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Thursday, October 26, 2006
SC rejects petition for people's initiative, 8-7
MANILA -- By a vote of 8-7, the Supreme Court (SC) threw out Wednesday the consolidated petitions for people's initiative to amend the 1987 Constitution.
It branded as "deceptive and misleading" the moves of the Malacañang-backed Sigaw ng Bayan and Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (Ulap) to shift the present bicameral presidential system of government to unicameral parliamentary.
Full text of the Supreme Court decision on the people's initiative petition.
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In a 52-page en banc decision penned by Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, the High Court denied due course to what he called a "constitutionally infirmed" petition for initiative jointly filed by Sigaw ng Bayan led by lawyer Raul Lambino and the Ulap headed by Bohol Governor Erico Aumentado.
The SC said that petitioners failed to inform initiative signers of the nature and effect of the proposals, and failure to do so is "deceptive and misleading, which renders the initiative void."
It also noted that there is not a single word, phrase or sentence of proposed changes in the signature sheet.
"The unbending requirement is that the people must see the full text of the proposed amendments before they sign to signify their assent and that the people must sign an initiative petition that contains the full text of the proposed amendments," the SC ruled.
"An initiative that gathers signatures without first showing to the people the full text of the proposed amendments is most likely a deception, and can operate as a gigantic fraud on the people," the court added.
The ruling was lauded by various sectors and by the opposition while Malacañang said it respects the SC's verdict but it will sill pursue moves to amend the Charter, this time through constituent assembly.
The Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), in its pastoral statements issued last January and July, opposed the proposed shift of the government from presidential-bicameral to parliamentary-unicameral through the people's initiative.
The CBCP had said that, "the initiative is not the real people's initiative but of the government and its supporters who are protecting their interest and advantage."
Alex Aguilar, one of the proponents of the people's initiative, said they will consult their lawyer to determine what course of action to take, including filing a motion for reconsideration.
Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban, Associate Justices Angelina Sandoval-Gutierrez, Consuelo Ynares-Santiago, Ma. Alicia Austria-Martinez, Conchita Carpio-Morales, Romeo Callejo Sr., and Adolfo Azcuna voted against the people's initiative.
Senior Associate Justice Reynato Puno, Justices Leonardo Quisumbing, Renato Corona, Dante Tinga, Minita Chico-Nazario, Cancio Garcia and Presbiterio Velasco Jr. were in favor.
President Arroyo's 10 appointees in the SC were evenly divided on the people's initiative issue. Arroyo's appointees who voted to dismiss the people's initiative were Carpio, Panganiban, Austria-Martinez, Carpio-Morales and Azcuna.
Malacañang's appointees who favored the people's initiative were Corona, Tinga, Chico-Nazario, Garcia and Velasco.
The majority decision also saw a turnabout on the part of Panganiban in ruling against the initiative petition.
Panganiban, who cast the deciding vote that broke the tie, was one of the six dissenting justices in the Santiago ruling, but he said his present disposition is "completely consistent with his previous opinions and votes."
In that decision, he said that "taken together and interpreted properly and liberally, the Constitution (particularly Article 17, Section 2), Republic Act (RA) 6735 (Initiative and Referendum Act) provide more than sufficient authority to implement, effectuate and realize our people's power to amend the Constitution."
Faced with the Lambino petition in the same situation as that of the People's Initiative for Reform, Modernization and Action (Pirma), Panganiban said the Commission on Elections (Comelec) committed no grave abuse of discretion in dismissing the initiative petition.
He said Comelec merely followed the Santiago ruling that enjoined the poll body from "entertaining or taking cognizance of any petition for initiative on amendments to the Constitution until a sufficient law shall have been validly enacted to provide for the implementation of the system."
In voiding the initiative petition, the majority of justices said the fact that the Lambino petition "miserably failed to comply with the basic requirements of the Constitution for conducting a people's initiative," there is no longer a need to revisit the court's 1997 ruling in Santiago versus Comelec case.
The court noted Lambino's admission that he only caused the printing of only 100,000 copies of the petition for initiative.
So, of the 6.3 million signatories, only 100,000 signatories could have received with certainty one copy each of the petition, it said.
The SC claimed the initiative mounted by the Lambino group called for a wholesale revision and not a mere amendment of the Constitution, thus, violating Section 2, Article 17 of the Constitution which limited the scope of a people's initiative to mere amendments.
The Lambino petition proposed to shift the form of government from bicameral-presidential to a unicameral-parliamentary system; abolish the Office of the President or another chamber of Congress; and amend about 105 provisions of the Constitution.
The SC said it cannot abandon its primordial duty to defend and protect the Constitution.
"The Constitution, which embodies the people's sovereign will, is the bible of this court. This court exists to defend and protect the Constitution. To allow this constitutionally infirm initiative, propelled by deceptively gathered signatures, to alter the basic principles in the Constitution is to allow a desecration of the Constitution. To allow such alteration and desecration is to lose this court's raison d'etre," the SC said.
The ruling affirmed the decision of the Comelec's resolution dated August 31, 2006 that dismissed Sigaw ng Bayan's petition for initiative, citing the absence of an enabling law that would sustain such initiative to amend the Charter. (Sunnex)
(October 26, 2006 issue)
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