By Han Escalante and Billie Mercado

After a group of civic leaders filed a petition asking for the cancellation of presidential aspirant Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.’s certificate of candidacy (COC), a Facebook post claimed the conviction cited in the petition had already been decided upon by the Supreme Court. As of writing, the post, made on November 2 by the group Bongbong Marcos Supporters Nation 2022, has amassed 921 reactions and 415 shares.

In their petition, the group questioned Marcos Jr.’s eligibility to run for public office, citing a conviction for his failure to file mandatory income tax returns (ITRs) in 1997 that was made final in 2001. 

As the cancellation of a COC entails that the candidate made false statements in their COC, the group argued that Marcos Jr. had misrepresented himself on his COC when he selected the “No” option under the question of whether he was found guilty of a crime that caused him to be disqualified from holding public office.

If approved, the petition would effectively prohibit Marcos Jr. and any member of his political party Partido Federal ng Pilipinas from taking part in the 2022 national elections.  

The group also mentioned that Marcos should not have been allowed to run in the first place, because under the National Internal Revenue Code (NIRC), any tax law violator is automatically and perpetually banned from public office. 

“Marcos is not eligible to run for any public office as he is, plainly, a convicted criminal,” the group wrote in their petition statement last November 2. They added that Marcos’ conviction was handled by the Court of Appeals and was not brought up to the Supreme Court, making the ruling of the CA final and unappealable.

In response, Marcos Jr.’s spokesperson Vic Rodriguez called the petition a “predictable nuisance” that Marcos Jr.’s camp would “address at the proper time and forum.” 

Marcos Jr.’s conviction

A group of ten professionals on November 9 then filed a petition-in-intervention, through lawyer and law professor Howard Calleja, to support the civic leaders’ group’s petition.

Calleja said the main difference between a petition to cancel a COC and the disqualification of a candidate is that the former relies on the claim that a candidate lied in their COC, while the latter is based on the claim that the candidate committed a crime due to moral turpitude. 

The 2009 SC ruling cited in the post was made by Diosdado Peralta, who was an associate justice  of the Supreme Court back then. He declared that “failure to file an income tax return is not a crime involving moral turpitude”, which Rodriguez reiterated when he addressed the petition. 

Retired senior SC justice Antonio Carpio argued that Peralta’s interpretation of a crime involving moral turpitude is a mere opinion, meaning it does not carry any binding precedent. He also stated that failure to file an ITR bears the same gravity as tax evasion since they are found under the same Section 255 of the Tax Code and have similar penalties.

He added that since the Supreme Court identified tax evasion as a crime of moral turpitude, Marcos Jr.’s camp, who admits that Marcos Jr. failed to file his ITR, also admits to him committing a crime of moral turpitude. 

Integrity of 2022 candidates 

Dr. Rommel Bautista, who leads the group of professionals represented by Calleja, stated that all public officials must always be held to higher standards and accountability. Citing the strictness of employers when it comes to job applicants’ criminal records, he questioned why the same degree of skepticism is not being applied to candidates during election time. 

He also stressed that the people have the right to know the truth about a candidate’s past.