Aquino III v. COMELEC

Aquino III v. COMELEC

G.R. No. 189793 April 7, 2010

Perez, J.

Facts:

                Petitioners Senator Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III and Mayor Jesse Robredo, as public officers, taxpayers and citizens, seek the nullification as unconstitutional of Republic Act No. 9716, entitled “An Act Reapportioning the Composition of the First (1st) and Second (2nd) Legislative Districts in the Province of Camarines Sur and Thereby Creating a New Legislative District From Such Reapportionment.” In substance, the said law created an additional legislative district for the Province of Camarines Sur by reconfiguring the existing first and second legislative districts of the province.

                Prior to Republic Act No. 9716, the Province of Camarines Sur was estimated to have a population of 1,693,821, distributed among four (4) legislative districts in this wise:

District	Municipalities/Cities		Population
1st District	Del Gallego Ragay Lupi Sipocot Cabusao	Libmanan Minalabac Pamplona Pasacao San Fernando	417,304
2nd District	Gainza Milaor Naga Pili Ocampo	Canaman Camaligan Magarao Bombon Calabanga	474,899
3rd District	Caramoan Garchitorena Goa Lagonoy Presentacion	Sangay San Jose Tigaon Tinamba Siruma	372,548
4th District	Iriga Baao Balatan Bato	Buhi Bula Nabua	429,070

Following the enactment of Republic Act No. 9716, the first and second districts of Camarines Sur were reconfigured in order to create an additional legislative district for the province. Hence, the first district municipalities of Libmanan, Minalabac, Pamplona, Pasacao, and San Fernando were combined with the second district municipalities of Milaor and Gainza to form a new second legislative district. The following table³ illustrates the reapportionment made by Republic Act No. 9716:

District	Municipalities/Cities		Population
1st District	Del Gallego Ragay Lupi Sipocot Cabusao		176,383
2nd District	Libmanan Minalabac Pamplona Pasacao	San Fernando Gainza Milaor	276,777
3rd District (formerly 2nd District)	Naga Pili Ocampo Canaman	Camaligan Magarao Bombon Calabanga	439,043
4th District (formerly 3rd District)	Caramoan Garchitorena Goa Lagonoy Presentacion	Sangay San Jose Tigaon Tinamba Siruma	372,548
5th District (formerly 4th District)	Iriga Baao Balatan Bato	Buhi Bula Nabua	429,070

Petitioners contend that the reapportionment introduced by Republic Act No. 9716, runs afoul of the explicit constitutional standard that requires a minimum population of two hundred fifty thousand (250,000) for the creation of a legislative district. The petitioners claim that the reconfiguration by Republic Act No. 9716 of the first and second districts of Camarines Sur is unconstitutional, because the proposed first district will end up with a population of less than 250,000 or only 176,383.

Petitioners rely on Section 5(3), Article VI of the 1987 Constitution as basis for the cited 250,000 minimum population standard. The provision reads:

Article VI

Section 5. (1) x x x x

(2) x x x x

(3) Each legislative district shall comprise, as far as practicable, contiguous, compact, and adjacent territory.Each city with a population of at least two hundred fifty thousand, or each province, shall have at least one representative.

(4) x x x x (Emphasis supplied).

Issue:

                whether or not Republic Act 9716 is unconstitutional because the newly apportioned first district of Camarines Sur failed to meet the population requirement for the creation of the legislative district as explicitly provided in Article VI, Section 5, Paragraphs (1) and (3) of the Constitution and Section 3 of the Ordinance appended thereto; and whether or not Republic Act 9716 violates the principle of proportional representation as provided in Article VI, Section 5 paragraphs (1), (3) and (4) of the Constitution

Held:

                No. There is no specific provision in the Constitution that fixes a 250,000 minimum population that must compose a legislative district.

As already mentioned, the petitioners rely on the second sentence of Section 5(3), Article VI of the 1987 Constitution, coupled with what they perceive to be the intent of the framers of the Constitution to adopt a minimum population of 250,000 for each legislative district.

The second sentence of Section 5(3), Article VI of the Constitution, succinctly provides: “Each city with a population of at least two hundred fifty thousand, or each province, shall have at least one representative.”

The provision draws a plain and clear distinction between the entitlement of a city to a district on one hand, and the entitlement of a province to a district on the other. For while a province is entitled to at least a representative, with nothing mentioned about population, a city must first meet a population minimum of 250,000 in order to be similarly entitled.

The use by the subject provision of a comma to separate the phrase “each city with a population of at least two hundred fifty thousand” from the phrase “or each province” point to no other conclusion than that the 250,000 minimum population is only required for a city, but not for a province.

                Plainly read, Section 5(3) of the Constitution requires a 250,000 minimum population only for a city to be entitled to a representative, but not so for a province.

Neither in the text nor in the essence of Section 5, Article VI of the Constitution can, the petition find support. And the formulation of the Ordinance in the implementation of the provision, nay, even the Ordinance itself, refutes the contention that a population of 250,000 is a constitutional sine qua non for the formation of an additional legislative district in a province, whose population growth has increased beyond the 1986 numbers.

Translated in the terms of the present case:

1. The Province of Camarines Sur, with an estimated population of 1,693,821 in 2007 is ─ based on the formula and constant number of 250,000 used by the Constitutional Commission in nationally apportioning legislative districts among provinces and cities ─ entitled to two (2) districts in addition to the four (4) that it was given in the 1986 apportionment. Significantly, petitioner Aquino concedes this point. In other words, Section 5 of Article VI as clearly written allows and does not prohibit an additional district for the Province of Camarines Sur, such as that provided for in Republic Act No. 9786;

2. Based on the pith and pitch of the exchanges on the Ordinance on the protests and complaints against strict conformity with the population standard, and more importantly based on the final districting in the Ordinance on considerations other than population, the reapportionment or the recomposition of the first and second legislative districts in the Province of Camarines Sur that resulted in the creation of a new legislative district is valid even if the population of the new district is 176,383 and not 250,000 as insisted upon by the petitioners.

3. The factors mentioned during the deliberations on House Bill No. 4264, were:

(a)    the dialects spoken in the grouped municipalities;

(b)   the size of the original groupings compared to that of the regrouped municipalities;

(c)    the natural division separating the municipality subject of the discussion from the reconfigured District One; and

(d)    the balancing of the areas of the three districts resulting from the redistricting of Districts One and Two.

                Each of such factors and in relation to the others considered together, with the increased population of the erstwhile Districts One and Two, point to the utter absence of abuse of discretion, much less grave abuse of discretion, that would warrant the invalidation of Republic Act No. 9716.