COLUMN: OPINION ON PAGE ONE- Koko can’t run a third time – By Francisco S. Tatad

 

OPINION ON PAGE ONE

“IF anything can go wrong it will,” says Murphy’s law.

“Just when you think it can’t get any worse, it does,” says another (yet nameless) law.

So, President Duterte lost his clueless spokesman Harry Roque only to replace him with Salvador Panelo.

He fired his foreign secretary Alan Peter Cayetano for yet unexplained reasons and named Ambassador Teodoro Locsin Jr. as his foreign secretary-designate. Many would like to give Teddyboy the benefit of the doubt, but DU30 has kept Philippine diplomacy without a clear direction and in limbo.

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Communist ex-priest and National Democratic Front vice chairman Leoncio Evasco Jr. gave up his all-powerful post as “Cabinet secretary” in order to run for provincial governor of Bohol, but left the Office of the President and the various executive agencies under him on virtual “auto-pilot,” without a competent Officer-in-Charge. Evasco’s audacious plan to turn the country into a Chinese-type communist state has receded into a middling effort to pick up a few elective seats under Davao city mayor Sara DU30-Carpio’s Hugpong ng Pagbabago.

Feuding dynasties

Political dynasties used to agree, on behalf of their entire clan, whom to field for any particular office in a particular election. They also tried to limit the number of family members who will run for office at the same time. Neither of these is true any longer.

In this May 2019 election, former mayor Junjun Binay will be running against his sister, the incumbent Mayor Abigail Binay-Campos, for the mayorship of Makati.

In San Juan, former senator Jinggoy Estrada, who is out on bail on charges related to the alleged misuse of public funds, and his half-brother, the incumbent Sen. J. V. Ejercito, will be running together, at the same time, and effectively against each other.

Former Vice Pesident Jojo Binay, who is running for Congress, has failed to convince either of his two children to give way to the other. Since they are both mature individuals, the patriarch has decided to leave the matter solely in their own hands. Ultimately, it is the voters of Makati who will decide, but the clan will certainly have to bear some wounds.

This is the same situation of former president and now Mayor Joseph Ejercito Estrada of Manila with respect to his two sons. The voters will ultimately have to decide whether the two brothers should be allowed to sit together in the Senate at the same time. There are at least 20 million other Filipino families that do not have a single member sitting as senator. But not all may be aware that Jinggoy Estrada and J.V. Ejercito are brothers.

In Taguig, former senator and incumbent congresswoman Pia Cayetano will be running for the Senate, while her brother, the former foreign secretary Alan Peter, will be running again for a seat in the House, together with his wife Mayor Lani Cayetano, who will be running for the other congressional seat, and another brother Lino, the movie director, runs for  mayor. The family will exercise an omnibus claim on all of the city’s major elective positions.

In Davao, where the President comes from, presidential daughter Mayor Sara DU30-Carpio will be running for reelection, while her brother Paulo runs for Congress, and younger brother Sebastian runs for vice mayor.

No law prohibits what these political clans are doing. If these clans are successful, many others will want to emulate them later. We may well have to stop talking about the constitutional ban on political dynasties, and the need to enact an implementing legislation.

In a candid editorial last week (Oct. 19, 2018), The Manila Times pointed out that thanks to our scandalous electoral system, we have succeeded in putting entire families on the government payroll. We’ve been electing politicians who “feed at the public trough” without providing any service whatsoever, the editorial said. We stand a good chance of adding more to this in this coming election. Just look at the list of those who are running.

Until the last day of filing of certificates of candidacy (October17), all sorts of people had been urging me to run. I was not even prepared to consider the possibility of voting in the election. After two consecutive terms, I was termed out of the Senate in 2001, and I had two disastrous runs in 2004, when my votes were vaporized with those of my presidential candidate Fernando Poe Jr. and in 2010, when our first automated presidential elections produced what many considered a de facto government.

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A place for seniors

I had not given anyone any reason to consider me a potential candidate for anything. But they kept on coming. Their prodding intensified after former senator Juan Ponce Enrile filed his CoC  at the age of 94. JPE is a year older than Mahathir Mohamad, who just made a comeback as Malaysian prime minister.  JPE’s run seemed to surprise many, forgetting that the old Roman Senate was made up of seniors—senior in age, senior in intellect, senior in dignity—who shared their wisdom with the Empire. What should surprise us is when young and inexperienced politicians volunteer themselves for the Senate on the basis of sheer ambition, unexplained wealth and ability to buy popularity surveys and the election.

It should never surprise anyone when a mature statesman steps up to the plate at a time of extreme need or crisis. Mahathir’s example truly inspires, but the more inspiring model is not a 93-year-old youngster like him, but the biblical Noah, who started building his Ark when he was well past 500 years. Age should always be considered an asset especially when it guarantees wisdom; it should be seen as a liability only when it denotes senility, Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s.

At the Senate’s 102nd anniversary celebration on October 10, a number of former senators joined some sitting senators at a Manila Hotel dinner hosted by Senate President Vicente Sotto 3rd. It was good to see former colleagues—former president Joseph and Mrs. Loi Estrada (who were both senators), Aquilino Pimentel, Jr., Noli de Castro, Eddie Ilarde, Victor Ziga, Pong Biazon, Orly Mercado, Joey Lina, Heherson Alvarez, Robert Jaworski, Freddie Webb and Nikki Coseteng. All looked well preserved.

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A lineup of old timers

After speaking briefly with Sen. Manny Pacquiao, the world boxing champion, who seems to have recently taken up basketball, and the younger incumbents like Nancy Binay, Bam Aquino, Joel Villanueva and Win Gatchalian, I raised the possibility of forming a 2019 senatorial lineup composed of former senators, without including myself. I would thought it would make a powerful statement, like the time when a group of illustrious citizens decided to run for the Quezon city council, in the name of “good government.”

There were no takers. So JPE, Jinggoy Estrada, Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr., Sergio Osmeña 3rd, Lito Lapid and the unsuccessful presidential candidate Manuel “Mr” Roxas are the only former senators running in this campaign. I cannot foresee a fiery senatorial campaign. No one is likely to hound JPE, Jinggoy and Bong Revilla with accusations related to Janet Napoles, nobody is going to ask Lapid whether he will need someone to translate proceedings in the English into Filipino or Pampangan, for his convenience, and nobody will probably ask Mar Roxas about the many controversial deals negotiated under him when he was secretary of transport and communication or secretary of local government.

But I cannot predict that no one will ask for the disqualification of former Senate president Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel 4th on constitutional grounds. Koko was the first one to file his CoC among the 152 filers, and last week he married the lovely and highly accomplished Miss Kathryna Yu, a graduate of the University of Asia and the Pacific, at the Coconut Palace, after a failed first marriage to a former beauty queen. He deserves a suitable wedding present from his friends. But he could get this instead.

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Absolutely no third term

Under the Constitution, “No senator shall serve for more than two consecutive terms. Voluntary renunciation of the office for any length of time shall not be considered as an interruption in the continuity of his service for the full term for which he was elected.” By June 30, 2019, Koko will have served two terms. He can no longer seek another term. His apparent excuse in seeking a third term is that he started serving his first term four years after the 2007 senatorial winners began serving. This was because the Commission on Elections had declared Juan Miguel “Migz” Zubiri the 12th winning senator, and Pimentel the 13th, so he said he was cheated and had to contest Zubiri’s election.

Zubiri was forced to resign in 2011, and Pimentel served the unexpired portion of the six-year term until he was reelected in 2013. In a number of cases, an electoral protest is decided on the last day or a few days before the term expires. The protestant never gets to sit long enough, but he is credited with having won and served the full term. This is what happened to Pimentel. Therefore, he cannot argue that he can run again because he did not serve the full six years of his first term. Were he allowed to run again, he would be serving more than the 12 years total of two consecutive terms, if he should win.

This much is clear to me, a mere layman; it should be even much clearer to someone who once topped the Philippine bar exams. Koko’s third Senate run is null and void ab initio, to use Solicitor General’ Calida’s operative phrase. All he has to do is to read the law. In “Reading Law: An Interpretation of Legal Texts,” the late Justice Antonin Scalia of the US Supreme Court and his co-author Bryan A. Garner point out that “the words of a governing text are of paramount concern, and what they convey, in their context, is what the text means.” “Do not depart from the words of the law,” they write, quoting Justinian’s Digest.

I would like to see Koko live a happily married life, and I can think of no more suitable wedding present for him than to encourage him to follow the words of the Constitution, cancel his CoC, and go on an extended honeymoon and try to have as many sons and daughters as the sand on the shore.

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