E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
Another disqualification case coming
Sunday, 03 28, 2004
It all started very inconspicuously. A group of young lawyers, calling themselves pro-Con – meaning “Adherents of Constitutionalism; Advocates of the Rule of Law” – charged the sitting President having logged 189 minutes of televisions advertisement, well above the legally allowable limit of 120 minutes.
Arroyo’s action in this case is indeed not at all glorious, and is a strong ground for disqualification, as any right-thinking lawyer would readily conclude.
Against the clear evidence that the pro-Con is ready to spring on the violator, how then defend the violation? Easy. Adopt the puffed-up advice of a legislator who thinks he can think bigger than his big frame: That the 120 minutes allotted to the candidate can be complemented by the 120 minutes of the political parties supporting her, per television station. While that may sound logical at the first instance, its absurdity is exposed in the face of simple calculations using all television and radio stations throughout the country. Imagine a candidate being given a mind-boggling 105,840 minutes, or a total of 1,764 hours of radio station; and 15,960 minutes, or 266 hours of television time! At a cost of P250,000 per minute on the average for television time, for instance. Only Arroyo would have the wherewithal to bankroll that much of airtime. We might as well throw the Fair Elections Act out the window and adopt, say, an Election Expenditure Spree Law.
But Arroyo would not follow that kind of defense lined up for her. In her haste – read: hubris, meaning, damn the public, I won’t get caught anyway – Arroyo committed the monumental blunder that the guilty are wont to display: Admission against interest, as lawyer Patrick Velez of pro-Con would say. Let us read what Arroyo stated in her answer to the charge of overstepping the television time limit:
“4. Respondent denies the statements…of the petition insofar as television political advertisements stated therein were made for and on behalf of respondent. While the political advertisements show the respondent, they are not solely credited to her. The 188 minutes from Jan. 5 to March 19, 2004, is allocated between respondent and Lakas-CMD, the payor of the ads. The total minutes for Lakas-CMD and respondent appointed in six television stations… Based on the foregoing, the rule on 120 television minutes per…station was not violated. Even if under the rule of 120 total television minutes, no violation may be attributed to respondent since the 188 minutes may be equally apportioned between respondent and Lakas-CMD.”
The pro-Con petition fixed the time frame of the violation: From Feb. 14 to March 11, consisting of 189 minutes. Hard-pressed to approximate the minutes monitored by pro-Con, and in an attempt to dismiss the details of the monitoring report of the pro-Con as the job of mere amateurs, Arroyo countered that the time frame is from Jan. 5 up to March 19. Now here’s the rub: Jan. 5 happens to be the last day for the filing of the certificates of candidacy, and this is when the monumental blunder started to take shape. Arroyo probably thought that since she was already a candidate, she could start campaigning. Arroyo herself admits (what we all know) that starting Jan. 5 she was already airing her television ads. What carelessness, what outright stupidity! The campaign period was yet to set in on Feb. 10, and she was on Jan. 5, 35 days too early with her ads. It is therefore clear that Arroyo violated Section 80 of the Omnibus Election Code (OEC) against premature campaigning.
The television ads aired between Jan. 5 and Feb. 9 had Arroyo being glorified for her pseudo-achievements in the areas of patubig, pakalsada, pabahay, palupa, pabigas, pagamot, pabyahe, pa-ambulansya, pasugal, atbp.. All from government resources, mind you. Aside from those on TV, the costs of spots in radio, and ads in print media – all bearing the same glorifications – are already so astronomical that they belong to the realm of plunder.
Arroyo also is not a mindful of Section 32 of Comelec Resolution 6520, which took effect on Jan. 6. The plain language is very clear for a doctor of economics to understand: “All propaganda materials…showing the picture, image or name of a person, and all advertisement showing the image or mentioning the name of a person, who subsequent to the placement or display thereof becomes a candidate for public office shall be immediately removed by said candidate…” It is not an innocuous provision really. In the indecent haste and frenzy of her premature campaigning, and the sheer volume of the offers made by fawning bureaucrats to glorify her, Arroyo failed to order a stop to the airing of her television ads. or for those blue and yellow billboards posted nationwide, those PhilHealth cards and streamers, those PCSO, GSIS, Pagcor, DA, PAG-IBIG, DPWH, DoT, ad nauseam ads to be torn down or stopped from being printed.
Like they say, when you sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind. Now Arroyo had better be prepared for another forceful blast from pro-Con as a consequence of her admission against her interest. Another disqualification case cannot be far behind.
It seems that the idealistic young lawyers of pro-Con have taken to heart the challenge of Comelec Chairman Abalos for everyone to monitor the candidates observance or violation of election laws. As a consequence of pro-Con’s trailblazing disqualification case against Arroyo, many others, I understand, have been emboldened to file other petitions, such as the one on the use of the road user’s tax.
To the detriment of the other candidates who are unable to equal her humongous money was chest for the campaign, Arroyo has not only blatantly skewed but also arrogantly manufactured her own version of the OEC, thus rendering the field of media exposure all too much in her favor. She cannot be allowed to juggle with the intent, much less the clear wordings, of the law. She must suffer the consequences of her outright and despicable violation. Her mockery of the laws and their laudable purposes must be weighed on the stern, impartial and unforgiving scales of justice.
At this point, the intervention of the Koalisyon ng Nagkakaisang Pilipino (KNP) in the disqualification case initiated by pro-Con is understandable. KNP has a legal interest in the outcome of the case. Besides KNP has its own evidence against Arroyo, which complement those that pro-Con has so far disclosed.
Let us see how Abalos, et al. will perform. I am willing to bet they will, in the face of the incontrovertible evidence, find it impossible to decide against the petition of pro-Con.
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