EDITORIAL - Legal hairsplitting

Both the Supreme Court and the Commission on Elections are reviewing a ruling of the Comelec’s Political Finance and Affairs Department or PFAD favoring Sen. Francis Escudero.

The SC acted on a petition filed on Dec. 26 last year by high school teacher John Barry Tayam, challenging the recommendation of the PFAD. A complaint has also been filed with the Comelec by civil society groups, brushing aside the findings of the motu proprio investigation conducted by the PFAD on the case.

With the next campaign period just two years away, a speedy and clear resolution of this issue is needed. Campaign fund-raising is expected to begin in earnest by next year.

Through legislative acrobatics, filing a certificate of candidacy does not officially make the filer a candidate, and contributions to the filer’s election campaign need not be declared by the candidate in his statement of campaign contributions and expenditures submitted to the Comelec. This is according to a Comelec ruling on the P75 million that Sen. Rodante Marcoleta did not declare in his SOCE, with the argument that he received the donation before the start of the 2025 campaign period.

This controversy will also need clarity from the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, in Escudero’s case, petitioners are invoking Section 95 of the Omnibus Election Code of 1985 or Batas Pambansa 881, which prohibits direct or indirect election campaign contributions from “natural and juridical persons” holding contracts or sub-contracts with the government, who operate public utilities, or “who have been granted franchises, incentives, exemptions, allocations or similar privileges or concessions” by any government agency including government-owned or controlled corporations.

Laws that amended certain provisions of the Omnibus Election Code did not change that section on prohibited contributions.

Yet the PFAD found nothing irregular in the P30 million contributed by contractor Lawrence Lubiano to the 2022 senatorial campaign of Escudero, at the time the governor of Sorsogon where Lubiano’s company has several public works contracts.

Lubiano is the president and 99 percent owner of Centerways Construction and Development Inc., which ranked seventh on the list bared by President Marcos of the top 15 companies that cornered flood control projects in the country.

Between 2020 and 2024, Centerways reportedly bagged P5.4 billion or about one percent of the total flood control budget, with most of the projects located in the Bicol Region particularly Sorsogon.

In his SOCE submitted to the Comelec, Escudero declared the P30 million as a personal contribution of his friend Lubiano. The PFAD accepted the argument.

Such legal hairsplitting makes a mockery of the law. For both the SC and the Comelec, there’s a chance to stop it before the general elections.