BAYAN MUNA vs. COMELEC

 

BAYAN MUNA, ADVOCACY FOR TEACHER EMPOWERMENT THROUGH ACTION, , COOPERATION AND HARMONY TOWARDS EDUCATIONAL REFORMS, INC., and ABONO, petitioners v. COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS, respondent

[G.R. No. 179295. April 21, 2009.

TOPIC: Number of Party-lists, Qualification of Party-list Nominees

FACTS:

On 27 June 2002, BANAT filed a Petition to Proclaim the Full Number of Party-List Representatives Provided by the Constitution before the National Board of Canvassers (NBC). BANAT filed its petition because "[t]he Chairman and the Members of the [COMELEC] have recently been quoted in the national papers that the [COMELEC] is duty bound to and shall implement the Veterans Federation Party v. COMELEC ruling, that is, would apply the Panganiban formula in allocating party-list seats".

On 9 July 2007, Bayan Muna, Abono, and A Teacher asked the COMELEC, acting as NBC, to reconsider its decision to use the Veterans formula as stated in its NBC Resolution No. 07-60 because the Veterans formula is violative of the Constitution and of Republic Act No. 7941 (R.A. No. 7941). On the same day, the COMELEC denied reconsideration during the proceedings of the NBC.

ISSUE:

  1.  Whether or not the 20% allocation for party-list representatives in Section 5(2), Article VI of the Constitution mandatory or merely a ceiling
  2.  Whether or not the 2% threshold prescribed in Section 11(b) of RA 7941 to qualify for one seat constitutional
  3. Whether or not the three-seat limit in Section 11(b) of RA 7941 constitutional
  4. Whether or not major political parties are barred from participating in the party-list elections
  5. Whether or not party-list nominees must “wallow in poverty, destitution and infirmity”

 

RULING:

We maintain that a Philippine-style party-list election has at least four inviolable parameters as clearly stated in Veterans. For easy reference, these are:

1.    The twenty percent allocation — the combined number of all party-list congressmen shall not exceed twenty percent of the total membership of the House of Representatives, including those elected under the party list;

2.    The two percent threshold — only those parties garnering a minimum of two percent of the total valid votes cast for the party-list system are "qualified" to have a seat in the House of Representatives;

3.   The three-seat limit — each qualified party, regardless of the number of votes it actually obtained, is entitled to a maximum of three seats; that is, one "qualifying" and two additional seats;

4.    Proportional representation — the additional seats which a qualified party is entitled to shall be computed "in proportion to their total number of votes".

However, because the formula in Veterans has flaws in its mathematical interpretation of the term "proportional representation", this Court is compelled to revisit the formula for the allocation of additional seats to party-list organizations.

 

1. The 20% allocation for party-list representatives in Section 5(2), Article VI of the Constitution is merely a ceiling.

The first paragraph of Section 11 of R.A. No. 7941 reads:

Section 11. Number of Party-list Representatives. — The party-list representatives shall constitute twenty per centum (20%) of the total number of the members of the House of Representatives including those under the party-list.

Section 5 (1), Article VI of the Constitution states that the "House of Representatives shall be composed of not more than two hundred and fifty members, unless otherwise fixed by law". The House of Representatives shall be composed of district representatives and party-list representatives. The Constitution allows the legislature to modify the number of the members of the House of Representatives.

Section 5 (2), Article VI of the Constitution, on the other hand, states the ratio of party-list representatives to the total number of representatives. We compute the number of seats available to party-list representatives from the number of legislative districts. 

Neither the Constitution nor R.A. No. 7941 mandates the filling-up of the entire 20% allocation of party-list representatives found in the Constitution. The 20% allocation of party-list representatives is merely a ceiling; party-list representatives cannot be more than 20% of the members of the House of Representatives.

 

2. No, the 2% threshold prescribed in Section 11(b) of RA 7941 to qualify for one seat is not constitutional.

The first clause of Section 11 (b) of R.A. No. 7941 states that "parties, organizations, and coalitions receiving at least two percent (2%) of the total votes cast for the party-list system shall be entitled to one seat each". This clause guarantees a seat to the two-percenters.

The second clause of Section 11 (b) of R.A. No. 7941 provides that "those garnering more than two percent (2%) of the votes shall be entitled to additional seats in proportion to their total number of votes".

This is where petitioners' and intervenors' problem with the formula in Veterans lies. Veterans interprets the clause "in proportion to their total number of votes" to be in proportion to the votes of the first party. This interpretation is contrary to the express language of R.A. No. 7941.

We rule that, in computing the allocation of additional seats, the continued operation of the two percent threshold for the distribution of the additional seats as found in the second clause of Section 11 (b) of R.A. No. 7941 is UNCONSTITUTIONAL. This Court finds that the two percent threshold makes it mathematically impossible to achieve the maximum number of available party list seats when the number of available party list seats exceeds 50. The continued operation of the two percent threshold in the distribution of the additional seats frustrates the attainment of the permissive ceiling that 20% of the members of the House of Representatives shall consist of party-list representatives.

To illustrate: There are 55 available party-list seats. Suppose there are 50 million votes cast for the 100 participants in the party list elections. A party that has two percent of the votes cast, or one million votes, gets a guaranteed seat. Let us further assume that the first 50 parties all get one million votes. Only 50 parties get a seat despite the availability of 55 seats. Because of the operation of the two percent threshold, this situation will repeat itself even if we increase the available party-list seats to 60 seats and even if we increase the votes cast to 100 million. Thus, even if the maximum number of parties get two percent of the votes for every party, it is always impossible for the number of occupied party-list seats to exceed 50 seats as long as the two percent threshold is present.

In determining the allocation of seats for party-list representatives under Section 11 of R.A. No. 7941, the following procedure shall be observed:

1.    The parties, organizations, and coalitions shall be ranked from the highest to the lowest based on the number of votes they garnered during the elections.

2.    The parties, organizations, and coalitions receiving at least two percent (2%) of the total votes cast for the party-list system shall be entitled to one guaranteed seat each.

3.    Those garnering sufficient number of votes, according to the ranking in paragraph 1, shall be entitled to additional seats in proportion to their total number of votes until all the additional seats are allocated.

4.    Each party, organization, or coalition shall be entitled to not more than three (3) seats.


3. Yes, the three-seat limit in Section 11(b) of RA 7941 is constitutional.

The three-seat cap, as a limitation to the number of seats that a qualified party-list organization may occupy, remains a valid statutory device that prevents any party from dominating the party-list elections.


4. Yes, major political parties are barred from participating in the party-list elections

Neither the Constitution nor R.A. No. 7941 prohibits major political parties from participating in the partylist system. However, by a vote of 8-7, the Court decided to continue the ruling in Veterans disallowing major political parties from participating in the party-list elections, directly or indirectly.

 

5. No, party-list nominees are not required to “wallow in poverty, destitution and infirmity”.

The qualifications of party-list nominees are prescribed in Section 9 of R.A. No. 7941:

Sec. 9. Qualification of Party-list Nominees— No person shall be nominated as party-list representative unless he is a natural born citizen of the Philippines, a registered voter, a resident of the Philippines for a period of not less than one (1) year immediately preceding the day of the elections, able to read and write, bona fide member of the party or organization which he seeks to represent for at least ninety (90) days preceding the day of the election, and is at least twenty-five (25) years of age on the day of the election. In case of a nominee of the youth sector, he must at least be twenty-five (25) but not more than thirty (30) years of age on the day of the election. Any youth sectoral representative who attains the age of thirty (30) during his term shall be allowed to continue until the expiration of his term.

 

Under Section 9 of R.A. No. 7941, it is not necessary that the party-list organization's nominee "wallow in poverty, destitution and infirmity" as there is no financial status required in the law. It is enough that the nominee of the sectoral party/organization/coalition belongs to the marginalized and underrepresented sectors, that is, if the nominee represents the fisherfolk, he or she must be a fisherfolk, or if the nominee represents the senior citizens, he or she must be a senior citizen.

 

WHEREFORE, we PARTIALLY GRANT the petition. We SET ASIDE the Resolution of the COMELEC dated 3 August 2007 in NBC No. 07-041 (PL) as well as the Resolution dated 9 July 2007 in NBC No. 07-60. We declare unconstitutional the two percent threshold in the distribution of additional party-list seats. The allocation of additional seats under the Party-List System shall be in accordance with the procedure used in Table 3 of this Decision. Major political parties are disallowed from participating in party-list elections. This Decision is immediately executory. No pronouncement as to costs.

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