AMID questions about the President’s health because of the scarcity of his public appearances, his chief legal counsel Salvador Panelo expressed his desire for the President to run as Vice President to his daughter Davao Mayor Sara Duterte in 2022.
According to Panelo, the opposition will not stand a chance against a Duterte-Duterte tandem in the next national elections. He referred to a similar situation in Davao City when Duterte served as the vice mayor when his daughter was the mayor from 2010 to 2013.
“When the two teamed up, nobody dared to challenge them. Why? They won’t stand a chance,” he was quoted as announcing in his television program at PTV4.
The Palace has since distanced itself from Panelo’s declaration. “That’s the personal opinion of Secretary Panelo and we respect his opinion,” Roque said in a Palace press briefing.
It would appear that the tandem was floated more for its shock value than as a real attempt to jumpstart a campaign that would duplicate in a national scale the untarnished success of the father-daughter team that has never been credibly opposed in Davao City.
After all, another six years in a national position seems to be a tall order for the President who is now in his mid-70s.
And if true, being Vice President in 2022 would make the President the immediate constitutional successor to his daughter in the event of the latter’s death, incapacity, resignation, etc.
Is there any valid legal objection to such an eventuality?
The Constitution provides that the President shall not be eligible for “any” reelection. 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.”
As an aside, Joseph Estrada ran for President in 2010 and placed second after a surprisingly strong showing at the polls. This was the second time he ran for the presidency after his forced resignation in 2001.
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, then the Vice President, succeeded and served out the less than four years that were left of Estrada’s term. She was therefore eligible to run for President and, as we know, eventually won the position in 2004.
Estrada was allowed to run in 2010 in the face of a petition to disqualify him on account of the constitutional prohibition that we quoted. It was dismissed for mootness because he lost the election to Noynoy Aquino. The Supreme Court refused to rule on the merits of the petition.
While it was tempting to rule on the issue, the Supreme Court exercised judicial restraint because the petition had already been mooted by subsequent events. It eschewed “the allure of making a grand pronouncement that, in the end, will amount to nothing but a non-binding opinion.”
Will President Duterte’s election as vice president (and therefore presidential successor) in effect circumvent the rule against reelection at any time? In case they both win, can his daughter resign and relinquish the presidency to the constitutional successor?
We know these events are far-fetched, but they can happen. The plain meaning of the Constitution prohibits reelection, not election to a position other than the presidency. And we surmise that such an election would not be constitutionally infirm.
President GMA was elected Pampanga representative after her presidency. She eventually became speaker of the House of Representatives, and therefore at one time had a line to the presidential succession.
What the electorate must hold dear, however, is the design of the Constitution to democratize political positions by affording opportunities for public service to people outside of the established dynasties. That was the rationale behind term limits.
Sadly, the anti-dynasty provisions of the 1987 Constitution have yet to bear fruit, more than three decades after it was overwhelmingly ratified by the people./PN
