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Friday, February 21, 2003
Poll execs face contempt for ignoring SC order
MANILA -- In an unprecedented move, the Supreme Court cited Thursday the entire Commission on Elections in contempt of court for disregarding an order of the High Tribunal stopping the declaration of party-list seat winners in Congress.
A 13-page decision penned by Associate Justice Artemio V. Panganiban, the SC said that by "their intransigence and disobedience the chairman and the members of Comelec have clearly placed themselves in contempt of this court."
The SC also fined P20,000 each Comelec Chair Benjamin Abalos Sr. and Commissioners Luzviminda Tancangco, Mehol Sadain, Rufino Javier and Ralph Lantion.
Likewise fined with a lesser amount of P5,000 were Commissioners Resureccion Borra and Florentino Tuason since they filed disagreed with the decision of the other Comelec officials.
"Regard for superior authority should have prevented the poll body from insisting" on its ruling," the SC pointed out.
The officials are in hot water over their decision to declare four parties, namely Apec, Butil, Cibac and Akbayan as winners in the party list polls last year despite a contrary order of the SC.
Comelec officials received warning about the possibility of being cited in contempt by the SC the first time in October 12, 2002 when the High Court ruled that five party-list groups, namely "Lakas-NUCD, Nationalist People's Coalition (NPC), Promdi, Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP) and the Veterans' Federation Party (VFP)," were mainstream political parties and qualified for party-list suits.
The High Court then said the Comelec no longer had jurisdiction to conduct any more hearings over whether a party was qualified for a party-list seat since a case was already pending before the SC.
It added that Comelec did not have authority to rule on the qualifications of the four party-list groups after they had been disqualified by the SC upon recommendation of the poll body.
"The Comelec did not even have the courtesy of notifying this court that it was conducting further evaluation of the matter. Such indiscretion borders on contempt of this court," the SC warned at that time.
The SC was also irked by the issuance of a Comelec resolution that the groups later used when they file a motion for reconsideration urging the Tribunal to authorize the poll body to proclaim them winners in the last party-list elections.
The High Court said the Comelec resolution failed to show any cogent reason or substantial evidence to prove that the groups are qualified to occupy party-list seats.
On June 26 last year, the High Court came out with an eight-point guideline to determine if a party-list group represented the marginal sector of society and was qualified for a congressional seat. Sunnex Luzon |
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