SO, the mountain has given birth—to a mouse. That is exactly what the Supreme Court (SC) has done. After overturning the carefully reasoned factually based decision of the Commission on Elections (Comelec), the SC ruled that Sen. Grace Poe-Llamanzares can run for president of the Philippines on the basis of a presumption and an arbitrarily selected date of return to the Philippines.
The presumption is that Poe’s parents were nationals of the Philippines and that, therefore, Poe is a natural-born citizen. On the date of her return to the country, the SC ruled that she returned in May 2005 and not later, early enough for her to have resided in the country for at least 10 years prior to the May 9 elections.
After waiting with bated breath for this decision, this is what we get—a mish-mash of musings, imaginings and hallucinations that many media outlets did not even bother to quote.
Naturally, we had expected the SC’s decision to be meticulously reasoned, objective, framed by logic, based on facts, convincing in its cogency and forthrightness, that can teach us how to think straight. After all, we had been exposed to the debates on the issues in the last three months by eminent lawyers, political scientists and other authorities, and decisions made by the Senate Electoral Tribunal and the Comelec, not to mention the pleadings filed by the opposing lawyers themselves, all of them erudite and extremely enlightening. Surely, a court of the caliber of our SC can only produce decisions consistent with high-level legal scholarship.
But now this decision, it is everything we had not expected. Speak of subjective heart-rending images: “In sum, all of the international law conventions and instruments on the matter of nationality of foundlings were designed to address the plight of a defenseless class which suffers from a misfortune not of their [sic] own making.”
The SC could not resist mounting the pulpit: “We cannot be restrictive as to their application if we are a country which calls itself civilized and a member of the community of nations.” We do not know if this decision is responsive to President Aquino’s wish. Earlier, he had expressed a strong wish that the SC resolved the issues clearly and once and for all.
Already, the people questioning Poe’s qualifications have made it known that they will file motions for reconsideration. Though we suspect that those motions may well turn out to be quixotic, we hope, nonetheless, that their resolution contributes to a final settlement of the issues.
If the past is prologue, those motions will take time to resolve, leaving room for uncertainty in the minds of the electorate, giving rise to wrong choices of leaders for our country. That will not be good for our democracy. Election day is less than two months away. Let’s hope the legal processes are completed before too much time is lost.
Image credits: Jimbo Albano