MANILA, Philippines - Possession of prohibited drugs is not immoral.

This is the ruling the Supreme Court (SC) has handed down in the election protest against Ilocos Sur Rep. Ronald Singson, who was convicted of drug trafficking by a Hong Kong court in 2011.

The SC upheld Singson’s election, which his opponent, lawyer Bertrand Baterina, had questioned before the Commission on Elections (Comelec), the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET) and later the high court on the basis of his Hong Kong drug conviction.

The son of former Ilocos Sur Gov. Luis Singson was an incumbent congressman at the time he was convicted. After serving time in a Hong Kong jail, he returned to the country and regained his congressional seat in the 2013 elections.

In seeking Singson’s disqualification, Baterina said his opponent was convicted of a crime involving “moral turpitude,” which is defined as anything “done contrary to justice, honesty, modesty or good morals.”

In 2010, Baterina said the Comelec disqualified Eduardo Rodriguez as a Quezon congressional candidate because he was convicted of insurance fraud in the United States, a crime involving moral turpitude.

Both the Comelec and the HRET threw out Baterina’s complaints.

In upholding Singson’s election, the SC said the Comelec and the HRET did not commit grave abuse of discretion in dismissing his opponent’s complaints.

As for the Ilocos Sur congressman’s drug conviction, the tribunal ruled that he was not guilty of a crime involving moral turpitude.

The SC said though Rep. Singson was charged with drug trafficking, he “pleaded guilty to and was found to have merely possessed the illegal drugs for his own consumption.”

“Mere possession of a prohibited drug cannot be considered immoral by itself if it were not prohibited by law, much like illegal possession of a deadly weapon and incidental participation in illegal recruitment,” the court said.

“We have held that moral turpitude implies something ‘immoral in itself, regardless of the fact that it is punishable by law or not. It must not merely be mala prohibita (wrong because prohibited), but the act itself must inherently be immoral. The doing of the act itself, and not its prohibition by statute, fixes the moral turpitude’,” it said.

The SC distinguished the act of pushing or trafficking in illegal drugs from mere possession of prohibited substances.

“In Office of the Court Administrator vs Librado, the case cited by Baterina in order to prove that possession of a prohibited drug is a crime involving moral turpitude, the respondent therein was held guilty of both selling and possession of said drugs,” the court said.

“A careful examination of the discussion by this court shows that it is the pushing or selling of said prohibited drugs, and not the mere possession thereof, that is considered a crime involving moral turpitude,” the SC added.

The SC sustained Singson’s election a year before the May 9, 2016 elections, in which he is expected to seek a new term. His brother is the incumbent governor of their province.

The entire court resolved Singson’s case. Justices Presbitero Velasco Jr., Diosdado Peralta and Lucas Bersamin did not take part in the deliberations. The three sit in the HRET, which Velasco chairs.

Read more on The Philippine Star (https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2015/05/22/1457391/sc-upholds-singsons-election-says-drug-possession-not-immoral#sthash.dqlRCLW2.dpuf).