When The Freeman headlined, last Thursday, the cancellation of the Certificate of Candidacy of Hon. Augustus Pe, Jr., for Sanggunian Panlungsod of Cebu City, my friend who dropped by my humble home when I opened the paper, heaved a sigh of relief. He had been anxiously waiting for such a decision of the Commission on Elections because to him, he felt an insult caused by an arrogant disregard of a spirit of the legal bar by the councilor. It was on the reason that he harbored, without Hon. Pe’s knowing, a disdain for him, that he wanted me to keep his name out of this space lest their one-sided animosity could get publicized. My visitor friend swore though that if he had his way, he would campaign vigorously against the candidate had the cancellation not been meted early.
I proceeded to read the rest of the news to my friend. Somewhere in the story, I noticed a twinge on his face. Rather than savoring a sense of triumph, because the political aspiration of the councilor, with whom he kept an unfriendly relation, got stalled by the Comelec, his facial expression even deepened his burrows. He appeared perplexed. At the very least, he was not happy. His face soured as if a bottle of acid was just spilt in his direction. So, I asked why and his explanation seemed valid.
My friend opined that as the report was written, the Comelec either missed the correct issue, in which case, its understanding of certain basic philosophical postulates was too shallow for comfort or it might have, in the decision, laid down a predicate for a future reversal of sort. In case of the former, an honest, although fundamental, mistake was committed. Were it the latter, a Machiavellian scheme was employed.
The issue, according to my friend, should not be the residence of Hon. Pe, Jr. If Comelec focused on it, it did not grasp the petition. That he served the city as councilor for the maximum allowable number of terms was the real crux of the disqualification action. In our book, a councilor could not be elected beyond three terms successively. Unless the first election in 2004 was, as whispers attributed, a fake, Hon. Pe, Jr., had already reached the term limit.
The rationale offered by the Comelec is incredible. It assays that the three terms of Hon. Pe, to end this June 2013, is for his position as councilor of the north district only such that he is aspiring for an entirely different seat, this time for the south district, in his candidacy in the May 2013 elections. In other words, it is the holding of the Comelec that the members of the Cebu City Sangguniang Panlungsod coming from North District belong to a unit separate from the members of the Cebu City Sangguniang Panlungsod coming from the South District.
Let us test this ratio decidendi against one example. In 2012, the councilor authored an amendment to Ordinance 2284, entitled “An Ordinance Regulating The Parking Of Motor Vehicles In Certain Streets In Cebu City x x “. When he rose during the sanggunian session to move for its approval, Councilor Pe did not mention that: (a) he was councilor of the North District only and more importantly that (b) he was acting on a piece of local legislation applicable only for the north district. If that were so, the councilors of the south district, being a separate government, should not vote on it.
If the Comelec reasoning were to hold sway, Ordinance No. 2284, as amended, was passed partly by councilors who had no legal authority to approve it because they belonged to a different entity. Without speaking of liability, if any, on the part of those councilors of the south district who participated in the process, what would become of that ordinance? Half valid? Half void?
The twitch on the face of my friend was for a far more diabolical reason than the rationale offered by the Comelec. He was afraid that dwelling on residence as a boon of contention was simply wearing a disposable mask. Like all masks, it was a cover and in this case, it functioned to mislead the public from appreciating the core of the petition.
Indeed, the exchange of press releases from the opposing political camps, the comments of opinion makers and the rash of letters to the editors that followed the Comelec ruling seemed to suggest that people are keen on debating whether or not Hon. Pe, has established residence in the south. It no longer considers the three-term bar. This is worrisome.
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