I welcome the Commission on Elections (Comelec) decision dismissing the disqualification case against me.

In a nine-page resolution on Monday, the poll body ruled that there is no constitutional provision barring me from running in the May 10 senatorial elections. The poll body cited the Socrates case wherein the Supreme Court said that a three-year hiatus was “sufficient” in order to successfully “hurdle” the two-term limit.

I have always maintained that the law was on our side and this case was merely one of the many harassment suits filed by the Arroyo administration against opposition figures like me.

The disqualification case was filed by a certain Vladimir Cabigao who claimed I should be disqualified because I have not completed the “prohibitory period” of one term, or six years, from my last term in 2007.

I have served two terms in the Senate, from 1995 to 2007. Because of this, Cabigao said I could only seek reelection in 2013, or six years after I have served my consecutive terms in the Senate.

I have said before that it was only a move by the administration to weaken the opposition. When it was filed, I already had predicted that the Comelec would eventually dismiss the petition.

The Comelec’s decision is a clear indication of the wheels of justice moving on the side of what is right.

The records of the 1986 Constitutional Convention indicate that a senator can run after only three years, following his completion of two terms.  The Constitution also acknowledged that the prohibited election refers only to the immediate reelection, and not to any subsequent reelection, during the six-year period following the two term limit.

I am vindicated by the fact that Comelec followed the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Socrates case, wherein the high court ruled that a three year term hiatus was sufficient in order to successfully hurdle the two-year term limit of an aspiring candidate.

I had a hiatus of three years since my second consecutive term as Senator. Last February, the poll body also ruled that former Senator Serge Osmeña III is eligible to run in the May polls. Cabigao was also the one who filed the disqualification plea against Osmeña on the same grounds.