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Tuesday, September 05, 2006
People's initiative proponents ask SC to overturn dismissal of petition
TWO pro-Charter change groups on Monday filed with the Supreme Court (SC) a petition seeking to nullify a resolution of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) denying their petition for people's initiative to amend the 1987 Constitution.
In a 64-page petition for certiorari, Raul Lambino and Bohol Governor Erico Aumentado, representing the multisectoral group Sigaw ng Bayan and the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (Ulap), respectively, also asked the high court to order the Comelec to immediately schedule a plebiscite on the proposed revisions before the end of the year.
The groups, who also claimed to represent the interests of some 6.3 million registered voters who are in favor of constitutional reforms, assailed the Comelec's August 31 resolution saying "it was imbued with grave abuse of discretion for refusing to take cognizance of and give due course on their petition on the ground that Section 2, Article XVII of the 1987 Constitution needed an enabling law for its implementation."
"There is an urgent need for the immediate resolution of the instant petition in view of the proposal contained in the petition for initiative to hold elections for parliament together with the previously scheduled national and local elections of public official in May of 2007," petitioners said.
Assuming that there is no enabling law, the petitioners said the Comelec "cannot ignore the will of the sovereign people and must accordingly act on the petition for initiative."
They said the Comelec is bound by its constitutional duty to set the date of the plebiscite for the approval by the people of the proposed amendments to the Constitution.
"The right of the people to exercise sovereign power of initiative and recall has been invariably upheld in well-settled jurisprudence prior to the Santiago ruling," the petitioners added, referring to the 1997 decision of the SC in the case of Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago against the Comelec.
Lambino further rejected the contention of the Comelec that it is barred from acting on the petition for initiative because, according to him, the Santiago ruling does not apply to their case.
"We consider the Santiago ruling as a non-existent jurisprudence because the tribunal voted 6 to 6 (in 1997), wherein six justices were of the opinion that Republic Act 6735 (People's Initiative and Referendum Act) has provided an adequate mechanism for the implementation of a people's initiative to amend the constitution," the petitioners said through their lawyer Alberto Agra.
They explained that they had taken the immediate recourse to the SC without first filing a motion for reconsideration because there are several exceptions to the rule pursuant to SC Circular 2-89, dated Feb. 7, 1989, as amended by the SC Resolution of Nov. 18, 1993.
Among the questions raised involves an issue of constitutionality or validity; it involves a resolution of the Comelec; and it falls under cases "where a doctrine or principle laid down by the court en banc or in division may be modified or reversed."
They argued that the Comelec's refusal to act is "contrary to the clear mandate of the fundamental law of the land, given that it has a ministerial duty to set the date of the plebiscite not earlier than 60 days or nor later than 90 days after the certification by the Comelec whether the petition for initiative filed before it is sufficient."
The petitioners further said the Comelec, in its resolution, made a determination that the petition for initiative "appears to have met the required minimum percentage" of three percent of all registered voters in each congressional district and 12 percent of all registered voters nationwide.
The group said the filing of their petition with the SC was borne of a "grueling and Herculean effort" in gathering millions of signatures of Filipino voters nationwide in support of the petition for initiative.
The Sigaw, Ulap and the Advocacy Commission has gathered over 10 million signatures nationwide for their petition, while 6.3 million of them have already been verified by the Comelec, in compliance with Section 2, Article XVII of the 1987 Constitution requiring the signatures of at least 12 per centum of the registered voters nationwide and at least three percent of the registered voters in each of the legislative districts of the country.
They said the signatures were verified on the basis of the list of registered voters based on the official Comelec list used in the immediately preceding election.
But opponents said many of the signatures were either falsified or were those of deceased people. (ECV/Sunnex)
(September 5, 2006 issue)
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