Constitution and conscience

Butch Bagabuyo

“A constitution should be short and obscure.” – Napoleon Bonaparte

A CENTURY ago today, the late Vice President Emmanuel N. Pelaez, fondly praised as “the best president the Philippines never had,” saw the first light of day in our paradise-like islands of Mindanao-Sulu-Palawan-Tawi-Tawi. And 152 years earlier this day, Andres Bonifacio, the freedom fighter, was also born in Tondo, Metro Manila. These two leaders, while coming from different demographics, education and ways of life, were nationalists and adherents to constitutional supremacy and truth; and both greatly influenced our simplistic way of life, fortified by the conviction that happiness is not found in gold and more of it but in sharing with those who have less in life whatever little blessings the Almighty have generously showered us with.

However, because the Jesuits coupled with my hardly schooled but well-educated parents instilled in me the truism Veritas Liberabit Vos, I missed the chance to invest early in life our God-given brain in the opening of doors and windows leading to the ways and means helping improve the lives of those who have less in life.

So the poor succumb to the culture of gambling spawned by lotto, laziness and easy money, criminality and prohibited drugs propagated by the filthy rich and the trapos. Consequently, millions of the poor became poorer day by day and ever dependent on donations rather than toil, hard work and saving whatever little is left out of my newly found “hand-to-mouth-generosity.” Truly, the most generous people are the needy.

Indeed, miracles still happen today. And before we knew it, feisty Davao Mayor Duterte miraculously changed his mind because, contrary to what his critics say, he believes that our Constitution is the supreme law of the land, hence, citizenship must be in full accord with our 1987 Constitution.

Citizenship is so vital to a country’s sovereignty and posterity. It should never be left to depend on a presumption but must be founded on a clear and unequivocal letter and spirit of the 1987 Constitution, Article IV, Section 2 (1): natural-born Filipinos. And the best way to ensure that our next president is a natural-born Filipino and not merely a presumed Filipino, our man, “Super Digong” Duterte sacrificed his personal objections against the presidency and acceded to the prayers of the teeming millions of Mindanaoans and other Filipinos from all walks of life other than the filthy rich and the propagators of the culture of gambling spawned by debilitating greed, drug lords and queens, and heinous assassins of the brave SAF 44 and innocent civilians as well as our present-day heroes known all over the world as the hard-working and family-loving OFWs.

Undoubtedly, the nation can expect a great exodus of “senatoriables,” congressional aspirants and local official wannabes thereby creating an unmistakable sign of the impending knockout defeat of the other “presidentiables.”

Similarly, the PDP-Laban’s legal luminaries should expect all sorts of blitzkrieg, juggernaut and dirty tricks to be launched by the nauseating natuwad nga dalan of the Liberal Party and the UNA (sa pangurakot) of VP Binay. And may I respectfully ask everybody to forget about Hyatt 10’s back-up candidate because our Constitution has no provision on foundlings.

Further, after hearing the oral arguments at the Comelec, I humbly submit the presidential ambition of self-confessed foundling, Sen. Grace Poe-Llamanzares, would end based on the prevailing disqualification case of the Maquiling vs. Comelec, et al., G.R. No. 195649, 16 April 2013.  In that case, the Supreme Court in part ruled:  “To hold that such proclamation and assumption to office are valid is to negate the prohibitory character of the disqualification which Arnado possessed even prior to the filing of his certificate of candidacy. The affirmation of Arnado’s disqualification, although made long after the elections, reaches back to the filing of the certificate of candidacy. Arnado is declared to be not a candidate at all in the May 2010 elections.

“With Arnado being barred from even becoming a candidate, his certificate of candidacy is thus rendered void from the beginning. It could not have produced any other legal effect except that Arnado rendered it impossible to effect his disqualification prior to the elections because he filed his answer to the petition when the elections were conducted already and he was already proclaimed the winner.”

The foregoing matter is not without established precedence in the Jalosjos Jr. and Cardino Case, G.R. No. 19323/193536. In that case, the Comelec allowed Arnado, a mayoral candidate in the municipality of Kauswagan, Lanao del Norte, to run. And after all the votes were counted he was proclaimed winner and consequently took his oath of office. However, in the Quo Warranto case, the losing mayoral candidate, Maquiling, was able to establish, among others, that after Arnado (a dual citizen) was repatriated and regained his Filipino citizenship, he still used his US passport in his travel out of the country.

Consequently, the Supreme Court declared Arnado lacked the residency requirement. Subsequently, his proclamation and assumption to office was voided and the losing mayoral candidate, Maquiling who placed second, was declared the winner in that elections because even as he was only the second placer, he was the winner among all the qualified candidates.

Would you gamble your vote on a self-confessed candidate to be foundling when no such person is included in our Constitution as a natural-born Filipino?

Duterte pa more.

Tsada, di ba?

• •

“The greatest tormentor of the human soul is a guilty conscience.” – Dr. Roy Z. Zuck

Because many litigation election attorneys are convinced that the lawyers of dismissed transition Mayor Oscar Moreno committed what the Plazans call as a “wrong mistake,” a barrage of legal maneuvers will be resorted to (if not yet done) by Vice Mayor Ian Acenas who claimed to have been sworn in as mayor (under the Local Government Code, dismissal created a permanent vacancy in the Office of the City Mayor) rather than an acting mayor. Necessarily, a disqualification case, contempt and various criminal cases will be filed, haunting dismissed, hambuguero and transition Mayor Moreno and his legal team in the coming months even after the May 9, 2016 elections.

With such cases against hambuguero Oca Moreno, chances are all the other candidates in his ticket would willingly jump overboard, if only for survival. If rats would not even stay a minute longer in a sinking ship, how much more for candidates whose only concern is to win at all cost?

The intriguing query now going the rounds is, if the Padayon Pilipino candidates in the 2013 elections freely abandoned their touted “Alas” for their own survival after robust Rufus and his brother Congressman Maxie campaigned openly in the last 10 days against their mayoral candidate, what more now when the Liberal Party’s captain has already been dismissed by the Ombudsman?