More of the same old mode

“And why has the Court given the parties 20 days to comment, when five days each would have been more than sufficient time for the lawyers to provide their clients their comments?

Once again, the Supreme Court (SC) deferred its ruling on the three-year-old electoral protest lodged by Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos against Vice President Leni Robredo.

Instead, the High Court ruled on the issue of dismissing or proceeding with the Marcos protest, which translates to a month of waiting for both the protestant and the protestee. The decision of the majority of justices — nine of them — voted for the protest to proceed.

What the Court ruled was for its majority to release to the parties the report on the recount from the test provinces picked by Marcos, with the parties given 20 days to comment on the report, which was earlier recommended for dismissal by Associate Justice Benjamin Caguioa, but which was thumbed down by all the justices, save two: Senior Justice Antonio Carpio and Caguioa.

The two justices dissented from the majority, believing that Marcos’ protest should already be dismissed.

The court also ordered both camps to comment within 20 days on Marcos’ petition to annul the vice-presidential election results in Lanao del Sur, Basilan and Maguindanao provinces for alleged irregularities.

Robredo and Marcos were told to respond to “various issues relating to the jurisdiction and other matters” if the court were to grant Marcos’ petition to set aside the results in the three provinces.

All reports apparently had the same source, saying that Marcos had failed to make substantial recovery in the three pilot provinces he chose for the manual recount in connection with his poll protest.

At the same time however, SC spokesman Brian Hosaka clarified that the report for release to the parties is different from the report submitted by Caguioa, which means that his report then goes against the SC released report.

That’s surprising and could mean a lot of other things, perhaps the Caguioa report failed to take into account the water-logged ballots found and the shaded ballots, which may have gone against the SC ruling.

But perhaps that would be an argument to be given to the Court by the lawyers at the appointment date it set if such becomes an issue.

Still, it would be a case of waiting for 20 days or more since the SC will be taking time to make the decision — if it ever does before expected time.

So, why make the two camps wait longer? Marcos’ lawyer hoped for simultaneous deliberations on the two remaining causes of action in Marcos’s electoral protest against Robredo, saying that the current process is taking too long.

Leni and her lawyer want the majority decision scrapped as they vowed to block the latest Court decision, insisting that the petition of Marcos on the new provinces should be junked.

The non-decision was again clearly a cop-out by the High Court, which makes one suspect that the Court is back to its old ways — merely waiting for more time until the term of the protestee, in this case, Robredo, comes to an end, after which, the SC, acting in its capacity as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal then declares the protest “moot.”

And why has the Court given the parties 20 days to comment, when five days each would have been more than sufficient time for the lawyers to provide their clients their comments?

This again brings in more doubts over the delay, especially as the 20 days given to the parties to comment will leave the SC with two more retirees: Chief Justice Lucas Bersamin and Justice Carpio, who are retiring this month.

Moreover, the High Court is slated to go on a decision-writing period starting 21 October and will resume deliberations on 4 November.

The two retirees, Bersamin and Carpio, would already be out by then, unless, of course, an early opinion — dissenting or concurring — would have been submitted by the two justices just days before their retirement dates.

The Judicial and Bar Council has come up with a shortlist of three to four justices applying for chief justice to succeed outgoing CJ Bersamin.

President Duterte has to choose from among Associate Justices Diosdado Peralta, Estela Perlas-Bernabe and Andres Reyes Jr. Peralta and Bernabe, the two who obtained seven votes each, retire in March and May 2022, respectively.

In the meantime, this could mean a 90-day wait for a new chief justice, as the High Court will have an acting chief justice, which cold again mean yet another delay in resolving the Marcos protest case against Robredo.

By May 2022, presidential and vice-presidential elections will have been held, and the Marcos protest will have been declared moot — as usual — if the High Court stays in the same moot mode.