Senator Santiago does about face: gives green light to ARMM polls postponement

MANILA, Philippines – Senator Miriam Defensor- Santiago made a 180-degree turn on Monday when she threw her full support behind the proposed postponement of the August 2011 Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) elections.

Just three months ago, Santiago said the proposed postponement would be automatically declared unconstitutional if a case would be filed before the Supreme Court.

But in a statement on Monday, the senator said it would be constitutional for Congress to pass a bill postponing the ARMM elections to 2013.

Santiago said the Constitution does not explicitly provide that national and local elections should be synchronized, since it uses the phrase “for purposes of synchronization of elections.

She said the Constitution implicitly places constitutional value on synchronized elections.

And by constitutional value, Santiago said the Constitution recognizes the “significance, desirability, or utility of synchronized elections to the general public.”

“I am surprised that critics of the bill do not even bother to raise the threshold question of whether synchronization is a constitutional mandate,” she said. “I presume that this remarkable omission signifies unquestioning acceptance of the proposition that a constitutional implication is as effective as an outright provision.”

On the issue of autonomy, Santiago pointed to Section 2 of the Constitution which provides that “The territorial and political subdivisions shall enjoy local autonomy.”

“Thus, just like synchronized elections, local autonomy is a constitutional principle,” she said.

“But there is no basis for the view that these two values should be viewed as necessarily conflicting with each other, such that the existence of one should necessarily mandate the death of the other,” she said.

Santiago also defended the power of the President to appoint officers-in charge in case the ARMM polls will be postponed, citing previous court rulings, which gave the President the power to make temporary appointments in certain appointive offices.

“If we pass this bill and it is subsequently questioned in the Supreme Court, this bill will enjoy the presumption of constitutionality,” she said.