  We demonstrate that it is not necessary to substantially break the mass
degeneracy between the Standard Model Higgs boson doublet and the corresponding
scalar leptoquark, where these two fields comprise a single five-dimensional
$SU(5)$ representation. More precisely, we show that the experimental data on
partial proton decay lifetimes cannot place any meaningful bound on the mass of
the scalar leptoquark, a.k.a. the color triplet, if one includes effects of
higher-dimensional operators within the Georgi-Glashow model. We also point out
that the complete suppression of proton decay via the scalar leptoquark
mediation is compatible with the partial suppression of the gauge mediated
two-body proton decay signatures. Finally, we derive a proper limit on the
cutoff scale of the aforementioned higher-dimensional operators and outline how
this scenario could be tested.
