A ‘rest break’ for politicians from term limits
Credit to Author: YEN MAKABENTA| Date: Fri, 17 May 2019 18:16:12 +0000
First word
I HAVE checked the Constitution from end to end, but nowhere could I find the words “hiatus” and “rest break.” Can the supreme and fundamental law of the land be interpreted in a way that it will imply ideas that it never mentioned?
The point has great importance because it was by introducing the idea of a “hiatus” and “rest break” into their respective interpretations of the constitutional term limits for senators that the Commission on Elections and the Supreme Court have sanctioned again and again the patently illegal bids of termed-out senators, to return to the Senate.
I have received many letters and comments concerning my column on the Senate election (“With a court challenge, the Senate tally will change dramatically,” Manila Times, May 16, 2019).
Some have expressed agreement and support for my views, others say that the issue is now moot because the election is over, and some have provided vital new information that impels me all the more to pursue the matter until the issue is heard and resolved by the Supreme Court.
In particular, I call attention to two highly revealing letters:
1. Lawyer Vladimir Alarique Cabigao shared with me the story of two disqualification cases he filed against Senators Franklin Drilon and Sergio Osmeña 3rd in 2010, on the ground that they were ineligible to run in the 2010 elections, both of them having already completed two terms in the Senate. I discuss Cabigao’s suit below.
2. Reader Jose Espiritu wrote me to share his discovery that, after consulting Wikipedia’s list of senators of the Philippines, he found that a lot of Filipino senators, incumbent as well as deceased, have violated the term limits provision of the Constitution.
He enumerated the senators one by one.
Senate president Vicente Sotto 3rd and Senate minority leader Franklin Drilon are serving their fourth terms in the chamber.
Fourth terms? If this is not a violation of the Constitution, what do we have a Commission on Elections for?
Letter and spirit of the law
We were taught in school and we taught our children to honor and obey the letter and spirit of the law. What we face in this term-limit controversy is an appalling instance of the letter and spirit of the Constitution being trampled on with complete abandon.
This is all the more a pity because I believe the 1986 Constitutional Commission accomplished something fine and effective in writing our 1987 Constitution.
There was symmetry and wisdom in the decision of the Concom to prescribe term limits for all elected public officials, from the president, to the Congress, down to local government officials.
It set emphatically:
1. One six year-term for the president, no reelection
2. Two six-year terms for senators, no third term
3. Three three-year terms for representatives, no fourth term
4. Later, the Congress, in passing the Local Government Code, set a term limit for local government officials (from governor to mayor down to councilor) of three three-year terms.
The entire institutional design made sense, and was worthy of strict observance.
We Filipinos have embedded in our fundamental law the principle of term limits. We have succeeded at this vital reform where Americans have been vainly trying up to now to introduce term limits in their Charter though a constitutional amendment.
The letter of our Constitution says in Article VI, Section 4: “No senator shall serve for more than two consecutive terms.” That means, after two terms, no more.
The spirit of the Constitution in this provision is to declare an emphatic end to an individual’s time of service in a particular office. The idea is for him to make way for succession and to give way to others. The termed-out official is not prohibited from seeking election to other offices; he is barred only from seeking the same office which he has already served for 12 years at great cost to the public treasury.
The entire letter and spirit of the Constitution is to set strict term limits for elected public officials.
The president, the highest official of the land is not eligible for reelection. He or she leaves office permanently after completing his or her six-year term. The limit has been honored without fail.
Is there a way to interpret the letter and spirit of the Constitution so that the term limits do not apply depending on the individual public official? Are there exceptions and qualifications to the limits set?
No there are none.
The Comelec and the Supreme Court violated the Constitution when they attempted together to stretch the provision to suggest something contrary to its letter and spirit.
This in fact is what has happened and has been happening in election after election in our country.
Cabigao disqualification suit
Much of this has come to my attention because of the precedent-setting effort by one lawyer to have two termed-out senators barred in the 2010 elections.
Vladimir Alerique Cabigao filed disqualification cases against Senators Franklin Drilon and Sergio Osmeña 3rd in 2010 on the ground that the Constitution expressly barred them from running.
Cabigao contended: “The Constitution is very exclusive, no senator shall serve for more than two consecutive terms and if there is a hiatus, people expect that the hiatus would be equal to one term of a senator. How long is one term? Six years.”
Osmeña haughtily contended: “Maybe they don’t really read the Constitution because it’s written in the Constitution that no senator shall serve two consecutive terms, that’s all, it didn’t indicate how long the rest or hiatus should be before he can run again.” But there is no mention of rest or hiatus at all, where did this come from?
Drilon, for his part, dismissed the disqualification case as a “nuisance suit,” saying it is only a move by the administration then to destroy the opposition. He said: “This petition is not anchored on the provisions of the law; it is anchored on a political vendetta being waged by the Arroyo administration against the opposition.”
Cabigao’s suit was dismissed.
Drilon is still hanging on to his fourth term.
Hiatus and rest period
Remarkably, the Comelec and the Supreme Court joined together in emasculating the term-limits provision.
Together, they came up with the absurd theory of a “hiatus” and a “rest period,” as a way for politicians to circumvent the limits set by the Constitution.
After the SC issued Socrates v. Comelec, as penned by Justice Antonio Carpio, there has been chaos and confusion in the term limits system set by the Constitution.
Socrates v. Comelec
Term limits were thrown out of kilter by the Socrates v. Comelec ruling of the high court. In 2002, then Puerto Princesa Mayor Dennis Socrates was ousted, paving the way for special polls. And despite having served for three consecutive terms before Socrates, incumbent Puerto Princesa Mayor Edward Hagedorn was allowed by the SC to run for the position again, saying the mayor’s less than a year hiatus excluded him from the rule.
The high court gratuitously said the ruling also applied to senators. “A senator can run after only three years following his completion of two terms…the prohibited election refers only to the immediate reelection, and not to any subsequent election, during the six-year period following the two-term limit.”
This statement on senatorial term limits is a disaster. It is not mitigated by the pretense of consulting the discussions in the Concom.
The theory of a “hiatus” and a “rest period” to enable politicians to circumvent the term limits set by the Constitution, is absurd.
I ask Justice Antonio Carpio, is a termed-out president eligible to run for president again after he or she has spent a decent time for hiatus and rest?
If the answer is yes, what will happen now to the entire term-limit principle embodied by the Constitution?
I submit that the issue needs to be revisited by the high court.
Absent a new SC ruling, our constitutional order will be infirm.
yenmakabenta@yahoo.com
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