Inventing provisos to permit Erap rerun

GOTCHA, Published in The Philippine Star, , Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Joseph Estrada is really pushing it. Not only is he insisting he can run again for President in 2010, but even has an exit scenario that would enable his successor to serve beyond six years. None of it gives due respect for the constitutional ban on presidential reelection.

Erap’s plan, announced by spokesman Rep. Rufus Rodriguez, is to seek a new mandate in the next presidential election. Never mind that the Charter states in Article VII, Sec. 4 that “the President shall not be eligible for reelection.” What matters is his aim to serve only half the term, or three years. That’s so he can sit out the interrupted portion of a 1998-2004 tenure, when he was ousted in 2000. His victorious running mate — either of oppositionists Manny Villar, Mar Roxas, Ping Lacson or Loren Legarda — would then serve the last three years. This would give the successor superb chances to win a full six-year term thereafter.

Rodriguez banks on his being a former law dean in insisting on the scenario’s doubtful legality. Erap, he says, is only following the route of Gloria Arroyo to a nine-year term, first from 2001 to 2004, then from 2004 to 2010. But he does not explain the constitutional processes that made it possible, and why Erap’s plan shamelessly exploits a loophole.

Then-Vice President Arroyo had succeeded Erap in 2001 under a clear Charter provision. Art. VII, Sec. 8 states: “In case of death, permanent disability, removal from office or resignation of the President, the Vice President shall become the President to serve the unexpired term.” As the Supreme Court ruled, Erap had abdicated on Jan. 21, 2001 and so paved the way for the constitutional succession. Arroyo ascended to finish the rest of Erap’s term. But then another Charter provision came into play. Sec. 4 adds: “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.” Arroyo inherited only three-and-a-half years of Erap’s term. That enabled her to run in 2004 for a full term, although the victory is clouded by doubt raised by the Hello Garci tapes and other frauds.

Rodriguez claims that a President who does not finish his term, like Erap, can run again. “The keyword here is ‘reelection’, which is to bar an incumbent official,” he points to Sec. 4. “The idea is to keep a sitting official from using the resources of his office to seek another term.”

Well, if that is so — to stop a sitting President from using vast powers and resources to win — then why is Erap pushing his shady scenario? Why go against what he knows to be the intent of the Constitution after all? Has he not learned enough from recent history? Is he content that there is yet no closure to that P780-million fertilizer scam during the 2004 election because Arroyo had thwarted congressional inquiries?

Perhaps it’s asking too much of Erap to take stock of what ruins the country. Not only did his patronage politics mar the government, he also benefited from the same brand of politics of his successor. As the anti-graft court concluded in convicting him for plunder in September, Erap raided the coffers of the SSS and GSIS employee pension funds and took payolas from vice lords. He was never punished. Luxuriating in a hospital suite or his private rest house while on trial, he never spent a day in jail for the no-bail heinous crime. When convicted, he never went to prison, because pardoned within three weeks by Arroyo who was aiming to placate his supporters. Pampering does not make a person rethink his evil ways, but eggs him onto viler pursuits.

To this day Erap has yet to fulfill the court order to return P3.2 billion proven to have been stashed for a time in an alias bank account. Yet he is already planning a rerun, as if so sure that the court will never be able to enforce its verdict. He would need billions of pesos for a presidential run. Is that why he continues to keep the loot?

The release granted Erap by Arroyo bars him from running again, Malacañang says. And yet he insists it is an absolute pardon, therefore all his civil rights were restored, which is why he was able to vote in the last barangay election. He is correct in saying that if he can vote, then he can also be voted upon, but what if someone proves he broke the pardon condition by voting in Oct. in the first place? The release could be revoked; he might be committed to prison, barring him from teaching voters to look for loopholes in the law.

Then again, will the admin do that, when it is itself busy looking for loopholes to push various shady deals?