There’s a twist in the continuing Marinduque drama involving elected
Rep. Regina O. Reyes and defeated candidate Lord Allan Velasco. While
the Supreme Court decided 5-4 to uphold an earlier resolution of the
Commission on Elections annulling the certificate of candidacy of Reyes
on the basis of a blog entry that she is an American, at least 161
members of the House of Representatives signed a resolution recognizing
the jurisdiction of the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal to
act as the sole judge of the qualification of Rep. Reyes to sit as a
member of the House.
Previously, the Supreme Court, in what Justice Arturo Brion described
as done with “undue haste to benefit one of us” (Lord Allan is the son
of Senior Associate Justice Presbiterio Velasco) affirmed the decision
of the Comelec despite the fact that during the pendency of the petition
for annulment, Rep. Reyes had already been proclaimed, sworn, and had
discharged her functions as a member of the House. The decision of the
Court, according to at least four dissenting justices, overturned a long
line of jurisprudence that upon proclamation, the HRET remains the sole
judge of all contests involving members of the House of
Representatives. Worse, as observed by Senior Justice Antonio Carpio,
the ruling in Reyes had the effect of amending the Constitution on when
the term of the members of Congress commence. For while the Constitution
specifies noon of June 30, the majority decision in Reyes said that
members of Congress do not commence their term until they have taken
their oath before either the Speaker of the House or the President of
the Senate. As observed by the dissenting opinions, this would mean that
members of Congress have no mandate from noon of June 30 until the day
of the State of the Nation address or the third Monday of July which is
when both houses of Congress organize and where the head of each chamber
administer the oath to its members.
Solita Monsod was right. This is a case where the Court by edict
declared a loser as the winner contrary to the mandate of the sovereign
people of Marinduque.
But two obstacles still stand in the way of the Velascos. First,
the son of the god erred in not impleading the House of Representatives
in the cases filed against Reyes. This means that while Velasco may have
won the support of his father’s peers, that decision is not binding on
the House. Moreover, the bigger challenge now is how the House can
recognize Velasco as one of its members when an overwhelming number of
its members have decided to ignore the ruling of the Court. They have
signified their decision to allow the HRET to decide the issue of Rep.
Reyes’ qualification to sit in the chamber.
This turn of events is unprecedented. Never before has there been an
instance when the Court intruded on an exclusive power of the House, and
never before has Congress rebuffed the Court in the manner that it has
just done so. As a believer in the view that law forms part of a
normative system and is not just the cold application of rules, one
cannot help but wonder whether the Court itself undermined its own
independence and effectiveness by ruling in the manner that it did in
Reyes v. Comelec. I am of the personal belief that the criticism
expressed by the dissenting justices has eroded the reputation and
integrity of the Court itself. It does not help that in the end, a mere
five justices out of 15 voted to favor the son of one of its own.
So are we now facing a constitutional crisis? I do not think so. The
fact that Velasco did not implead the House as a party to his cases made
this a certainty. But we do have a crisis at the moment. For while the
court is believed to be a co-equal branch because of its function to
uphold the supremacy of the Constitution, what happens when a co-equal
branch, applying a long line of jurisprudence set by the court itself,
interprets the Constitution in a manner contrary to that of the court?
Well, this is yet another instance of a political decision taking
precedence over jurisprudence of a court without a popular mandate. And
as former Chief Justice Renato Corona and Former Ombudsman Merceditas
Gutierrez learned in recent years, a political judgment often results in
a political decision to impeach even the gods for the sake of upholding
the Constitution.
May history repeat itself sooner rather than later!
Disclosure: I stood as counsel for Reyes in the afore-discussed case.
source: Manila Standard Column of Atty Harry Roque
