President Arroyo likely to run for Congress

MANILA - All indications point to the observation that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, expected by her political rivals to be swarmed with legal suits after she finishes her term in June 2010, to run for a Congress seat in her hometown of Pampanga.

A Palace source privy to the plan but refused to be identified for lack of authority to speak on the matter disclosed that the congressional option was hatched to cushion the cases that might be filed against the President once she steps down and loses her immunity. This development surfaced months after the opposition accused the President of pushing hard for the approval of the holding of Charter Change in 2010 which, if passed, would have allowed the extension of her term as prime minister under a unicameral parliamentary form of government. Arroyo, though, squelched the rumor by declaring in her July 27, 2009 State of the Nation Address (SONA) that she has “have never expressed the desire to extend myself beyond my term,” adding that she would be stepping down from the presidency after her term expires. But the opposition have doubts over this pronouncement, arguing that the nearly 40 visits Arroyo made to her home province within a year’s time signify that she may indeed be running for Congress in 2010, hopeful that a win by majority of her allies in the national polls would spare her the trouble of parrying suits resulting from her administration. Her detractors also pointed out that unusual amount of projects recently implemented in Pampanga, among them water systems and public works, irreversibly manifest an intention to remain in public office beyond June 2010. Coincidentally, this revelation came out a day after a taxpayer petitioned the Supreme Court (SC) to prevent the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) from executing the resolution that allows the sitting President to run for Congress without resigning the presidency. Section 4 of Comelec Resolution No. 8678, which is based on a provision of Republic Act 9006, the Fair Elections Act of 2001 that repealed section 67 of the Omnibus Election Code, provides that an elective official is not deemed resigned from her elective post upon filing the certificate of candidacy. This was the same resolution that Sen. Manuelito Lapid invoked in 2007 when he ran for Makati mayor and lost. He continued his term as senator without legal impediment. Legal luminaries are divided on the likely position the high tribunal will adopt in resolving this contentious issue. One thing sure though, they said, is that if the SC will declared the contested resolution ‘unconstitutional’ and the President still decides to run for Congress, by operation of law Vice President Noli de Castro will take over the presidency until a next chief executive shall have been declared by the electoral body.