Santiago
v. COMELEC
G.R. No. 127325 March 19, 1997
Davide, Jr., J.
Facts:
Private
respondent Atty. Jesus S. Delfin filed with public respondent COMELEC a “Petition
to Amend the Constitution, to Lift Term Limits of Elective Officials, by People’s
Initiative” (hereafter, Delfin Petition) wherein Delfin asked the COMELEC for an
order
- Fixing
the time and dates for signature gathering all over the country;
- Causing
the necessary publications of said Order and the attached “Petition for Initiative
on the 1987 Constitution, in newspapers of general and local circulation;
- Instructing
Municipal Election Registrars in all Regions of the Philippines, to assist
Petitioners and volunteers, in establishing signing stations at the time and
on the dates designated for the purpose.
Delfin alleged in
his petition that he is a founding member of the Movement for People’s Initiative,
a group of citizens desirous to avail of the system intended to institutionalize
people power; that he and the members of the Movement and other volunteers intend
to exercise the power to directly propose amendments to the Constitution granted
under Section 2, Article XVII of the Constitution; that the exercise of that power
shall be conducted in proceedings under the control and supervision of the COMELEC;
that, as required in COMELEC Resolution No. 2300, signature stations shall be established
all over the country, with the assistance of municipal election registrars, who
shall verify the signatures affixed by individual signatories; that before the Movement
and other volunteers can gather signatures, it is necessary that the time and dates
to be designated for the purpose be first fixed in an order to be issued by the
COMELEC; and that to adequately inform the people of the electoral process involved,
it is likewise necessary that the said order, as well as the Petition on which the
signatures shall be affixed, be published in newspapers of general and local circulation,
under the control and supervision of the COMELEC.
The Delfin Petition
further alleged that the provisions sought to be amended are Sections 4 and 7 of
Article VI, 7Section 4 of Article VII, and Section 8 of Article X of the Constitution.
Attached to the petition is a copy of a “Petition for Initiative on the 1987 Constitution”
embodying the proposed amendments which consist in the deletion from the aforecited
sections of the provisions concerning term limit.
According to Delfin,
the said Petition for Initiative will first be submitted to the people, and after
it is signed by at least twelve per cent of the total number of registered voters
in the country it will be formally filed with the COMELEC.
The petitioners
herein — Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago, Alexander Padilla, and Maria Isabel Ongpin
— filed this special civil action for prohibition raising the following arguments:
(1)
The constitutional provision on people’s
initiative to amend the Constitution can only be implemented by law to be passed
by Congress. No such law has been passed; in fact, Senate Bill No. 1290 entitled
An Act Prescribing and Regulating Constitution Amendments by People’s Initiative,
which petitioner Senator Santiago filed on 24 November 1995, is still pending before
the Senate Committee on Constitutional Amendments.
(2)
It is true that R.A. No. 6735 provides
for three systems of initiative, namely, initiative on the Constitution, on statutes,
and on local legislation. However, it failed to provide any subtitle on initiative
on the Constitution, unlike in the other modes of initiative, which are specifically
provided for in Subtitle II and Subtitle III. This deliberate omission indicates
that the matter of people’s initiative to amend the Constitution was left to some
future law. Former Senator Arturo Tolentino stressed this deficiency in the law
in his privilege speech delivered before the Senate in 1994: “There is not a single
word in that law which can be considered as implementing [the provision on constitutional
initiative]. Such implementing provisions have been obviously left to a separate
law.
(3)
Republic Act No. 6735 provides for
the effectivity of the law after publication in print media. This indicates that
the Act covers only laws and not constitutional amendments because the latter take
effect only upon ratification and not after publication.
(4)
COMELEC Resolution No. 2300, adopted
on 16 January 1991 to govern “the conduct of initiative on the Constitution and
initiative and referendum on national and local laws, is ultra vires insofar asinitiative
on amendments to the Constitution is concerned, since the COMELEC has no power to
provide rules and regulations for the exercise of the right of initiative to amend
the Constitution. Only Congress is authorized by the Constitution to pass the implementing
law.
(5)
The people’s initiative is limited
to amendments to the Constitution, not to revision thereof. Extending or lifting
of term limits constitutes a revision and is, therefore, outside the power of the
people’s initiative.
(6)
Finally, Congress has not yet appropriated
funds for people’s initiative; neither the COMELEC nor any other government department,
agency, or office has realigned funds for the purpose.
Issue:
Is
R.A. No. 6735adequate to cover the system on initiative on amendments to the Constitution?
Held:
No.
Section 2 of Article XVII of the Constitution provides:
Sec.
2. Amendments to this Constitution may likewise be directly proposed by the people
through initiative upon a petition of at least twelve per centum of the total number
of registered voters, of which every legislative district must be represented by
at least three per centum of the registered voters therein. No amendment under this
section shall be authorized within five years following the ratification of this
Constitution nor oftener than once every five years thereafter.
The Congress shall
provide for the implementation of the exercise of this right.
This provision is
not self-executory. Without implementing legislation Section 2 cannot operate. Thus,
although this mode of amending the Constitution is a mode of amendment which bypasses
congressional action, in the last analysis it still is dependent on congressional
action.
This system of initiative
was originally included in Section 1 of the draft Article on Amendment or Revision
proposed by the Committee on Amendments and Transitory Provisions of the 1986 Constitutional
Commission in its Committee Report No. 7 (Proposed Resolution No. 332). That section
reads as follows:
Sec.
1. Any amendment to, or revision of, this Constitution may be proposed:
(a)
by the National Assembly upon a vote of three-fourths of all its members; or
(b)
by a constitutional convention; or
(c)
directly by the people themselves thru initiative as provided for in Article___
Section ___of the Constitution.
Indeed,
the system of initiative on the Constitution under Section 2 of Article XVII of
the Constitution is not self-executory.
Has
Congress “provided” for the implementation of the exercise of this right? Those
who answer the question in the affirmative point to R.A. No. 6735. But is R.A. No.
6735 a full compliance with the power and duty of Congress to “provide for the implementation
of the exercise of the right?” A careful scrutiny of the Act yields a negative answer.
First. Contrary to the assertion of
public respondent COMELEC, Section 2 of the Act does not suggest an initiative on
amendments to the Constitution. The said section reads:
Sec. 2. Statement and Policy. — The power of the people
under a system of initiative and referendum to directly propose, enact, approve
or reject, in whole or in part, the Constitution, laws, ordinances, or resolutions
passed by any legislative body upon compliance with the requirements of this Act
is hereby affirmed, recognized and guaranteed. (Emphasis supplied).
The inclusion of
the word “Constitution” therein was a delayed afterthought. That word is neither
germane nor relevant to said section, which exclusively relates to initiative and
referendum on national laws and local laws, ordinances, and resolutions. That section
is silent as to amendments on the Constitution. As pointed out earlier,
initiative on the Constitution is confined only to proposals to AMEND. The people
are not accorded the power to “directly propose, enact, approve, or reject,
in whole or in part, the Constitution” through the system of initiative. They can only do so with
respect to “laws, ordinances, or resolutions.”
Second. It is true that Section 3 (Definition
of Terms) of the Act defines initiative on amendments to the Constitution and mentions
it as one of the three systems of initiative,
and that Section 5 (Requirements) restates the constitutional requirements as to
the percentage of the registered voters who must submit the proposal. But unlike
in the case of the other systems of initiative,
the Act does not provide for the contents of a petition for initiative on the Constitution. Section 5, paragraph (c)
requires, among other things, statement of the proposed law sought to be enacted,
approved or rejected, amended or repealed, as the case may be. It does not include,
as among the contents of the petition, the provisions of the Constitution sought
to be amended, in the case of initiative on the Constitution. Said paragraph (c)
reads in full as follows:
(c) The petition shall state the following:
c.1 contents or text of the proposed law sought to be enacted, approved or rejected,
amended or repealed, as the case may be;
c.2 the proposition;
c.3 the reason or reasons therefor;
c.4 that it is not one of the exceptions provided therein;
c.5 signatures of the petitioners or registered voters;
and
c.6 an abstract or summary proposition is not more than
one hundred (100) words which shall be legibly written or printed at the top of
every page of the petition. (Emphasis supplied).
The use of the
clause “proposed laws sought to be enacted, approved or rejected, amended or repealed”
only strengthens the conclusion that Section 2, quoted earlier, excludes initiative
on amendments to the Constitution.
Third. While the Act provides subtitles
for National Initiative and Referendum (Subtitle II) and for Local Initiative and
Referendum (Subtitle III), no subtitle is provided for initiative on the Constitution. This conspicuous silence
as to the latter simply means that the main thrust of the Act is initiative and
referendum on national and local laws. If Congress intended R.A. No. 6735 to fully
provide for the implementation of the initiative on amendments to the Constitution, it could
have provided for a subtitle therefor, considering that in the order of things,
the primacy of interest, or hierarchy of values, the right of the people to directly
propose amendments to the Constitution is far more important than the initiative
on national and local laws.
Sec. 3. Definition of terms —
xxx xxx xxx
There are three (3) systems of initiative,
namely:
a.1 Initiative on the Constitution which refers to a
petition proposing amendments to the Constitution;
a.2 Initiative on Statutes which refers to a petition
proposing to enact a national legislation;
and
a.3 Initiative on
local legislation which refers
to a petition proposing to enact a regional, provincial, city, municipal, or barangay
law, resolution or ordinance. (Emphasis supplied).
Hence, to complete the classification under subtitles there should have been
a subtitle on initiative on amendments to the Constitution.
While R.A. No. 6735 exerted utmost
diligence and care in providing for the details in the implementation of initiative
and referendum on national and local legislation thereby giving them special attention,
it failed, rather intentionally, to do so on the system of initiative on amendments
to the Constitution. Anent the initiative on national legislation, the Act provides
for the following:
(a)
The required percentage of registered voters to sign the petition
and the contents of the petition;
(b)
The conduct and date of the initiative;
(c)
The submission to the electorate of the proposition and the required
number of votes for its approval;
(d)
The certification by the COMELEC of the approval of the proposition;
(e)
The publication of the approved proposition in the Official Gazette
or in a newspaper of general circulation in the Philippines; and
(f)
The effects
of the approval or rejection of the proposition.
As regards local initiative, the Act
provides for the following:
(a)
The preliminary requirement as to the number of signatures of
registered voters for the petition;
(b)
The submission of the petition to the local legislative body concerned;
(c)
The effect of the legislative body’s failure to favorably act
thereon, and the invocation of the power of initiative as a consequence thereof;
(d)
The formulation of the proposition;
(e)
The period within which to gather the signatures;
(f)
The persons before whom the petition shall be signed;
(g)
The issuance of a certification by the COMELEC through its official
in the local government unit concerned as to whether the required number of signatures
have been obtained;
(h)
The setting of a date by the COMELEC for the submission of the
proposition to the registered voters for their approval, which must be within the
period specified therein;
(i)
The issuance of a certification of the result;
(j)
The date of effectivity of the approved proposition;
(k)
The limitations on local initiative; and
(l)
The limitations
upon local legislative bodies.
Upon the other hand, as to initiative on amendments to the Constitution, R.A. No.
6735, in all of its twenty-three sections, merely (a) mentions, the word “Constitution”
in Section 2; (b) defines “initiative on the Constitution” and includes it in the
enumeration of the three systems of initiative in Section 3; (c) speaks of “plebiscite”
as the process by which the proposition in an initiative on the Constitution may
be approved or rejected by the people; (d) reiterates the constitutional requirements
as to the number of voters who should sign the petition; and (e) provides for the
date of effectivity of the approved proposition.
There was, therefore,
an obvious downgrading of the more important or the paramount system of initiative.
RA. No. 6735 thus delivered a humiliating blow to the system of initiative on amendments
to the Constitution by merely paying it a reluctant lip service.
The foregoing brings
us to the conclusion that R.A. No. 6735 is incomplete, inadequate, or wanting in
essential terms and conditions insofar as initiative on amendments to the Constitution
is concerned. Its lacunae on this substantive matter are fatal and cannot be cured
by “empowering” the COMELEC “to promulgate such rules and regulations as may be
necessary to carry out the purposes of the Act.
The rule is that
what has been delegated, cannot be delegated or as expressed in a Latin maxim: potestas delegata non delegari potest. The recognized exceptions to the rule are as
follows:
(1)
Delegation
of tariff powers to the President under Section 28(2) of Article VI of the Constitution;
(2)
Delegation
of emergency powers to the President under Section 23(2) of Article VI of the Constitution;
(3)
Delegation
to the people at large;
(4)
Delegation
to local governments; and
(5)
Delegation
to administrative bodies.
Empowering the
COMELEC, an administrative body exercising quasi-judicial functions, to promulgate
rules and regulations is a form of delegation of legislative authority under no.
5 above. However, in every case of permissible delegation, there must be a showing
that the delegation itself is valid. It is valid only if the law (a) is complete
in itself, setting forth therein the policy to be executed, carried out, or implemented
by the delegate; and (b) fixes a standard — the limits of which are sufficiently
determinate and determinable — to which the delegate must conform in the performance
of his functions. A sufficient standard
is one which defines legislative policy, marks its limits, maps out its boundaries
and specifies the public agency to apply it. It indicates the circumstances under
which the legislative command is to be effected.
Insofar as initiative to propose amendments to the Constitution
is concerned, R.A. No. 6735 miserably failed to satisfy both requirements in subordinate
legislation. The delegation of the power to the COMELEC is then invalid.
Issue:
Is
COMELEC Resolution No. 2300, insofar as it prescribes rules and regulations on theconduct
of initiative on amendments to the Constitution, void?
Held:
Yes.
The COMELEC cannot validly promulgate rules and regulations to implement the exercise
of the right of the people to directly propose amendments to the Constitution through
the system of initiative. It does not have that power under R.A. No. 6735. Reliance
on the COMELEC’s power under Section 2(1) of Article IX-C of the Constitution is
misplaced, for the laws and regulations referred to therein are those promulgated
by the COMELEC under (a) Section 3 of Article IX-C of the Constitution, or (b) a
law where subordinate legislation is authorized and which satisfies the “completeness”
and the “sufficient standard” tests.
Issue:
Did
the COMELEC act without jurisdiction or with grave abuse of discretion in entertaining
the Delfin petition
Held:
Yes.
Under Section 2 of Article XVII of the Constitution and Section 5(b) of R.A. No.
6735, a petition for initiative on the Constitution must be signed by at least 12%
of the total number of registered voters of which every legislative district is
represented by at least 3% of the registered voters therein. The Delfin Petition
does not contain signatures of the required number of voters. Delfin himself admits
that he has not yet gathered signatures and that the purpose of his petition is
primarily to obtain assistance in his drive to gather signatures. Without the required
signatures, the petition cannot be deemed validly initiated.
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