D E C I S I O N
I. THE FACTS
Several laws
pertaining to the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) were enacted by Congress. Republic Act (RA) No. 6734 is the organic act that established
the ARMM and scheduled the first regular elections for the ARMM regional
officials. RA No. 9054 amended the ARMM Charter
and reset the regular elections for the ARMM regional officials to the second
Monday of September 2001. RA No. 9140 further reset the first
regular elections to November 26, 2001. RA No. 9333 reset for the third time
the ARMM regional elections to the 2nd Monday of August 2005
and on the same date every 3 years thereafter.
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 next ARMM regular elections
to May 2013 to coincide with the regular national and local elections of the
country.
In these consolidated
petitions filed directly with the Supreme Court, the petitioners assailed the
constitutionality of RA No. 10153.
II. THE
ISSUES:
1. Does the 1987
Constitution mandate the synchronization of elections [including the ARMM
elections]?
2. Does the passage of
RA No. 10153 violate the three-readings-on-separate-days rule under Section
26(2), Article VI of the 1987 Constitution?
3. Is the grant [to the
President] of the power to appoint OICs constitutional?
III. THE RULING
[The Supreme Court]
DISMISSED the petitions and UPHELD the constitutionality of RA No.
10153 in toto.]
1.
YES, the 1987
Constitution mandates the synchronization of elections.
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 Constitutional Commission
exchanges, read with the provisions of the Transitory Provisions of the Constitution,
all serve as patent indicators of the constitutional mandate to hold
synchronized national and local elections, starting the second Monday of
May 1992 and for all the following elections.
In this case, the ARMM elections, although
called “regional” 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.
Thus, it is clear from the foregoing that
the 1987 Constitution mandates the synchronization of elections, including the
ARMM elections.
2.
NO, the passage
of RA No. 10153 DOES NOT violate the three-readings-on-separate-days
requirement in Section 26(2), Article VI of the 1987 Constitution.
The general rule that before bills passed
by either the House or the Senate can become laws they must pass through three
readings on separate days, is subject to the EXCEPTION when the President
certifies to the necessity of the bill’s immediate enactment. The Court,
in Tolentino v. Secretary of Finance, explained the effect of
the President’s certification of necessity in the following manner:
The
presidential certification dispensed with the requirement not only of printing
but also that of reading the bill on separate days. The phrase
"except when the President certifies to the necessity of its immediate
enactment, etc." in Art. VI, Section 26[2] qualifies the two stated
conditions before a bill can become a law: [i] the bill has passed three
readings on separate days and [ii] it has been printed in its final form and
distributed three days before it is finally approved.
In the present case, the records show that the President wrote to the
Speaker of the House of Representatives to certify the necessity of the
immediate enactment of a law synchronizing the ARMM elections with the national
and local elections. Following our Tolentino ruling, the
President’s certification exempted both the House and the Senate from having to
comply with the three separate readings requirement.
3.
YES, the grant [to
the President] of the power to appoint OICs in the ARMM is constitutional
[During the oral
arguments, the Court identified the three options open to Congress in order to
resolve the problem on who should sit as ARMM officials in the interim [in
order to achieve synchronization in the 2013 elections]: (1) allow the [incumbent]
elective officials in the ARMM to remain in office in a hold over capacity until
those elected in the synchronized elections assume office; (2) hold special
elections in the ARMM, with the terms of those elected to expire when
those elected in the [2013] synchronized elections assume office; or (3)
authorize the President to appoint OICs, [their respective
terms to last also until those elected in the 2013 synchronized elections
assume office.]
3.1. 1st
option: Holdover is unconstitutional since it would extend the terms of office
of the incumbent ARMM officials
We rule out the [hold over] option
since it violates Section 8, Article X of the Constitution. This provision
states:
Section 8.
The term of office of elective local officials, except barangay officials,
which shall be determined by law, shall be three years and no such
official shall serve for more than three consecutive terms. [emphases ours]
Since elective ARMM officials are local officials,
they are covered and bound by the three-year term limit
prescribed by the Constitution; they cannot extend their term through a
holdover. xxx.
If it will be claimed
that the holdover period is effectively another term mandated by Congress, the
net result is for Congress to create a new term and to appoint the occupant for
the new term. This view – like the extension of the elective term – is
constitutionally infirm because Congress cannot do indirectly what it cannot do
directly, i.e., to act in a way that would effectively extend the
term of the incumbents. Indeed, if acts that cannot be legally done directly
can be done indirectly, then all laws would be illusory. Congress cannot also create
a new term and effectively appoint the occupant of the position for the new
term. This is effectively an act of appointment by Congress and an
unconstitutional intrusion into the constitutional appointment power of the
President. Hence, holdover – whichever way it is viewed – is a constitutionally
infirm option that Congress could not have undertaken.
Even assuming that
holdover is constitutionally permissible, and there had been statutory basis
for it (namely Section 7, Article VII of RA No. 9054) in the past, we have to
remember that the
rule of holdover can only apply as an available option where no express or implied
legislative intent to the contrary exists; it cannot apply where such contrary
intent is evident.
Congress, in passing RA No. 10153, made it
explicitly clear that it had the intention of suppressing the holdover rule
that prevailed under RA No. 9054 by completely removing this provision. The deletion is
a policy decision that is wholly within the discretion of Congress to make in
the exercise of its plenary legislative powers; this Court cannot pass
upon questions of wisdom, justice or expediency of
legislation, except where an attendant unconstitutionality or grave abuse of
discretion results.
3.2. 2nd
option: Calling special elections is unconstitutional since COMELEC, on its
own, has no authority to order special elections.
The power to fix the date of elections is
essentially legislative in nature. [N]o elections may be held on any other
date for the positions of President, Vice President, Members of Congress and
local officials, except when so provided by another Act of Congress, or upon
orders of a body or officer to whom Congress may have delegated either the
power or the authority to ascertain or fill in the details in the execution of
that power.
Notably, Congress has acted on the
ARMM elections by postponing the scheduled August 2011 elections and setting
another date – May 13, 2011 – for regional elections synchronized
with the presidential, congressional and other local elections. By
so doing, Congress itself has made a policy decision in the
exercise of its legislative wisdom that it shall not call special
elections as an adjustment measure in synchronizing the ARMM elections
with the other elections.
After Congress has so acted, neither the Executive
nor the Judiciary can act to the contrary by ordering special elections instead
at the call of the COMELEC. This Court,
particularly, cannot make this call without thereby supplanting the legislative
decision and effectively legislating. To be sure, the Court is not
without the power to declare an act of Congress null and void for being
unconstitutional or for having been exercised in grave abuse of discretion. But
our power rests on very narrow ground and is merely to annul a contravening act
of Congress; it is not to supplant the decision of Congress nor to mandate what
Congress itself should have done in the exercise of its legislative powers.
Thus, in the same way that the
term of elective ARMM officials cannot be extended through a holdover, the term
cannot be shortened by putting an expiration date earlier than the three
(3) years that the Constitution itself commands. This is what will happen – a term of less than two
years – if a call for special elections shall prevail. In sum, while
synchronization is achieved, the result is at the cost of a violation of an
express provision of the Constitution.
3.3. 3rd option:
Grant to the President of the power to appoint ARMM OICs in the interim is
valid.
The above
considerations leave only Congress’ chosen interim measure – RA No. 10153 and
the appointment by the President of OICs to govern the ARMM during the
pre-synchronization period pursuant to Sections 3, 4 and 5 of this law – as the
only measure that Congress can make. This choice itself, however,
should be examined for any attendant constitutional infirmity.
At the outset, the
power to appoint is essentially executive in nature, and the limitations on or
qualifications to the exercise of this power should be strictly construed;
these limitations or qualifications must be clearly stated in order to be
recognized. The appointing power is embodied in Section 16, Article VII of the
Constitution, which states:
Section 16. The President shall nominate and, with the consent of the
Commission on Appointments, appoint the heads of the executive departments,
ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls or officers of the armed forces
from the rank of colonel or naval captain, and other officers whose
appointments are vested in him in this Constitution. He shall also appoint
all other officers of the Government whose appointments are not otherwise
provided for by law, and those whom he may be authorized by law to
appoint. The Congress may, by law, vest the appointment of other officers
lower in rank in the President alone, in the courts, or in the heads of
departments, agencies, commissions, or boards. [emphasis ours]
This provision
classifies into four groups the officers that the President can appoint. These
are:
First, the heads of the
executive departments; ambassadors; other public ministers and consuls;
officers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, from the rank of colonel or
naval captain; and other officers whose appointments are vested in the
President in this Constitution;
Second, all other officers
of the government whose appointments are not otherwise provided for by law;
Third, those whom the
President may be authorized by law to appoint; and
Fourth, officers lower in
rank whose appointments the Congress may by law vest in the President alone.
Since the President’s authority to appoint OICs
emanates from RA No. 10153, it falls under the third group of officials that
the President can appoint pursuant to Section 16, Article VII of the
Constitution. Thus, the assailed law facially rests on clear
constitutional basis.
If at all, the
gravest challenge posed by the petitions to the authority to appoint OICs under
Section 3 of RA No. 10153 is the assertion that the Constitution requires that
the ARMM executive and legislative officials to be “elective and representative
of the constituent political units.” This requirement indeed is an express
limitation whose non-observance in the assailed law leaves the appointment of
OICs constitutionally defective.
After fully examining
the issue, we hold that this alleged constitutional problem is more
apparent than real and becomes very real only if RA No. 10153 were to be mistakenly
read as a law that changes the elective and representative character of ARMM
positions. RA No. 10153, however, 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.
[T]he legal reality is that RA No. 10153 did
not amend RA No. 9054. RA No. 10153, in fact, provides only for
synchronization of elections and for the interim measures that must in the
meanwhile prevail. And this is how RA No. 10153 should be read –
in the manner it was written and based on its unambiguous facial terms. Aside from its order for
synchronization, it is purely and simply an interim measure responding to the
adjustments that the synchronization requires.
[Read
a more detailed discussion and summary of this case, please click here.]
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