Section 4. The President and the Vice-President shall be elected by direct vote of the people for a term of six years which shall begin at noon on the thirtieth day of June next following the day of the election and shall end at noon of the same date, six years thereafter. The President shall not be eligible for any re-election. No person who has succeeded as President and has served as such for more than four years shall be qualified for election to the same office at any time.
-Sec. 4, Article VII, 1987 Philippine ConstitutionThis provision in our beloved Constitution is the most memorized provision at this time. We all know why. The debates were opened by Erap's decision to run for president in the 2010 elections. Jojo Binay is his running mate.
Actually there is no "actual" controversy yet, since there is yet no justiciable issue. In political law, a justiciable issue "implies a given right, legally demandable and enforceable, an act or omission violative of such right, and a remedy granted and sanctioned by law, for said breach of right."
Under the given facts of Erap's "announcing" his bid for president, there is only the need to wait until Erap files his candidacy. Anybody can now question the constitutionality of such act.
Now to the main talk of the town, can Erap really run in the 2010 elections?
IMHO, he cannot. The PRESIDENT cannot run for reelection. Clearly, what Erap is doing is reelection. Notwithstanding the fact that he did not finish his term, he has been duly elected in 2008 as president. That being the case, the constitutional bar applies. He was proclaimed president, he served as president, and he was president, thus he cannot run for reelection.
The point is very simple to make. The legal luminaries on Estrada's camp make the different twists to the one controversial sentence we all have memorized right now.
There is no need to go through the intricacies of a legal battle just to determine whether or not Erap is qualified to run for the presidency next year.
ReplyDeleteThe provision in our Constitution is clear, any elected president is barred from seeking re-election, although he may not finish his given term. The framers of our fundamental law has written that provision as a safeguard so that the Marcos regime will never be repeated again.
Erap can't invoke, lest use GMA's situation as a tool to seek re-election. There is no similarity between the two with respect to the presidency. GMA merely continued and finish the term vacated by Erap when he relinquished his post as the president, added to that was the fact that she only served less than 4 years. The prohibition applies to those who succeeded and served for more than 4 years.