who is extremely close to Malacanang, assures us the administration will not move to disqualify the former president. This, as I read it, is what strengthens Erap’s belief that he can run again.

However, the real question to many people is not whether he can run again but rather whether or not he should run again.

There are many reasons for this.

1. Erap’s senator-son, Jinggoy, is running for reelection. Since when did we have a father-and-son combination with the father running for president, the son for the Senate?

2. Erap was removed from office without fighting for it the way his successor had fought for it every time she faced the tiniest challenge. Should he get back the office he could not defend?

3. Corruption is likely to be a major issue in this campaign. Can Erap talk about it, given his conviction of plunder? He insists he had never stolen from government nor admitted guilt. But the fact that he withdrew his Motion for Reconsideration of the ruling in order to ask for pardon, which he got, does not support his claim. 

4. After long years in jail, leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Nelson Mandela, Vaclav Havel, etc. were morally and spiritually transformed. Can the same thing be said of Erap after six years of “detention”? Or has he remained the same?

5. Is he a force for change? Will his presidency take us to a bright and sunny future or back to a dark and seedy past?

6. If Malacañang does not move to disqualify Erap, and he decides to include in his ticket senatorial and local candidates from the administration, will he not be accused of having cut a deal with Malacañang? What will be the impact of such an accusation?

These are some of the harder questions.