- Dissenting SC justice tells peers their decision has inadvertently amended the Constitution
- She points out the decision was essentially a piece of judicial legislation which is prohibited
- She says decision will have far-reaching consequences on the legal system and national security
- She also explains the Constitution clearly intends for a clearly natural-born Filipino to be president
MANILA, Philippines – It was the Supreme Court essentially making its own laws.
Justice Teresita Leonardo de Castro, one of the dissenters in the Grace Poe case, likened the high tribunal’s ruling favoring the lady senator as a piece of legislation which is patently beyond the powers of the Court. She added the decision threatens to overturn the legal system and national security by allowing people with no clearly-defined citizenship to take posts critical to the national interest.
“This amendment of the Constitution by the judicial opinion put forth by the seven justices is based mainly on extralegal grounds and a misreading of existing laws, which will have unimaginable grave and far-reaching dire consequences in our constitutional and legal system and national interest,” the Philippine Daily Inquirer quoted her as saying.
According to De Castro, the Constitution, which she said is a manifestation of the people’s will, always intended for their president to be a clear natural-born Filipino.
“But the Constitution itself is the true embodiment of the supreme will of the people. It was the people’s decision to require in the Constitution, which they approved in a plebiscite, that their president be a natural-born Filipino citizen. The people did not choose to disenfranchise themselves but rather to disqualify those persons, who did not descend by blood from Filipino parents, from running in an election for the presidency,” she pointed out.
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