Who are the real nuisance candidates?

It is the height of capricious arrogance and elitist form of self-righteousness for the Comelec to disqualify some lawyers and decent citizens from running for the Senate on the baseless speculation that they are incapable of waging a national campaign and to make such subjective and arbitrary speculation that such candidate will most likely make a mockery of the electoral process. My challenge to the commission is this: Who gave you the authority to brand one candidate as a nuisance and to approve another who has less educational qualification but is an actor? What is the legal standard that you used in so doing? For without any such standard that should be germane to the intent of the law, then your judgment is just an arbitrary ruling, pregnant with all the badges of being a grave abuse of discretion.

For being a grave abuse of discretion, your decision is subject to be assailed and, if warranted, annulled for being devoid of merit in law and in fact. To declare someone as nuisance is to exclude him from a political and legal right enshrined for him in the fundamental law and provided for him in the statutes.

Who are you and what divine right of kings have you inherited to claim that power to strip a Filipino citizen of his rights to be voted? What power did you acquire to have that feeling of superiority to take away the dream of simple men to serve and to aspire for a position that the moneyed elite, the billionaires are currently occupying, not by the wisdom arising from their education but from the prestige of their wealth and popularity? Did you not acquire your position from the sovereign Filipino people who elected the one who gave you such appointment? And so, why do you deprive the people to elect simple and poor candidates even if they could not wage a national campaign?

Comelec should be reminded that the real nuisances in this country are the tradpols who buy votes, terrorize the electorate, and cheat in the counting by manipulating the machines, bribing election officials, killing their opponents. Yes, they are the ones truly making a mockery of the electoral process. The real nuisances are the family dynasties, where fathers and mothers run for the senate and the lower house, the son runs for governor, the daughter runs for mayor, and the grandchildren control the SK. There are many of these political animals in Cebu and all other places. Why doesn't the commission stop them and call them nuisances? They should look for protagonists of their own size and power, and stop bullying the poor and calling them nuisance candidates.

Ramon Magsaysay was just a mechanic from Iba, Zambales, who married the daughter of his employer from Bataan. He was never called a nuisance. Elpidio Quirino was a struggling teacher from Vigan, Ilocos Sur, but he had a dream. The commission then did not kill that dream by calling him nuisance. Carlos P. Garcia was a small-town lawyer from Talibon, Bohol, but a very bright one. No one called him a nuisance. Diosdado Macapagal was the son of very poor parents from Lubao, Pampanga, but he was a Bar topnotcher. He was never called a nuisance. Ferdinand Marcos was a son of a public school teacher but a very brilliant one. Nobody dared to call him a nuisance. Cory Aquino was a plain housewife but she was not called a nuisance. Erap was a college dropout, but was never called a nuisance. They were all given their chances and many of them bungled. But they were not called nuisances.

If Lito Lapid Manny Pacquiao, Tito Sotto, Bong Revilla, Jinggoy Estrada, Robert Jaworski, Eddie Ilarde, and all the actors who never studied how to make a law were not called nuisances, and were allowed to run and win, why exclude the more educationally prepared? What makes a candidate a nuisance? Let Comelec answer this or forever we cannot keep our peace.