WITH her formal departure at the Comelec this Wednesday, February 2, 2022, First Division chair, Comm. Rowena Guanzon, would be leaving a whole lot of a mess that would need the full attention of the poll body—and assistance from the Supreme Court—if it is to be fixed and the public’s trust, not only with the Comelec but also, in our rule of law, restored.
Anyone familiar to what happened last week now know that in her stubborn, nay emotional, effort to remove Sen. Bongbong Marcos from the presidential contest, Guanzon really went bonkers in breaching most of the rules of ethics that guide all lawyers in their profession and all of which make us respect the supremacy of the rule of law.
This, she did by prematurely revealing to the media her own “vote” to disqualify BBM—ahead of any decision of her division—on the (erroneous) premise that he is a “convict,” based on the decision of the Quezon City RTC involving his non-filing of his income tax return in the middle ‘80s.
That the Court of Appeals subsequently modified the RTC’s decision because the non-filing of an ITR is not actually a criminal offense necessitating imprisonment but merely a fine (which BBM paid) and that the CA ruling was upheld by the Supreme Court, were both neatly set aside by Guanzon in her biased campaign to disqualify BBM.
That Guanzon actively campaigned to impose her opinion on her two fellow commissioners at the First Division was attested to by Comm. Aimee Ferolino, in her letter to Comelec chair Shariff Abbas last January 28, 2022, a day after Guanzon went to the press to “sell” her minority/dissenting opinion in an effort to, first, garner public sympathy against BBM and second, pressure Ferolino and the other commissioner, Marlon Cascuejo, into going along with her by exposing BBM and them to trial by publicity.
And who would want to be pilloried publicly by the ‘Troll Armies’ of the opposition in social media along with their cohorts in the mainstream press?
But the issue, of course, despite efforts by some quarters to narrow this down to gathering sympathy for Guanzon and their dislike for BBM, goes far deeper and wider.
The real issue here is all about the integrity and credibility of the Comelec and the integrity of our rule of law and its processes.
When a poll commissioner went out of her way to prematurely disclosed her position, pressure others to adopt her own view and publicly accuse a “litigant” being heard in her own “court,” what kind of rule of law is that?
Are we going to see a repeat of that experience over and over again, the first when Pres. Ferdinand Marcos was illegally removed in 1986, the second when Pres. Erap was also illegally removed in 2001 and the third, when Chief Justice Renato Corona was also victimized by mob rule and trial by publicity in 2012?
Our institutions were supposed to have matured since then and we would like to believe that those running them have also since then become politically astute so that abuse of power using the tyranny of a convoluted and twisted interpretation of the law and made acceptable by public emotion would not be repeated. But have they?
Particularly for the Comelec, which from the start has always been burdened by a deficit in credibility, Guanzon’s actions and—defiant behavior up to now—needs to be immediately addressed if it is to restore its heavily-damaged public trust.
The same challenge goes too to the Supreme Court, which is both fast– and slow– in acting on incidents that erode our people’s faith in the sanctity of our law and judicial processes.
If it can act swiftly in imposing an ‘indefinite suspension’ against known BBM supporter and senatorial bet, Larry Gadon, over a social media incident where it received no formal complaint but only based on a press statement and not even by the offended private party at that, why can it not also act, motu propio, as in the case of Gadon, in the rantings of Guanzon where her violations of the Canon of Judicial Conduct and the anti-graft law are for everyone to see?
Are they just going to let the matter pass at the expense of the rule of law on the lame excuse that Guanzon is retiring from the Comelec anyway?
Of course, they can do so. But if they think that a discriminatory dispensing of justice—may tinitingnan at may tinititigan, as we say– would be good for the rule of law, they are wrong. Very, very wrong.
And so, we ask again: What are they going to do now?