THREE days after the Supreme Court (SC) decided on March 8 that Grace Poe can run for president, it released the text that explained how and why it reversed Comelec’s cancellation of her certificate of candidacy.
Critics have found reason to carp on the ruling, seizing a reported “split” within the majority of nine who voted for Poe on whether the question on citizenship should be put to a vote.
Initial reactions of lawyers for petitioners spoke of doom: a “recipe for chaos,” breakdown of the rule of law, a “dangerous precedent.”
Did the heavens fall? Maybe to those whose political careers depended on Poe dropping out.
But doomsayers’ fear of a horrendous political crisis rests on a flawed premise: that it was a deliberate and indefensible wrongdoing, which would enrage people and send them out to the streets.
Even if the SC decided badly, it was not one that it couldn’t correct in the future or couldn’t make without wrecking the institution.
Framers did not write the Constitution to make the tribunal incapable of error. It is infallible only, lawyers learned in law school, because it is final, not because it is infallible.
However disturbing the anti-Poe argument that the decision doesn’t assure 100 percent she’s a natural-born Filipino, the tribunal has taken the chance that she is indeed one and not a foreign bastard.
Full debate
Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno is apparently annoyed over the noise about the SC ruling. But so far, the SC has not tried to curb a full debate on the issue.
Changes in SC membership and evidence of the ruling’s fault or folly might lead to its revision.
The tribunal eventually junked the Aguinaldo doctrine, once a refuge of erring public officials.
Critics of the Poe decision will try to beat it to death in public forums--even as they wait and hope for a change of numbers and mood in the tribunal.
[paseares@gmail.com]