Drilon warns vs ‘No-el’ scenario implications

Senator Franklin M. Drilon

Under a “no-election” (No-el) scenario, President Rodrigo Duterte will be the one to appoint the replacement of senators, congressmen and local executives whose terms shall have expired by June 30, 2019, according to Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon.

“We need to watch out,” he warned on Saturday, noting that officials with expiring terms would not be allowed to keep their posts in a holdover capacity.

“Elected officials can be replaced by the President after the terms of the officials expire on June 30, because all congressmen, senators, mayors, governors, everyone whose term will expire on June 30,2019, if there is no election, all of them will be appointed by the President because there is no holdover,” he said.

“As they say, the cat is out of the bag, and this [Charter change] is being pushed for ‘no-el’ because 84 [incumbent] congressmen can no longer run because of the term limit, so the purpose of Cha-cha is really ‘No-el’,” Drilon told dwIZ radio.

Last week, Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez floated the possibility of postponing the 2019 midterm elections to give Congress time to act on proposals for the shift to a federal system of government.

Senate President Vicente Sotto III, however, argued that Congress could not postpone the election if the purpose was to extend the term of its members for the purpose of amending the Constitution.

Precedent

“The date of the election may be changed through a law, as stated in Section 8, Article VI of the 1987 Constitution. However, if the amended date will be set beyond the term of office provided by law, those members of Congress whose terms end at noon of June 30 cannot have a holdover capacity,” he said.

Drilon said there was already a precedent in which Congress postponed an election, prompting the sitting President to appoint someone to be in charge of the vacated post.

“It has happened in the [Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao or] ARMM. The ARMM elections were postponed and Gov. [Mujiv] Hataman was appointed,” Drilon recalled.

Then President Benigno Aquino III named Hataman officer in charge (OIC) of the ARMM in 2011 after the polls, which were supposed to be held in August, were postponed to coincide with the May 2013 election.

In an October 2011 decision, the Supreme Court upheld the law passed by Congress postponing the ARMM elections and authorizing the President to appoint OICs to take over elective executive and legislative positions in the region.

Hataman would later win a full term as ARMM governor in the May 2013 general elections.

“The election cannot be postponed without a law, which is why they will push for a law postponing the elections.” Drilon said.