G. R. No. 174153 entitled
RAUL LAMBINO and ERICO B. AUMENTADO together with 6,327,952 REGISTERED
VOTERS, Petitioners v. THE COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS, Respondent; TRADE UNION CONGRESS OF THE
PHILIPPINES (TUCP), RONALD L. ADAMAT, ROLANDO MANUEL RIVERA, RUELO BAYA,
SULONGBAYAN MOVEMENT FOUNDATION, INC., PHILIPPINE TRANSPORT AND GENERAL WORKERS
ORGANIZATION (PTGWO) and VICTORINO F. BALAIS, Petitioners-Intervenors; ONE VOICE INC.,
CHRISTIAN S. MONSOD, RENE B. AZURIN, MANUEL L. QUEZON III, BENJAMIN T. TOLOSA,
JR., SUSAN V. OPLE and CARLOS P. MEDINA, JR., ALTERNATIVE LAW GROUPS, INC.,
ATTY. PETE QUIRINO-QUADRA, BAYAN, BAYAN MUNA, KILUSANG MAYO UNO, HEAD,
ECUMENICAL BISHOPS FORUM, MIGRANTE, GABRIELA, GABRIELA WOMEN’S PARTY,
ANAKBAYAN, LEAGUE OF FILIPINO STUDENTS, LEONADO SAN JOSE, JOJO PINEDA, DR.
DARBY SANTIAGO, and DR. REGINALD PAMUGAS, LORETTA ANN P. ROSALES, MARIO JOYO
AGUJA, ANA THERESIA HONTIVEROS-BARAQUEL, LUWALHATI ANTONINO, PHILIPPINE
CONSTITUTION ASSOCIATION (PHILCONSA), CONRADO F. ESTRELLA, TOMAS C. TOLEDO,
MARIANO M. TAJON, FROILAN M. BACUNGAN, JOAQUIN T. VENUS, JR., FORTUNATO P.
AGUAS, and AMADO GAT INCIONG, SENATE MINORITY LEADER AQUILINO P. PIMENTEL, JR.,
and SENATORS SERGIO R. OSMEÑA III, JAMBY A.S. MADRIGAL, LUISA P.
EJERCITO-ESTRADA, JINGGOY ESTRADA, ALFREDO S. LIM and PANFILO M. LACSON, JOSEPH
EJERCITO ESTRADA and PWERSA NG MASANG PILIPINO, INTEGRATED BAR OF THE
PHILIPPINES CEBU CITY CHAPTER and CEBU CHAPTER, JOSE ANSELMO I. CADIZ, BYRON D.
BOCAR, MA. TANYA KARINA A. LAT, ANOTNIO L. SALVADOR and RANDALL C. TABAYOYONG,
SENATE OF THE PHILIPPINES, Represented by its President, MANUEL VILLAR, JR., Oppositors-Intervenors;
G.R. No. 174299 entitled MAR-LEN ABIGAIL BINAY, SOFRONIO UNTALAN, JR., and RENE A.
Q. SAGUISAG, Petitioners v.
COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS, Represented by Chairman BENJAMIN S. ABALOS, SR., and
Commissioners RESSURRECCION Z. BORRA, FLORENTINO A. TUASON, JR., ROMEO A.
BRAWNER, RENE V. SARMIENTO, and John Doe and Peter Doe, Respondents.
Promulgated:
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SEPARATE OPINION
TINGA, J:
I join in full the opinion of Senior Associate Justice Puno. Its enviable sang-froid, inimitable lucidity, and luminous scholarship are all so characteristic of the author that it is hardly a waste of pen and ink to write separately if only to express my deep admiration for his disquisition. It is compelling because it derives from the fundamental democratic ordinance that sovereignty resides in the people, and it seeks to effectuate that principle through the actual empowerment of the sovereign people. Justice Puno’s opinion will in the short term engender reactions on its impact on present attempts to amend the Constitution, but once the political passion of the times have been shorn, it will endure as an unequivocal message to the taongbayan that they are to be trusted to chart the course of their future.
Nothing that I inscribe will improve on Justice Puno’s opinion. I only write separately to highlight a few other points which also inform my vote to grant the petitions.
I.
I agree with Justice Puno that Santiago v. COMELEC[1] and PIRMA v. COMELEC[2]
had not acquired value as precedent and should be reversed in any case. I add
that the Court has long been mindful of the rule that it necessitates a
majority, and not merely a plurality, in order that a decision can stand as
precedent. That principle has informed the members of this Court as they
deliberated and voted upon contentious petitions, even if this consideration is
not ultimately reflected on the final draft released for promulgation.
The curious twist to
I
maintain that even if Rep. Act No. 6735 is truly “inadequate”, the Court in
I am mindful of the need to respect stare decisis, to the point of having recently decried a majority ruling that was clearly minded to reverse several precedents but refused to explicitly say so.[7] Yet the principle is not immutable.[8] The passionate words of Chief Justice Panganiban in Osmeña v. COMELEC[9] bear quoting:
Before I close, a
word about stare decisis. In the present case, the
Court is maintaining the ad ban to be consistent with its previous holding in
NPC vs. Comelec. Thus, respondent urges reverence for
the stability of judicial doctrines. I submit, however, that more important
than consistency and stability are the verity, integrity and correctness of
jurisprudence. As Dean Roscoe Pound explains, "Law must be stable but it
cannot stand still." Verily, it must correct itself and move in cadence
with the march of the electronic age. Error and illogic should not be
perpetuated. After all, the Supreme Court, in many cases, has deviated from
stare decisis and reversed previous doctrines and
decisions.[[10]]
It should do no less in the present case.[11]
II.
Following Justice Puno’s
clear demonstration why
The Court has consistently held in cases such as Abes v. COMELEC[12],
Sanchez v. COMELEC[13],
and Sambarani v. COMELEC[14]
that “the functions of the COMELEC under the Constitution are essentially
executive and administrative in nature”.[15]
More pertinently, in Buac v. COMELEC[16],
the Court held that the jurisdiction of the COMELEC relative to the enforcement
and administration of a law relative to a plebiscite fell under the
jurisdiction of the poll body under its constitutional mandate “to enforce and
administer all laws and regulations relative to the conduct of a xxx plebiscite”.[17]
Rep. Act No. 6735 is a law relative to the conduct of a
plebiscite. The primary task of the COMELEC under Rep. Act No. 6735 is to
enforce and administer the said law, functions that are essentially executive
and administrative in nature. Even the subsequent duty of the COMELEC of
determining the sufficiency of the petitions after they have been filed is
administrative in character. By any measure, the COMELEC’s
failure to perform its executive and administrative functions under Rep. Act
No. 6735 constitutes grave abuse of discretion.
III.
It has been argued that the subject petitions for initiative are barred under Republic Act No. 6735 as they allegedly embrace more than one subject. Section 10 of Rep. Act No. 6735 classifies as a “prohibited measure,” a petition submitted to the electorate that embraces more than one subject.[18] On this point, reliance is apparently placed on the array of provisions which are to be affected by the amendments proposed in the initiative petition.
Section 10 of Rep. Act No. 6735 is a reflection of the long-enshrined constitutional principle that the laws passed by Congress “shall embrace only one subject which shall be expressed in the title thereof”.[19] The one-subject requirement under the Constitution is satisfied if all the parts of the statute are related, and are germane to the subject matter expressed in the title, or as long as they are not inconsistent with or foreign to the general subject and title.[20] An act having a single general subject, indicated in the title, may contain any number of provisions, no matter how diverse they may be, so long as they are not inconsistent with or foreign to the general subject, and may be considered in furtherance of such subject by providing for the method and means of carrying out the general object.[21]
The precedents governing the one-subject, one-title rule under the Constitution should apply as well in the interpretation of Section 10 of Rep. Act No. 6735. For as long as it can be established that an initiative petition embraces a single general subject, the petition may be allowed no matter the number of constitutional provisions proposed for amendment if the amendments are germane to the subject of the petition.
Both the Sigaw ng Bayan and the Lambino initiative petitions expressly propose the changing of the form of government from bicameral-presidential to unicameral-parliamentary. Such a proposal may strike as comprehensive, necessitating as it will the reorganization of the executive and legislative branches of government, nevertheless it ineluctably encompasses only a single general subject still.
The 1987 Constitution (or any constitution for that matter) is susceptible to division into several general spheres. To cite the broadest of these spheres by way of example, Article III enumerates the guaranteed rights of the people under the Bill of Rights; Articles VI, VII and VIII provide for the organizational structure of government; while Articles II, XII, XIII & XIV, XV and XVI enunciate policy principles of the State. What would clearly be prohibited under Section 10 of Rep. Act No. 6735 is an initiative petition that seeks to amend provisions which do not belong to the same sphere. For example, had a single initiative petition sought not only to change the form of government from presidential to parliamentary but also to amend the Bill of Rights, said petition would arguably have been barred under Section 10, as that petition ostensibly embraces more than one subject, with each subject bearing no functional relation to the other. But that is not the case with the present initiative petitions.
Neither can it be argued that the initiative petitions embrace more than one subject since the proposed amendments seek to affect two separate branches of government. The very purpose of the initiative petitions is to fuse the powers of the executive and legislative branches of government; hence, the amendments intended to effect such general intent necessarily affects the two branches. If it required that to propose a shift in government from presidential to parliamentary, the amendments to Article VII (Executive Branch) have to be segregated to a different petition from that which would propose amendments to Article VI (Legislative Branch), then the result would be two initiative petitions ─ both subject to separate authentications, consideration and even plebiscites, all to effect one general proposition. This scenario, which entertains the possibility that one petition would ultimately fail while the other succeeds, could thus allow for the risk that the executive branch could be abolished without transferring executive power to the legislative branch. An absurd result, indeed.
I am not even entirely comfortable with the theoretical underpinnings of Section 10. The Constitution indubitably grants the people the right to seek amendment of the charter through initiative, and mandates Congress to “provide for the implementation of the exercise of this right.” In doing so, Congress may not restrict the right to initiative on grounds that are not provided for in the Constitution. If for example the implementing law also provides that certain provisions of the Constitution may not be amended through initiative, that prohibition should not be sustained. Congress is tasked with the implementation, and not the restriction of the right to initiative.
The one-subject requirement under Section 10 is not provided for as a bar to amendment under the Constitution. Arguments can be supplied for the merit of such a requirement, since it would afford a measure of orderliness when the vital question of amending the Constitution arises. The one-subject requirement does allow the voters focus when deliberating whether or not to vote for the amendments. These factors of desirability nonetheless fail to detract from the fact that the one-subject requirement imposes an additional restriction on the right to initiative not contemplated by the Constitution. Short of invalidating the requirement, a better course of action would be to insist upon its liberal interpretation. After all, the Court has consistently adhered to a liberal interpretation of the one-subject, one-title rule.[22] There is no cause to adopt a stricter interpretative rule with regard to the one-subject rule under Section 10 of Rep. Act No. 6735
IV.
During the hearing on the petitions, the argument was raised that provisions of the Constitution amended through initiative would not have the benefit of a reference source from the record of a deliberative body such as Congress or a constitutional convention. It was submitted that this consideration influenced the Constitutional Commission as it drafted Section 2, Article XVII, which expressly provided that only amendments, and not revisions, may be the subject of initiative petitions.
This argument clearly proceeds from a premise that accords supreme value to the
record of deliberations of a constitutional convention or commission in the
interpretation of the charter. Yet if the absence of a record of deliberations
stands as so serious a flaw as to invalidate or constrict processes which
change a constitution or its provisions, then the entire initiative process
authorized by the Constitution should be scarlet-marked as well.
Even if this position can be given any
weight in the consideration of these petitions, I would like to point out that
resort to the records of deliberations is only one of many aids to
constitutional construction. For one, it should be abhorred if the provision
under study is itself clear, plain, and free from ambiguity. As the Court held
in Civil Liberties
While
it is permissible in this jurisdiction to consult the debates and proceedings
of the constitutional convention in order to arrive at the reason and purpose
of the resulting Constitution, resort thereto may be had only when other guides
fail as said proceedings are powerless to vary the terms of the Constitution
when the meaning is clear. Debates in the
constitutional convention "are of value as showing the views of the individual
members, and as indicating the reasons for their votes, but they give us no
light as to the views of the large majority who did not talk . . . We think it
safer to construe the constitution from what appears upon its face."[24]
Even if there is need to refer to
extrinsic sources in aid of constitutional interpretation, the constitutional
record does not provide the exclusive or definitive answer on how to interpret
the provision. The intent of a constitutional convention is not controlling by
itself, and while the historical discussion on the floor of the constitutional
convention is valuable, it is not necessarily decisive. The Court has even held
in Vera v. Avelino[25]
that “the proceedings of the [constitutional] convention are less conclusive of
the proper construction of the fundamental law than are legislative proceedings
of the proper construction of a statute, since in the latter case it is the
intent of the legislature that courts seek, while in the former courts are
endeavoring to arrive at the intent of the people through the discussions and
deliberations of their representatives.”[26]
The proper interpretation of a constitution depends more on how it was
understood by the people adopting it than the framers’ understanding thereof.[27]
If there is fear in the absence of a
constitutional record as guide for interpretation of any amendments adopted via
initiative, such absence would not preclude the courts from interpreting such
amendments in a manner consistent with how courts generally construe the Constitution.
For example, reliance will be placed on the other provisions of the
Constitution to arrive at a harmonized and holistic constitutional framework.
The constitutional record is hardly the Rosetta Stone
that unlocks the meaning of the Constitution.
V.
I fully agree with Justice Puno that all issues
relating to the sufficiency of the initiative petitions should be remanded to
the COMELEC. Rep. Act No. 6735 clearly reposes on the COMELEC the task of
determining the sufficiency of the petitions, including the ascertainment of
whether twelve percent (12%) of all registered voters, including three percent
(3%) of registered voters in every legislative district have indeed signed the
initiative petitions.[28]
It should be remembered that the COMELEC had dismissed the initiative petitions
outright, and had yet to undertake the determination of sufficiency as required
by law.
It has been suggested to the end of leading
the Court to stifle the initiative petitions that the Court may at this
juncture pronounce the initiative petitions as insufficient. The derivation of
the factual predicates leading to the suggestion is uncertain, considering that
the trier of facts, the COMELEC in this instance, has yet to undertake the
necessary determination. Still, the premise has been floated that petitioners
have made sufficient admissions before this Court that purportedly established
the petitions are insufficient.
That premise is highly dubitable. Yet
the more fundamental question that we should ask, I submit, is whether it
serves well on the Court to usurp trier of facts even
before the latter exercises its functions? If the Court, at this stage, were to
declare the petitions as insufficient, it would be akin to the Court
pronouncing an accused as guilty even before the lower court trial had began.
Matugas
v. COMELEC[29]
inveighs against the propriety of the Court uncharacteristically assuming
the role of trier of facts, and resolving factual
questions not previously adjudicated by the lower courts or tribunals:
[P]etitioner
in this case cannot "enervate" the COMELEC's findings by introducing
new evidence before this Court, which in any case is not a trier of facts,
and then ask it to substitute its own judgment and discretion for that of the
COMELEC.
The rule in appellate procedure is that
a factual question may not be raised for the first time on appeal, and
documents forming no part of the proofs before the appellate court will not be
considered in disposing of the issues of an action. This is true whether the
decision elevated for review originated from a regular court or an
administrative agency or quasi-judicial body, and whether it was rendered in a
civil case, a special proceeding, or a criminal case. Piecemeal presentation of
evidence is simply not in accord with orderly justice.[30]
Any present determination by the Court on the sufficiency of the
petitions constitutes in effect a trial de novo, the Justices of the
Supreme Court virtually descending to the level of trial court judges. This is
an unbecoming recourse, and it simply is not done.
VI.
The worst position this Court could
find itself in is to acquiesce to a plea that it make the choice whether to
amend the Constitution or not. This is a matter which should not be left to
fifteen magistrates who have not been elected by the people to make the choice
for them.
A vote to grant the petitions is not a
vote to amend the 1987 Constitution. It is merely a vote to allow the people to
directly exercise that option. In fact, the position of Justice Puno which I
share would not even guarantee that the Lambino and Sigaw ng Bayan initiative
petitions would be submitted to the people in a referendum. The COMELEC will
still have to determine the sufficiency of the petition. Among the questions
which still have to be determined by the poll body in considering the
sufficiency of the petitions is whether twelve percent (12%) of all registered
voters nationwide, including three percent (3%) of registered voters in every
legislative district, have indeed signed the initiative petitions.[31]
And even should the COMELEC find the
initiative petitions sufficient, the matter of whether the Constitution should
be amended would still depend on the choice of the electorate. The oppositors are clearly queasy about some of the amendments
proposed, or the imputed motives behind the amendments. A referendum, should
the COMELEC find the petitions as sufficient, would allow them to convey their
uneasiness to the public at large, as well as for the proponents of the
amendment to defend their proposal. The campaign period alone would allow the
public to be involved in the significant deliberation on the course our nation
should take, with the ensuing net benefit of a more informed, more politically
aware populace. And of course, the choice on whether the Constitution should be
amended would lie directly with the people. The initiative process involves
participatory democracy at its most elemental; wherein the consequential
debate would not be confined to the august halls of Congress or the
hallowed chambers of this Court, as it would spill over to the public squares
and town halls, the academic yards and the Internet blogosphere,
the dining areas in the homes of the affluent and the impoverished alike.
The prospect of informed and widespread
discussion on constitutional change engaged in by a people who are actually
empowered in having a say whether these changes should be enacted, gives
fruition to the original vision of pure democracy, as formulated in
Unfortunately, given the highly
politicized charge of the times, it has been peddled that an act or vote that
assists the initiative process is one for the willful extinction of democracy
or democratic institutions. Such a consideration should of course properly play
its course in the public debates and deliberations attendant to the initiative
process. Yet as a result of the
harum-scarum, the temptation lies heavy for a member of this Court perturbed
with the prospect of constitutional change to relieve those anxieties by simply
voting to enjoin any legal procedure that initiates the amendment or revision
of the fundamental law, even at the expense of the people’s will or what the
Constitution allows. A vote so oriented takes the conservative path of least
resistance, even as it may gain the admiration of those who do not want to see
the Constitution amended.
Still, the biases we should enforce as
magistrates are those of the Constitution and the elements of democracy on
which our rule of law is founded. Direct democracy, as embodied in the
initiative process, is but a culmination of the evolution over the centuries of
democratic rights of choice and self-governance. The reemergence of the Athenian
democratic ideal after centuries of tyrannical rules arrived very slowly, the
benefits parceled out at first only to favored classes. The Magna Carta granted limited rights to self-determination and
self-governance only to a few English nobles; the American Constitution was
originally intended to give a meaningful voice only to free men, mostly
Caucasian, who met the property-holding requirements set by the states for
voting. Yet even the very idea of popular voting, limited as it may have
already been within the first few years of the American Union, met resistance
from no less a revered figure as Alexander Hamilton, to whom the progressive
historian Howard Zinn attributes these disconcerting
words:
The voice of the people has
been said to be the voice of God; and however generally this maxim has been
quoted and believed, it is not true in fact. The people are turbulent and
changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first
class a distinct permanent share in the government… Can a democratic assembly
who annually revolve in the mass of the people be supposed steadily to pursue
the public good? Nothing but a permanent body can check the imprudence of
democracy…[33]
This utterly paternalistic and bigoted
view has not survived into the present age of modern democracy where a person’s
poverty, color, or gender no longer impedes the exercise of full democratic
rights. Yet a democracy that merely guarantees its citizens the right to live
their lives freely is incomplete if there is no corresponding allowance for a
means by which the people have a direct choice in determining their country’s
direction. Initiative as a mode of amending a constitution may seem
incompatible with representative democracy, yet it embodies an even purer form
of democracy. Initiative, which our 1987 Constitution saw fit to grant to the
people, is a progressive measure that is but a continuation of the line of evolution
of the democratic ideal.
By
allowing the sovereign people to directly propose and enact constitutional
amendments, the initiative process should be acknowledged as the purest
implement of democratic rule under law. This right granted to over sixty
million Filipinos cannot be denied by the votes of less than eight magistrates
for reasons that bear no cogitation on the Constitution.
I VOTE to GRANT the petitions.
DANTE O. TINGA
Associate
Justice
[3]Petitioner
Aumentado aptly refers to the comment of the late
Senator Raul Roco that the
[6]
[7]See
Dissenting Opinion,
[8]As
Justice Frankfurter once wrote: “We recognize that stare decisis
embodies an important social policy. It represents an element of continuity
in law, and is rooted in the psychologic need to
satisfy reasonable expectations. But stare decisis
is a principle of policy and not a mechanical formula of adherence to the
latest decision, however recent and questionable, when such adherence involves
collision with a prior doctrine more embracing in its scope, intrinsically sounder,
and verified by experience… This Court, unlike the House of Lords, has from the
beginning rejected a doctrine of disability at self-correction.” Helvering v. Hallock,
309
[10]As
Chief Justice Panganiban then cited: “For instance, Ebralinag vs. Davision
Superintendent of Schools of Cebu, 219 SCRA 256,
March 1, 1993, reversed the Court's 34-year-old doctrine laid down in Gerona
vs. Secretary of Education, 106 Phil 2, August 12, 1959, and upheld the right
of Jehovah's Witnesses "to refuse to salute the Philippine flag on account
of their religious beliefs." Similarly, Olaguer
vs. Military Commission, 150 SCRA 144, May 22, 1987, abandoned the 12-year-old
ruling in Aquino Jr. vs. Military Commission, 63 SCRA
546, May 9, 1975, which recognized the jurisdiction of military tribunals to
try civilians for offenses allegedly committed during martial law. The Court
likewise reversed itself in EPZA vs. Dulay, 149 SCRA
305, April 29, 1987, when it vacated its earlier ruling in National Housing
Authority vs. Reyes, 123 SCRA 245, June 29, 1983, on the validity of certain
presidential decrees regarding the determination of just compensation. In the
much earlier case of Philippine Trust Co. vs. Mitchell, 59 Phil. 30, December
8, 1933, the Court revoked its holding in Involuntary Insolvency of Mariano
Velasco & Co., 55 Phil 353, November 29, 1930, regarding the relation of
the insolvency law with the then Code of Civil Procedure and with the Civil
Code. Just recently, the Court, in Kilosbayan vs. Morato, 246 SCRA 540, July 17, 1995, also abandoned the
earlier grant of standing to petitioner-organization in Kilosbayan
vs. Guingona, 232 SCRA 110, May 5, 1994.”
[17]
[18]See e.g., Memorandum of Oppositors-Intervenors
Senators Pimentel, Jr., et. al., pp. 19-22; Memorandum
for Intervenor Senate of the
[20]See e.g., Sumulong v. COMELEC, 73 Phil. 288, 291 (1941); Cordero v. Hon. Jose Cabatuando, et al., 116 Phil. 736, 741 (1962).
[21]See Tio v. VRB, G.R. No. L-75697, 18 June 1987,
151 SCRA 208, 214-215; citing Public Service Co., Recktenwald,
290
[22]“As a policy, this Court has adopted a liberal construction of the one title - one subject rule.” Tatad v. Secretary of Department of Energy, 346 Phil. 321, 359 (1997).
[23]Civil Liberties
[24]
[26]
[27]Civil Liberties Union v. Executive Secretary, supra note 23, at 338; citing Household Finance Corporation v. Shaffner, 203 S.W. 2d 734, 356 Mo. 808.
[29]
G.R. No. 151944,
[32]From the “Funeral Oration” by Pericles, as recorded by Thucydides in the History of the Peloponnesian War.
[33]H. Zinn, A People’s History of the United States (1980 ed.), at 95.