League of Cities v. Comelec
The Senate also approved the cityhood bills in February 2007, except that of Naga,
Action:
These are consolidated petitions for prohibition with prayer for the issuance of a
writ of preliminary injunction or temporary restraining order filed by the League of
Cities of the Philippines, City of Iloilo, City of Calbayog, and Jerry P. Treas assailing
the constitutionality of the subject Cityhood Laws and enjoining the Commission on
Elections (COMELEC) and respondent municipalities from conducting plebiscites
pursuant to the Cityhood Laws.
Fact:
During the 11th Congress, Congress enacted into law 33 bills converting 33
municipalities into cities. However, Congress did not act on bills converting 24 other
municipalities into cities.
During the 12th Congress, Congress enacted into law Republic Act No. 9009 (RA
9009), which took effect on 30 June 2001. RA 9009 amended Section 450 of the
Local Government Code by increasing the annual income requirement for
conversion of a municipality into a city from P20 million to P100 million. The
rationale for the amendment was to restrain, in the words of Senator Aquilino
Pimentel, the mad rush of municipalities to convert into cities solely to secure a
larger share in the Internal Revenue Allotment despite the fact that they are
incapable of fiscal independence.
After the effectivity of RA 9009, the House of Representatives of the 12th Congress
adopted Joint Resolution No. 29, which sought to exempt from the P100 million
income requirement in RA 9009 the 24 municipalities whose cityhood bills were not
approved in the 11th Congress. However, the 12th Congress ended without the
Senate approving Joint Resolution No. 29.
During the 13th Congress, the House of Representatives re-adopted Joint
Resolution No. 29 as Joint Resolution No. 1 and forwarded it to the Senate for
approval. However, the Senate again failed to approve the Joint Resolution.
Following the advice of Senator Aquilino Pimentel, 16 municipalities filed, through
their respective sponsors, individual cityhood bills. The 16 cityhood bills contained a
common provision exempting all the 16 municipalities from the P100 million
income requirement in RA 9009.
On 22 December 2006, the House of Representatives approved the cityhood bills.
Cebu which was passed on 7 June 2007. The cityhood bills lapsed into law (Cityhood
Laws) on various dates from March to July 2007 without the Presidents signature.
The Cityhood Laws direct the COMELEC to hold plebiscites to determine whether
the voters in each respondent municipality approve of the conversion of their
municipality into a city.
Petitioners filed the present petitions to declare the Cityhood Laws unconstitutional
for violation of Section 10, Article X of the Constitution, as well as for violation of
the equal protection clause. Petitioners also lament that the wholesale conversion
of municipalities into cities will reduce the share of existing cities in the Internal
Revenue Allotment because more cities will share the same amount of internal
revenue set aside for all cities under Section 285 of the Local Government Code.
Issue:
The petitions raise the following fundamental issues:
1. Whether the Cityhood Laws violate Section 10, Article X of the
Constitution; and
2. Whether the Cityhood Laws violate the equal protection clause.
Held:
We grant the petitions.
The Cityhood Laws violate Sections 6 and 10, Article X of the Constitution, and are
thus unconstitutional.
First, applying the P100 million income requirement in RA 9009 to the present case
is a prospective, not a retroactive application, because RA 9009 took effect in 2001
while the cityhood bills became law more than five years later.
Second, the Constitution requires that Congress shall prescribe all the criteria for
the creation of a city in the Local Government Code and not in any other law,
including the Cityhood Laws.
Third, the Cityhood Laws violate Section 6, Article X of the Constitution because
they prevent a fair and just distribution of the national taxes to local government
units.
Fourth, the criteria prescribed in Section 450 of the Local Government Code, as
amended by RA 9009, for converting a municipality into a city are clear, plain and
unambiguous, needing no resort to any statutory construction.
Fifth, the intent of members of the 11th Congress to exempt certain municipalities
from the coverage of RA 9009 remained an intent and was never written into
Section 450 of the Local Government Code.
Sixth, the deliberations of the 11th or 12th Congress on unapproved bills or
resolutions are not extrinsic aids in interpreting a law passed in the 13th Congress.
Seventh, even if the exemption in the Cityhood Laws were written in Section 450 of
the Local Government Code, the exemption would still be unconstitutional for
violation of the equal protection clause.
G.R. No. 196271, : October 18, 2011
DATU MICHAEL ABAS KIDA, in his personal capacity, and in representation of
MAGUINDANAO FEDERATION OF AUTONOMOUS IRRIGATORS
ASSOCIATION, INC., et al., Petitioners, v. SENATE OF THE PHILIPPINES,
represented by its President JUAN PONCE ENRILE, HOUSE OF
REPRESENTATIVES, et al., Respondents.
FACTS:
On August 1, 1989 or two years after the effectivity of the 1987 Constitution,
Congress acted through Republic Act (RA) No. 6734 entitled "An Act Providing for
an Organic Act for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao."The initially
assenting provinces were Lanao del Sur,Maguindanao, Sulu and Tawi-tawi. RA No.
6734 scheduled the first regular elections for the regional officials of the ARMM on
a date not earlier than 60 days nor later than 90 days after its ratification.
Thereafter, R.A. No. 9054 was passed to further enhance the structure of ARMM
under R.A. 6734. Along with it is the reset of the regular elections for the ARMM
regional officials to the second Monday of September 2001.
RA No. 9333was subsequently passed by Congress to reset the ARMM regional
elections to the 2ndMonday of August 2005, and on the same date every 3 years
thereafter. Unlike RA No. 6734 and RA No. 9054, RA No. 9333 was not ratified in a
plebiscite.
Pursuant to RA No. 9333, the next ARMM regional elections should have been held
on August 8, 2011. COMELEC had begun preparations for these elections and had
accepted certificates of candidacies for the various regional offices to be elected. But
on June 30, 2011, RA No. 10153 was enacted, resetting the ARMM elections to May
2013, to coincide with the regular national and local elections of the country. With
the enactment into law of RA No. 10153, the COMELEC stopped its preparations for
the ARMM elections.
Several cases for certiorari, prohibition and madamus originating from different
parties arose as a consequence of the passage of R.A. No. 9333 and R.A. No. 10153
questioning the validity of said laws.
On September 13, 2011, the Court issued a temporary restraining order enjoining the
implementation of RA No. 10153 and ordering the incumbent elective officials of
ARMM to continue to perform their functions should these cases not be decided by
the end of their term on September 30, 2011.
The petitioners assailing RA No. 9140, RA No. 9333 and RA No. 10153 assert that
these laws amend RA No. 9054 and thus, have to comply with the supermajority
vote and plebiscite requirements prescribed under Sections 1 and 3, Article XVII of
RA No. 9094 in order to become effective.
The petitions assailing RA No. 10153 further maintain that it is unconstitutional for
its failure to comply with the three-reading requirement of Section 26(2), Article VI
of the Constitution. Also cited as grounds are the alleged violations of the right of
suffrage of the people of ARMM, as well as the failure to adhere to the "elective and
representative" character of the executive and legislative departments of the ARMM.
Lastly, the petitioners challenged the grant to the President of the power to appoint
OICs to undertake the functions of the elective ARMM officials until the officials
elected under the May 2013 regular elections shall have assumed office. Corrolarily,
they also argue that the power of appointment also gave the President the power of
control over the ARMM, in complete violation of Section 16, Article X of the
Constitution.
ISSUE:
A. Whether or not the 1987 Constitution mandates the
synchronization of elections
B. Whether or not the passage of RA No. 10153 violates the
provisions of the 1987 Constitution
HELD:
Court dismissed the petition and affirmed the constitutionality of R.A.
10153 in toto. The Court agreed with respondent Office of the Solicitor General
(OSG) on its position that the Constitution mandates synchronization, citing Sections
1, 2 and 5, Article XVIII (Transitory Provisions) of the 1987 Constitution. While the
Constitution does not expressly state that Congress has to synchronize national and
local elections, the clear intent towards this objective can be gleaned from the
Transitory Provisions (Article XVIII) of the Constitution, which show the extent to
which the Constitutional Commission, by deliberately making adjustments to the
terms of the incumbent officials, sought to attain synchronization of elections.
The objective behind setting a common termination date for all elective officials,
done among others through the shortening the terms of the twelve winning senators
with the least number of votes, is to synchronize the holding of all future elections
whether national or local to once every three years. This intention finds full support
in the discussions during the Constitutional Commission deliberations. Furthermore,
to achieve synchronization, Congress necessarily has to reconcile the schedule of the
ARMMs regular elections (which should have been held in August 2011 based on
RA No. 9333) with the fixed schedule of the national and local elections (fixed by
RA No. 7166 to be held in May 2013).
In Osme v. Commission on Elections, the court thus explained:
It is clear from the afore quoted provisions of the 1987 Constitution that the terms of
office of Senators, Members of the House of Representatives, the local officials, the
President and the Vice-President have been synchronized to end on the same hour,
date and year noon of June 30, 1992.
It is likewise evident from the wording of the above-mentioned Sections that the
term of synchronization is used synonymously as the phrase holding simultaneously
since this is the precise intent in terminating their Office Tenure on the same day or
occasion. This common termination date will synchronize future elections to once
every three years (Bernas, the Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines, Vol.
II, p. 605).
That the election for Senators, Members of the House of Representatives and the
local officials (under Sec. 2, Art. XVIII) will have to be synchronized with the
election for President and Vice President (under Sec. 5, Art. XVIII) is likewise
evident from the x x xrecords of the proceedings in the Constitutional Commission.
[Emphasis supplied.]
Although called regional elections, the ARMM elections should be included among
the elections to be synchronized as it is a "local" election based on the wording and
structure of the Constitution. Regional elections in the ARMM for the positions of
governor, vice-governor and regional assembly representatives fall within the
classification of "local" elections, since they pertain to the elected officials who will
serve within the limited region of ARMM. From the perspective of the Constitution,
autonomous regions are considered one of the forms of local governments, as evident
from Article X of the Constitution entitled "Local Government." Autonomous
regions are established and discussed under Sections 15 to 21 of this Article the
article wholly devoted to Local Government.
Second issue: Congress, in passing RA No. 10153, acted strictly within its
constitutional mandate. Given an array of choices, it acted within due constitutional
bounds and with marked reasonableness in light of the necessary adjustments that
synchronization demands. Congress, therefore, cannot be accused of any evasion of a
positive duty or of a refusal to perform its duty nor is there reason to accord merit to
the petitioners claims of grave abuse of discretion.
In relation with synchronization, both autonomy and the synchronization of national
and local elections are recognized and established constitutional mandates, with one
being as compelling as the other. If their compelling force differs at all, the
difference is in their coverage; synchronization operates on and affects the whole
country, while regional autonomy as the term suggests directly carries a narrower
regional effect although its national effect cannot be discounted.
In all these, the need for interim measures is dictated by necessity; out-of-the-way
arrangements and approaches were adopted or used in order to adjust to the goal or
objective in sight in a manner that does not do violence to the Constitution and to
reasonably accepted norms. Under these limitations, the choice of measures was a
question of wisdom left to congressional discretion.
However, the holdover contained in R.A. No. 10153, for those who were elected in
executive and legislative positions in the ARMM during the 2008-2011 term as an
option that Congress could have chosen because a holdover violates Section 8,
Article X of the Constitution. In the case of the terms of local officials, their term has
been fixed clearly and unequivocally, allowing no room for any implementing
legislation with respect to the fixed term itself and no vagueness that would allow an
interpretation from this Court. Thus, the term of three years for local officials should
stay at three (3) years as fixed by the Constitution and cannot be extended by
holdover by Congress.
RA No. 10153, does not in any way amend what the organic law of the ARMM (RA
No. 9054) sets outs in terms of structure of governance. What RA No. 10153 in fact
only does is to "appoint officers-in-charge for the Office of the Regional Governor,
Regional Vice Governor and Members of the Regional Legislative Assembly who
shall perform the functions pertaining to the said offices until the officials duly
elected in the May 2013 elections shall have qualified and assumed office." This
power is far different from appointing elective ARMM officials for the abbreviated
term ending on the assumption to office of the officials elected in the May 2013
elections. It must be therefore emphasized that the law must be interpreted as an
interim measure to synchronize elections and must not be interpreted otherwise.