Constitutional Provision on the President's Election and Term of Office Article 7, Section 4 of the 1987 Philippine Constitution prescribes

the election and term of office for the president, which is as follows: Section 4. The President and the Vice-President shall be elected by direct vote of the people for a term of six years which shall begin at noon on the thirtieth day of June next following the day of the election and shall end at noon of the same date, six years thereafter. The President shall not be eligible for any re-election. No person who has succeeded as President and has served as such for more than four years shall be qualified for election to the same office at any time. The above provision can be broken down into three parts, namely: (1) manner of election and term of office of the president, which is six years, under the first sentence; (2) ineligibility of the president for reelection under the second sentence; and (3) ineligibility for election to the presidency of one who became president and served for more than four years under the third sentence. Arguments Against Estrada's Candidacy According to Christian Monsod, a member of the Constitutional Commission (body that drafted the 1987 Constitution) and former chairman of the Commission on Elections, "[y]ou only get one shot to serve as elected president. There should be absolutely no second election at all." Similarly, In his book The Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines, Volume II, Fr. Joaquin Bernas, who is also a member of the Constitutional Commission and dean emeritus of the Ateneo Law School, says that the second sentence of Article 7, Section 4 of the Philippine Constitution was intended by the drafters of the Constitution to serve as a perpetual ban on reelection to the presidency of one who has once been elected as president.

Arguments in Favor of Estrada's Candidacy On the other side of the debate, both University of the Philippines constitutional law professor and public interest lawyer Harry Roque and University of the East Law School dean and Estrada lawyer Amado Valdez believe that the ban on reelection applies only to the incumbent president. Roque insists that the ordinary meaning of the word "reelection" in Section 4 of the Constitution is election again to the position of president if one is sitting as president. Since Estrada is no longer the president, he is not covered by the ban on reelection and may, therefore, be eligible to run as president. Father Bernas, however, counters this by saying that the word "reelection" means election to the same office either immediately or after some interruption. This view seems to be supported by the adjective "any" before "reelection." For his part, prominent election lawyer and President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's attorney Romulo Macalintal argues that when Estrada was elected as president he swore to uphold the Constitution and one of those he swore to was not to run for president again. Therefore, the constitutional prohibition on reelection attached to him when he became president and continues to attach now and in the future. Other proponents of Estrada's eligibility further advance the view that if ever, it is the third sentence of Section 4 - which provides that one who has succeeded as president and has served as such for more than four years shall not be elected as president at any time - that applies to Estrada. They claim that since Estrada served as president for three years only he is not ineligible under that sentence, in the same manner that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (who became president in 2001 as successor to Estrada after the latter was ousted from office) was not found ineligible when she ran for president in 2004. There is, however, no comparison between Estrada's and Arroyo's case because the former was elected in 1998 while the latter became president in 2001 by virtue of the rule of succession (that in case the president resigns, dies or becomes permanently incapacitated the vice president becomes president). Macalintal further says that the ban on reelection under the Constitution does not require completion of the office holder's term, but only election to the office.