Wednesday, September 27, 2006
SC may dash Sigaw bid on people's initiative
MANILA -- Supreme Court (SC) justices Tuesday balked at the constitutional amendments sought by Sigaw ng Bayan through a people's initiative "that not only aims to curtail the power of the Senate, but the judiciary's as well."
During the oral arguments, the 15 SC justices questioned the assertion of petitioners Raul Lambino of Sigaw ng Bayan and Bohol Governor Erico Aumentado of the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (Ulap) that the SC should revisit its 1997 decision in Santiago vs. Commission on Elections (Comelec).
In that decision, the SC declared Republic Act 6735, or the Initiative and Referendum Act of 1989, "inadequate, incomplete and insufficient."
The justices Tuesday countered the petitioners' claim that the SC's Santiago ruling did not carry a majority decision, and that it is still worth revisiting.
"It is not correct to say that there is no majority decision because the motion for reconsideration is lost in a tie vote," Associate Justice Leonardo Quisumbing pointed out to former SC justice Jose Pardo, who argued on behalf of Charter change advocates.
Associate Justice Romeo Callejo Sr. said the insistence of petitioners to revisit the Santiago decision is "a collateral attack" against the High Court.
"The SC decision in Santiago has become final and executory, and asking the court to review its decision is a collateral attack," he said.
Callejo further said in the Santiago ruling, the SC did not authorize the Comelec "to authenticate the signatures before a petition for initiative is filed."
The justices also questioned the amendments that will lead to the clipping of the court's "exceptional" power of certiorari.
In asking the SC to nullify the Comelec's August 31 resolution junking their initiative petition, Lambino said the election body is bound by its constitutional duty to set the date of the plebiscite, for people to vote on the proposed amendments in the 1987 Constitution.
They invoked Section 2 of Article 17: "Amendments in this Constitution may likewise be directly proposed by the people through initiative upon a petition of at least 12 percent of the total number of registered votes therein."
"The petition was signed by 6,327,952 registered voters throughout the country, of which every legislative district is represented by three percent of the registered voters therein. There are 43,523,922 registered voters in the Philippines. Twelve percent is 5,222,871.
The signatures in the petition exceed that number and the signatures gathered in each legislative district represented more than three percent of the registered voters," said Pardo.
Detained former president Joseph Estrada was unable to participate in the oral argument, after the Sandiganbayan Special Division hearing his plunder case did not allow him to do so.
The former president, through his lawyer Rufus Rodriguez, has filed a petition asking the High Court to junk the Sigaw ng Bayan petition.
Meanwhile, Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago expects that the High Tribunal will declare "unconstitutional for lack of legal basis" the people's initiative for Charter change. She called it "dead on arrival."
"Using the words of an old decision, the people's initiative is a patent illegality which, when it rears its ugly head, should be slain on sight," Santiago said. (Sunnex)
(September 27, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor. Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board. Click here. |
