A political assumption of risk

With all honesty, I must characterize this article today as a veritable OFF-TANGENT.

- Aven Piramide

I was in my first year of law school when I heard, for the first time, the legal principle in Civil Law called “assumption of risk”. That was more than half a century ago, but my then professor, the late Judge Oscar “Led” de Dios, so simplified the doctrine that even with the blurring of memory that I now presently experience, I still remember the lucidity of his explanation. In the subject on Obligation and Contracts “no person shall be held responsible for events xx when the nature of the obligation requires assumption of risk.” Judge de Dios said that in the civil law context, when a person, named as plaintiff in legal papers, goes to court seeking recovery for damages, he cannot get from the defendant what he sues for if he voluntarily and knowingly exposed himself to a dangerous activity. Or words to that effect. Whew!

True to the off-tangent nature if this column, I will apply this Civil Law principle to Political Law, a different field without disrespecting my Civil Law professor. Few days ago, Vice President Sara Duterte Carpio announced that she will be seeking the presidency in the 2028 elections. To be sure, many have applauded such public declaration as if it was a newly-discovered gem, of the Cullinan Diamond kind, the largest rough diamond ever mined in South Africa in 1905. It was as if her supporters did not know that she obsessed to be president even before she ran for vice president in 2022.