Government lawyers asked the Supreme Court (SC) on Friday, Oct. 21, to dismiss “for utter lack of merit” the petition which challenged the constitutionality of the law that postponed the Dec. 5, 2022 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE).
In its comment filed for the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and the Office of the President (OP), the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) also asked the SC to deny the plea for a temporary restraining order (TRO) that would stop the implementation of Republic Act No. 11935, the BSKE postponement law.
RA 11935 which was signed into law by President Ferdinand “Bongbong" Marcos Jr. last Oct. 10 was challenged in the petition filed by election lawyer Romulo B. Macalintal.
On top of postponing BSKE to Oct. 30, 2023, the law also provides that all incumbent barangay and SK (Sangguniang Kabataan) officials will remain in office until their successors are elected and qualified or unless they are sooner removed or suspended.
The Comelec and the OP’s comment was filed by Solicitor General Menardo I. Guevarra in compliance with the SC’s order issued last Oct. 18. The SC also set oral arguments on the petition on Friday, Oct. 21. As of posting, the legal debate is ongoing.
In seeking the dismissal of Macalintal’s petition, the OSG told the SC that “the Constitution vests Congress with legislative power and the same is plenary in nature.”
“Being plenary, it extends to all matters not excluded expressly or impliedly by the Constitution. The respondents (Comelec and OP) submit that matters relating to election are subsumed by this plenary power,” the OSG said.
It pointed out: “While the Comelec is the constitutional entity tasked to administer free, fair, honest, and credible elections by the Constitution, its mandate exists in harmony with the power of Congress to legislate on matters directly affecting the election.”
“An interpretation which gives to the Comelec complete and absolute jurisdiction over all matters related to the election is anathema to both the wording and spirit of the Constitution,” it stressed.
The OSG also pointed out that “the petitioner (Macalintal) has failed to raise credible arguments regarding any limitations to Congress' plenary legislative power over the postponement of elections.”
“Limitations must be strictly construed to avoid unduly curtailing the broad legislative power directly vested by the Constitution onto Congress,” it said.
The OSG stressed: “The power to fix dates of elections is expressly granted by the Constitution to the Congress.”
“In allowing the date of the election for national officials to be fixed by law, the Constitution expressly granted the legislature the power to change the date of their election from that fixed by the Constitution,” it said.
On the extension of the term of barangay and SK officials as mandated by RA 11935, the OSG said: “In the first place, as previously mentioned, a holdover capacity, to be clear, is not synonymous to a term.”
“Although the necessary effect thereof is the continuation of the barangay official’s exercise of his or her powers, such capacity is ad hoc only in nature and does not have the character of permanency,” it said.
“Where the term of the officer is fixed by the Constitution, the legislature can neither extend nor abridge it. But where no such constitutional limitation intervenes, the fixing or altering of the term of public officers is entirely within the control of the legislature,” it also said
“Here, in the exercise of its plenary legislative power, Congress passed R.A. No. 11935, postponing the barangay and SK elections. Too, Congress passed said law under reasonable grounds, and entirely within its wisdom to legislate. In doing so, Congress did not arrogate unto itself the power to appoint Barangay and SK officials,” it said.
In his petition, Macalintal told the SC that the power to postpone elections is within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Comelec under Section 5 of BP 881.
He said that while the Constitution gives Congress the power to determine or fix the term of office of barangay officials, “the Constitution does not give Congress the power to postpone the barangay elections nor to extend the term of office of the barangay officials.”
Specifically, Macalintal said that RA 11935 is unconstitutional because of the postponement and the extension of office of barangay officials.
“In a word, what the Constitution prohibits, the questioned law permits. Here what Congress cannot do directly, it is doing indirectly,” he said.
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