Alliance for Rural and Agrarian Reconstruction vs. Comelec,
G.R. No. 192803, December 10, 2013.
EN BANC [LEONEN, J.]
Facts:
Petitioner, Alliance for Rural and Agrarian Reconstruction, Inc.,(ARARO) was a duly accredited party-list. It garnered a total of 147,204 votes in the May 10, 2010 elections and ranked fiftieth. Comelec En Banc sitting as the National Board of Canvassers initially proclaimed twenty-eight (28) party-list organizations as winners involving a total of thirty-five (35) seats guaranteed and additional seats.
Petitioner then filed an election protest before the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal questioning the Resolution of the Commission on Elections that proclaimed the 28 party-list groups. Without waiting for the resolution of the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal, the petitioner filed the present Petition for Review on Certiorari with Prayer for Preliminary Injunction and Temporary Restraining Order. The petitioner asks that this Court: modify the Commission on Elections’ interpretation of the formula stated in BANAT v. COMELEC by making the divisor for the computation of the percentage votes, from total number of votes cast minus the votes for the disqualified party-list candidates, to the total number of votes cast regardless whether party-list groups are disqualified among others.
The petitioner suggests that the formula used by the Commission on Elections is flawed because votes that were spoiled or that were not made for any party-lists were not counted. According to the petitioner, around seven million (7,000,000) votes were disregarded as a result of the Commission on Elections’ erroneous interpretation. The figure presented by petitioner resulted from the following computations:
37,377,371 (Number of voters who actually voted LESS votes for disqualified party lists)
less 30,264,579 (Number of votes for party-list candidates LESS number of votes
for disqualified party-list candidates)
7,112,792 (Total number of disregarded votes according to petitioner ARARO)
The National Board of Canvassers’ Resolution No. 10-009 applies the formula used in Barangay Association for National Advancement and Transparency (BANAT) v. COMELEC to arrive at the winning party-list groups and their guaranteed seats, where:
The Proportion or Percentage of votes garnered by party-list should be greater than or equal to 2% or 0.02 to entitle a party-list candidate to one (1) seat in the first round. There will be a second round if the total number of guaranteed seats awarded in the first round is less than the total number of party-list seats available. Thus:
If the total seats available for party-lists are not yet awarded after the second round (this is computed by getting the sum of the seats awarded in the first round and the additional seats awarded in the second round), the next in the party-list ranking will be given one (1) seat each until all seats are fully distributed. A three-seat cap per party-list, however, is imposed on winning groups. Fractional seats are not rounded off and are disregarded.
The petitioner argues that the Commission on Elections’ interpretation of the formula used in BANAT v. COMELEC is flawed because it is not in accordance with the law. The petitioner distinguishes the phrases, valid votes cast for party-list candidates on the one hand as against votes cast for the party-list system on the other.
The petitioner argues that the correct interpretation of the provisions of Republic Act No. 7941 or the Party-list Law does not distinguish between valid and invalid votes. Commission on Elections through the Office of the Solicitor General took the position that invalid or stray votes should not be counted in determining the divisor.
Issue:
Whether stray votes should be counted in determining the divisor in Party-list law.
Held:
This case is moot and academic. Several supervening events have already rendered this case moot and academic. First, the Commission on Elections En Banc already proclaimed other winning party-list groups. Second, the term of office of the winning party-list groups in the May 2010 national elections ended on June 30, 2013. Finally, the conduct of the May 13, 2013 elections resulted in a new set of party-list groups.
However, the following exceptions to the rule of declining jurisdiction over moot and academic cases are allowed: (1) there was a grave violation of the Constitution; (2) the case involved a situation of exceptional character and was of paramount public interest; (3) the issues raised required the formulation of controlling principles to guide the Bench, the Bar and the public; and (4) the case was capable of repetition yet evading review.
In Veterans Federation Party v. Commission on Elections, we reversed the Commission on Elections’ ruling that the respondent parties, coalitions, and organizations were each entitled to a party-list seat despite their failure to reach the 2% threshold in the 1998 party-list election. Veterans also stated that the 20% requirement in the Constitution is merely a ceiling.
In BANAT v. COMELEC, we declared the 2% threshold in relation to the distribution of the additional seats as void.
The most recent Atong Paglaum v. COMELEC does not in any way modify the formula set in Veterans. It only corrects the definition of valid party-list groups. We affirmed that party-list groups maybe national, regional, and sectoral parties or organizations. We abandoned the requirement introduced in Ang Bagong Bayani that all party-list groups should prove that they represent a "marginalized" or "under-represented" sector.
Proportional representation is provided in Section 2 of Republic Act No. 7941. BANAT overturned Veterans’ interpretation of the phrase in proportion to their total number of votes. We clarified that the interpretation that only those that obtained at least 2% of the votes may get additional seats will not result in proportional representation because it will make it impossible for the party-list seats to be filled completely. As demonstrated in BANAT, the 20% share may never be filled if the 2% threshold is maintained.
The divisor, thus, helps to determine the correct percentage of representation of party-list groups as intended by the law. This is part of the index of proportionality of the representation of a party-list to the House of Representatives. It measures the relation between the share of the total seats and the share of the total votes of the party-list.
We agree with the petitioner but only to the extent that votes later on determined to be invalid due to no cause attributable to the voter should not be excluded in the divisor. In other words, votes cast validly for a party-list group listed in the ballot but later on disqualified should be counted as part of the divisor. To do otherwise would be to disenfranchise the voters who voted on the basis of good faith that that ballot contained all the qualified candidates. However, following this rationale, party-list groups listed in the ballot but whose disqualification attained finality prior to the elections and whose disqualification was reasonably made known by the Commission on Elections to the voters prior to such elections should not be included in the divisor.
Not all votes cast in the elections should be included in the divisor. Contrary to the argument of the petitioner, Section 11(b) of Republic Act No. 7941 is clear that only those votes cast for the party-list system shall be considered in the computation of the percentage of representation.
The total votes cast do not include invalid votes. The invalid votes, for the determination of the denominator, may be votes that were spoiled or votes that resulted from the following: improper shading or having no shade at all; existence of stray or ambiguous marks; tears in the ballot; and/or ballots rejected by the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines under the paper-based automated election system. All these are causes that nullify the count for that vote that can be attributable to the voter’s action.
We qualify that the divisor to be used in interpreting the formula used in BANAT is the total votes cast for the party-list system. This should not include the invalid votes. However, so as not to disenfranchise a substantial portion of the electorate, total votes cast for the party-list system should mean all the votes validly cast for all the candidates listed in the ballot. The voter relies on the ballot when making his or her choices.
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