Why we elect criminals

Among established democracies, our country has a higher incidence of criminals (i.e., those convicted of crimes or corruption) who manage to get elected and stay in public office. Trusting artificial intelligence to have access to worldwide information on the question, I sought its assistance to confirm that statement, and the reply was yes, it is “reasonable to say so.” It did add that the Philippines is not unique in this, and not necessarily the worst. Still, it tells us there is something wrong with our political and legal system if our country tolerates having criminals in public office more than most democracies do.

Most thinking Filipinos would probably prefer to have criminals banned outright from running for and holding public office. After all, our Constitution (Article XI, Section 1) declares that public office is a public trust—but how can we ordinary law-abiding citizens trust a convicted criminal to begin with, or even one widely suspected on the basis of publicly visible evidence? There have been many celebrated examples in our modern political history, exemplifying various reasons why and how they “get away with it.”

In 1997, then Zamboanga del Norte Rep. Romeo Jalosjos was convicted of statutory rape and acts of lasciviousness involving an 11-year-old girl. But even while in prison, he was reelected in 1998 and yet again in 2001. How could this even happen? His conviction was not deemed final while under appeal with the Supreme Court, and the Omnibus Election Code and even the Constitution provide that a conviction does not disqualify a candidate until it is final and executory. It was in 2002, a full five years later, that the Supreme Court finally affirmed his conviction, and only then was he stripped of his Congress seat.

In September 2007, after over six years of hospital and house detention, former President Joseph Estrada was convicted of plunder and sentenced to life imprisonment. But just six weeks later, then President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo granted him executive pardon, citing his age (70 then) and his commitment not to run again for public office. Reminiscent of how his successor and pardoner defied her own public declaration not to run for election in 2004, he openly defied his “commitment” and ran for mayor of Manila anyway, managing to serve two terms from 2013 to 2019.

Sen. Robinhood Padilla was convicted and imprisoned in 1994 for illegal possession of firearms, but was granted conditional pardon in 1997 by former President Fidel V. Ramos. Former President Rodrigo Duterte turned this into an absolute pardon in 2016, fully restoring his civil and political rights, thereby allowing him to be a senator today.

And then we have Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Bong Revilla, both currently detained under nonbailable charges of plunder and malversation, respectively, in relation to the flood control scandal. Both faced similar plunder charges in 2014, implicated in the Janet Lim Napoles pork barrel scam. They were later separately acquitted, but critics believe that the narrow legal definition of plunder has permitted major grafters to escape severe penalties. Legal definitions and technicalities worked in their (and other politicians’) favor, and time will tell if these will get them off the hook again. Meanwhile, the Sandiganbayan meted out Estrada a 90-day preventive suspension that the Senate has enforced; one wonders why no similar suspension was imposed on Jalosjos in his time.

These cases illustrate reasons why the Philippines tends to have more criminals in public office than in other functioning democracies. While our presumption of innocence until proven guilty and requirement for final conviction are not unusual, what sets us apart is a combination of several factors: slow judicial and lengthy appeals processes, narrow statutory rules on disqualification, inconsistent enforcement, sweeping presidential pardon powers, and not least, what Singaporean leader Lee Kuan Yew once described as the Filipinos’ “too forgiving” nature. The slow wheels of justice and electoral dispute settlement processes inordinately stall finality of convictions of erring politicians, while it’s not uncommon for election protests to be decided only when an illicitly elected official’s term of office is nearly, if not over. Our kind of democracy that is modeled closely after the United States is seen to include the same permissive legal and political system that has led them to now have their first president who is actually a convicted felon.

How do we change all this? Clearly, we need legal, political, and administrative reforms to correct each of the flaws described above. A key step would be to foster strong and responsible political parties, which in other effective democracies, have done the job of filtering out even suspected wrongdoers from their field of candidates. It will be a long road going there, to be sure, but the first steps must be taken now.