Supreme Court Justice Marvic Leonen emphasizes that it is the 1987 Constitution that is in effect today and not the old 1935 and 1973 Constitutions. He underscores that the Constitution never granted the Comelec the power to arbitrate on qualifications of elected national government officials. He said the Comelec should have just confined itself to evaluating Poe’s certificate of candidacy and determining whether the facts stated there, from her point of view, were correct or not.
Shedding light on these facts “is a matter of
opinion and law; to do so would be to adjudicate,” which the Comelec is
restricted from doing by the Constitution, the magistrate says.
Senator Grace Poe is said to be a foundling whose parents are
unidentified.
Leonen on Tuesday says that the tribunal's role should be
"final arbiters" after allowing people to decide through the
elections, as he articulates this during his interpellation of lawyer Alexander
Poblador (legal counsel of Sen. Grace Poe) in her bid to reverse the decisions
of the Commission on Election to terminate her certificate of candidacy.
Failure to meet the expressed constitutional requirements that aspirants for high office should be natural-born citizens and should have at least 10 years of residence in the country, it can be recalled that the Comelec on its verdict decided to quash Poe’s certificate of candidacy.
The magistrate says, "The
Constitution has a check that this Court usually defers to a political organ if
it is clear in the Constitution that the political organ is made to decide
first." "Suffrage
is one of the direct exercises, perhaps one of the only direct exercise where
people actually select their agents in terms of the government. "We should first allow the people to decide and then we should become the final arbiters should there be a contest," he adds.
"It
was completely the agency and the moral decision of the parents to actually
leave her behind," he continues.
"If we are to define what justice means, justice means giving
everyone their due. And it could also be the opposite, whoever does something
wrong should be the one to carry the burden of the harm that happens, even from
society," he points out.[1]
In
his interrogation, Leonen also mentioned the importance on the case on
foundlings in the country. When Poblador answered that Poe did not know the
cause of abandonment by her parents, the former noted that Poe, as a newborn
baby, could not have done anything.[2]
Leonen
highlights that Poe’s abandonment after birth was wrong and unjust adding that
the senator was “lucky” because she was adopted by movie stars Fernando Poe Jr.
and Susan Roces.
Relating
that he grew up without a father, Leonen says that Poe surely had a “very difficult
time” growing up not knowing who her real parents were.
He
enquired why a foundling like Poe would be forced to look for her real parents
or present a proof of her parentage like through DNA testing, when ordinary
Filipinos only need to show their birth certificates to establish their
parentage and citizenship. He mentions that those birth certificates were
prepared by someone else.
“At
the end of the day, should this court ask her to look for those parents who
actually left her because she had it lucky. She is now one of the candidates to
become President of this country. Do you think that is a fair result? It’s
clear to us what should happen in terms of justness. Can our laws actually
contain that kind of a result? Is it clear enough to say that the Constitution
of the Republic looks this way on foundlings? That there can never be any
foundling found in a rural area of the Philippines that can ever become
President?” he explains.
“We
are here not as legalists, we are here as justices. The root word is not
‘legal’ but it is ‘just’—meaning to say
we do justice in accordance with law but if we can interpret law so that it can
do justice then so be it. So we are not completely legalists,” he says.
Leonen
points out that the cases against Poe is also related to Filipinos who went
overseas to work or reside and decided to come home to run for public office.
Laws
were formulated to give such expatriates, or balikbayan, to re-establish their
residencies and reacquire citizenships, he stresses.
Grace
Poe had resided in the United States with an American husband and had become a
US citizen. Subsequently, she decided to reacquire her Philippine citizenship
and run for high office.
The
presidential candidate insists foundlings like her should be considered as
natural-born, otherwise those with unidentified biological parents would become
stateless and, worse, repudiated the right to serve the country.
Leonen
unites with the position of some Poe's supporters, including Pia Cayetano, Loren Legarda, Cynthia Villar, Bam Aquino,
and Vicente “Tito” Sotto III[3]
and former Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban, who pins
down that "vox populi, vox dei" the voice of the people is the voice of God.
On the other hand, Francisco Tatad in his article
on Manila Times dated October 7, 2015, says that Grace Poe was “born stateless
because her parents were unknown.” He even
questioned former Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban’s comprehension
of the law and asked where was the latter when the law professor was talking about
Chief Justice John Marshall’s eminent pronouncement in Marbury v. Madison that
the responsibility of the Supreme Court is to proclaim the law, that therefore,
it is the Court, not the multitude, that says what laws govern the electoral
process.[4]
Based on research, the case of Marbury v. Madison (1803) was the
first time the U.S. Supreme Court declared an act of Congress to be
unconstitutional. (The case concerned a section of the Judiciary Act of 1789.)
In his opinion, Chief Justice John Marshall depended almost exclusively on the particular
language of the Constitution, saying that it is the “paramount law of the
nation” and that it hampers the actions of all three branches of the national
government. Marshall asserts that the whole point of a written Constitution is
to ascertain that government stays within its prescribed limits: “The powers of
the Legislature are defined and limited; and [so] that those limits may not be
mistaken or forgotten, the Constitution is written. Cartoon Marbury v Madison”
In cases where a law conflicted with the Constitution, Marshall had written:
“the very essence of judicial duty” was to follow the Constitution. He also stressed
that the courts has the responsibility to understand and articulate what the
Constitution means: “It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial
department to say what the law is.” The decision concluded “a law repugnant to
the Constitution is void, and courts, as well as other departments, are bound
by that instrument.”[5]
 |
 |
In
exercise of their sovereign right, I was the electorate, who had sanctioned the
Constitution, Leonen says.
The
magistrate says that the Constitution already bestowed a mechanism for the
people to decide whom to elect and the court could only intervene to become the
final arbiter should there be a dispute.
This
year marks the first time in the Philippine history that a founding will be
running for the country’s higher seat so it will be the first time that the
court will be laying down a doctrine on foundlings, Leone says.
“Don’t you think it’s the better part of
prudence that we follow what the Constitution says, that the Supreme Court has
jurisdiction over election contests to determine the qualifications of presidential
candidates,” he says, pointing to the court’s function as the Presidential
Electoral Tribunal.
Previously,
in a press conference with Senator and Vice Presidential bet Chiz Escudero on a
restaurant in Dasmarinas, Cavite, Presidential bet Senator Grace Poe asserted
that she would no longer present the results of her DNA tests with possible
relatives in Jaro, Iloilo claiming that she and her camp use legal basis than
DNA results of her Filipino citizenship.
 |
Finally, anchoring this issue to the
teachings, the Church edifies that those who exercise authority [7]should
do so as a service: “But it shall not be so among you. Rather, whoever wishes
to be great among you shall be your servant. (Matthew 20:26).
The exercise of authority is gauged morally in
terms of its divine origin, its logical nature and its specific purpose. Not
anyone could either charge or institute which opposes the dignity of persons
and the natural law. (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2235)
It is preordained to provide outward expression
to a just hierarchy of values to provide the exercise of accountability and freedom
and responsibility by all. Those in authority should practice distributive
justice wisely considering each needs and contribution envisioning harmony and tranquility,
make it a point that the regulations and measures adopted are not a source of
temptation by fixing personal interest against that of the community. (Catechism of the Catholic Church CCC 2236)
It is the duty of political authorities to value
the fundamental rights of the human person, dispense justice humanely by valuing
everybody’s right, particularly of families and the underprivileged.
The political rights ascribed to citizenship can
and should be granted according to the needs of the common good and should not be postponed
by public authorities without lawful and impartial basis. Implemented for the nation
and the human community, political rights are intended for the common good. (Centesimus Annus 25).
References;
[1] JST, GMA News , SC Justice on Poe case: Let
people decide, become final arbiters later, http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/551894/news/nation/sc-justice-on-poe-case-let-people-decide-become-final-arbiters-later
[2] Jerome Aning, Poe finds a champion in the Supreme Court, http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/757351/poe-finds-a-champion-in-the-supreme-court
[3] Maila Ager, Cayetano:
Senators who upheld Poe ‘sincerely wrong’, http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/741676/cayetano-senators-in-set-who-upheld-poe-sincerely-wrong
[4] Francisco S. Tatad, Should
Grace Poe Llamanzares now call on Susan Roces?, October 7, 2015 12:30 am, http://www.manilatimes.net/should-grace-poe-llamanzares-now-call-on-susan-roces/222552/
[5] Judicial Review or Judicial
Activism? Marbury V. Madison (1803), http://billofrightsinstitute.org/educate/educator-resources/lessons-plans/landmark-supreme-court-cases-elessons/marbury-v-madison-1803/
[6] David Streater , Vox Populi, Vox Dei? , Democracy
and the Church, https://www.google.com.ph/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiqksXkxLzKAhUJkpQKHZN_CYYQFggiMAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fchurchsociety.org%2Fdocs%2Fchurchman%2F111%2FCman_111_4_Streater.pdf&usg=AFQjCNEEGpuO7bXij5JcT11opmioPOKeLA&sig2=lrLB1-44khYE4GCHgb_lWg
[7]Catechism of
the Catholic Church, Second Edition, http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c2a4.htm#2236
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment