Bagabuyo vs. COMELEC, G.R. No. 176970, December 8, 2008 [Case Digest]

 

Bagabuyo vs. COMELEC,

G.R. No. 176970,   December 8, 2008

EN BANC [BRION, J.]

Facts:

            On October 10, 2006, Cagayan de Oro's then Congressman Constantino G. Jaraula filed and sponsored House Bill No. 5859: "An Act Providing for the Apportionment of the Lone Legislative District of the City of Cagayan De Oro." This law eventually became Republic Act (R.A.) No. 9371. It increased Cagayan de Oro's legislative district from one to two. For the election of May 2007, Cagayan de Oro's voters would be classified as belonging to either the first or the second district, depending on their place of residence. The constituents of each district would elect their own representative to Congress as well as eight members of the Sangguniang Panglungsod.

            Petitioner argued that the COMELEC cannot implement R.A. No. 9371 without providing for the rules, regulations and guidelines for the conduct of a plebiscite which is indispensable for the division or conversion of a local government unit. He prayed for the issuance of an order directing the respondents to cease and desist from implementing R.A. No. 9371 and COMELEC Resolution No. 7837, and to revert instead to COMELEC Resolution No. 7801 which provided for a single legislative district for Cagayan de Oro.  The petitioner insists that R.A. No. 9371 converts and divides the City of Cagayan de Oro as a local government unit, and does not merely provide for the City's legislative apportionment.

 

Issue:

            Whether R.A. No. 9371 converts and divides the City of Cagayan de Oro as a local government unit.

 

Held:

            Negative; legislative apportionment is defined by Black's Law Dictionary as the determination of the number of representatives which a State, county or other subdivision may send to a legislative body.  It is the allocation of seats in a legislative body in proportion to the population; the drawing of voting district lines so as to equalize population and voting power among the districts. Reapportionment, on the other hand, is the realignment or change in legislative districts brought about by changes in population and mandated by the constitutional requirement of equality of representation.

            Article VI (entitled Legislative Department) of the 1987 Constitution lays down the rules on legislative apportionment under its Section 5 which provides:

            (1) The House of Representatives shall be composed of not more than two hundred fifty members unless otherwise fixed by law, who shall be elected from legislative districts apportioned among the provinces, cities, and the Metropolitan Manila area in accordance with the number of their respective inhabitants, and on the basis of a uniform and progressive ratio, and those who, as provided by law, shall be elected through a party-list system of registered national, regional and sectoral parties or organizations.

            (3) Each legislative district shall comprise, as far as practicable, continuous, compact, and adjacent territory. Each city with a population of at least two hundred fifty thousand, or each province, shall have at least one representative.

            (4) Within three years following the return of every census, the Congress shall make a reapportionment of legislative districts based on the standards provided in this section.

            Under both Article VI, Section 5, and Article X, Section 10 of the Constitution, the authority to act has been vested in the Legislature. The Legislature undertakes the apportionment and reapportionment of legislative districts, and likewise acts on local government units by setting the standards for their creation, division, merger, abolition and alteration of boundaries and by actually creating, dividing, merging, abolishing local government units and altering their boundaries through legislation. Other than this, not much commonality exists between the two provisions since they are inherently different although they interface and relate with one another.

            The concern that leaps from the text of Article VI, Section 5 is political representation and the means to make a legislative district sufficiently represented so that the people can be effectively heard. As above stated, the aim of legislative apportionment is "to equalize population and voting power among districts."  Hence, emphasis is given to the number of people represented; the uniform and progressive ratio to be observed among the representative districts; and accessibility and commonality of interests in terms of each district being, as far as practicable, continuous, compact and adjacent territory. In terms of the people represented, every city with at least 250,000 people and every province (irrespective of population) is entitled to one representative. In this sense, legislative districts, on the one hand, and provinces and cities, on the other, relate and interface with each other. To ensure continued adherence to the required standards of apportionment, Section 5(4) specifically mandates reapportionment as soon as the given standards are met.

            In contrast with the equal representation objective of Article VI, Section 5, Article X, Section 10 expressly speaks of how local government units may be "created, divided, merged, abolished, or its boundary substantially altered." Its concern is the commencement, the termination, and the modification of local government units' corporate existence and territorial coverage; and it speaks of two specific standards that must be observed in implementing this concern, namely, the criteria established in the local government code and the approval by a majority of the votes cast in a plebiscite in the political units directly affected. Under the Local Government Code (R.A. No. 7160) passed in 1991, the criteria of income, population and land area are specified as verifiable indicators of viability and capacity to provide services. The division or merger of existing units must comply with the same requirements (since a new local government unit will come into being), provided that a division shall not reduce the income, population, or land area of the unit affected to less than the minimum requirement prescribed in the Code.

            A pronounced distinction between Article VI, Section 5 and, Article X, Section 10 is on the requirement of a plebiscite. The Constitution and the Local Government Code expressly require a plebiscite to carry out any creation, division, merger, abolition or alteration of boundary of a local government unit. In contrast, no plebiscite requirement exists under the apportionment or reapportionment provision. In Tobias v. Abalos, a case that arose from the division of the congressional district formerly covering San Juan and Mandaluyong into separate districts, we confirmed this distinction and the fact that no plebiscite is needed in a legislative reapportionment. The plebiscite issue came up because one was ordered and held for Mandaluyong in the course of its conversion into a highly urbanized city, while none was held for San Juan. In explaining why this happened, the Court ruled that no plebiscite was necessary for San Juan because the objective of the plebiscite was the conversion of Mandaluyong into a highly urbanized city as required by Article X, Section 10 the Local Government Code; the creation of a new legislative district only followed as a consequence. In other words, the apportionment alone and by itself did not call for a plebiscite, so that none was needed for San Juan where only a reapportionment took place.

            A Bit of History:

§  In Macias v. COMELEC, we first jurisprudentially acknowledged the American roots of our apportionment provision, noting its roots from the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and from the constitutions of some American states. The Philippine Organic Act of 1902 created the Philippine Assembly, the body that acted as the lower house of the bicameral legislature under the Americans, with the Philippine Commission acting as the upper house. While the members of the Philippine Commission were appointed by the U.S. President with the conformity of the U.S. Senate, the members of the Philippine Assembly were elected by representative districts previously delineated under the Philippine Organic Act of 1902 pursuant to the mandate to apportion the seats of the Philippine Assembly among the provinces as nearly as practicable according to population. Thus, legislative apportionment first started in our country.

§  The Jones Law or the Philippine Autonomy Act of 1916 maintained the apportionment provision, dividing the country into 12 senate districts and 90 representative districts electing one delegate each to the House of Representatives. Section 16 of the Act specifically vested the Philippine Legislature with the authority to redistrict the Philippine Islands.

§  Under the 1935 Constitution, Article VI, Section 5 retained the concept of legislative apportionment together with "district" as the basic unit of apportionment; the concern was "equality of representation . . . as an essential feature of republican institutions."

Under these separate historical tracks, it can be seen that the holding of a plebiscite was never a requirement in legislative apportionment or reapportionment. After it became constitutionally entrenched, a plebiscite was also always identified with the creation, division, merger, abolition and alteration of boundaries of local government units, never with the concept of legislative apportionment.

The legislative district that Article VI, Section 5 speaks of may, in a sense, be called a political unit because it is the basis for the election of a member of the House of Representatives and members of the local legislative body. It is not, however, a political subdivision through which functions of government are carried out. It can more appropriately be described as a representative unit that may or may not encompass the whole of a city or a province, but unlike the latter, it is not a corporate unit. Not being a corporate unit, a district does not act for and in behalf of the people comprising the district; it merely delineates the areas occupied by the people who will choose a representative in their national affairs. Unlike a province, which has a governor; a city or a municipality, which has a mayor; and a barangay, which has a punong barangay, a district does not have its own chief executive. The role of the congressman that it elects is to ensure that the voice of the people of the district is heard in Congress, not to oversee the affairs of the legislative district. Not being a corporate unit also signifies that it has no legal personality that must be created or dissolved and has no capacity to act. Hence, there is no need for any plebiscite in the creation, dissolution or any other similar action on a legislative district.

The local government units, on the other hand, are political and corporate units. They are the territorial and political subdivisions of the state. They possess legal personality on the authority of the Constitution and by action of the Legislature. The Constitution defines them as entities that Congress can, by law, create, divide, abolish, merge; or whose boundaries can be altered based on standards again established by both the Constitution and the Legislature. A local government unit's corporate existence begins upon the election and qualification of its chief executive and a majority of the members of its Sanggunian.

      R.A. No. 9371 is, on its face, purely and simply a reapportionment legislation passed in accordance with the authority granted to Congress under Article VI, Section 5(4) of the Constitution.

            SECTION 1. Legislative Districts. - The lone legislative district of the City of Cagayan de Oro is hereby apportioned to commence in the next national elections after the effectivity of this Act. Henceforth, barangays Bonbon, Bayabas, Kauswagan, Carmen, Patag, Bulua, Iponan, Baikingon, San Simon, Pagatpat, Canitoan, Balulang, Lumbia, Pagalungan, Tagpangi, Taglimao, Tuburan, Pigsag-an, Tumpagon, Bayanga, Mambuaya, Dansulihon, Tignapoloan and Bisigan shall comprise the first district while barangays Macabalan, Puntod, Consolacion, Camaman-an, Nazareth, Macansandig, Indahag, Lapasan, Gusa, Cugman, FS Catanico, Tablon, Agusan, Puerto, Bugo and Balubal and all urban barangays from Barangay 1 to Barangay 40 shall comprise the second district.

            Under these wordings, no division of Cagayan de Oro City as a political and corporate entity takes place or is mandated. Cagayan de Oro City politically remains a single unit and its administration is not divided along territorial lines. Its territory remains completely whole and intact; there is only the addition of another legislative district and the delineation of the city into two districts for purposes of representation in the House of Representatives. Thus, Article X, Section 10 of the Constitution does not come into play and no plebiscite is necessary to validly apportion Cagayan de Oro City into two districts.

            Admittedly, the legislative reapportionment carries effects beyond the creation of another congressional district in the city by providing, as reflected in COMELEC Resolution No. 7837, for additional Sangguniang Panglunsod seats to be voted for along the lines of the congressional apportionment made.

            However, neither does this law (R.A. No. 6636) have the effect of dividing the City of Cagayan de Oro into two political and corporate units and territories. Rather than divide the city either territorially or as a corporate entity, the effect is merely to enhance voter representation by giving each city voter more and greater say, both in Congress and in the Sangguniang Panglunsod.

 

Issue 2:

            Whether R.A. No. 9371 violates the principle of equality of representation.

 

Held:

            Negative.

            The petitioner argues that the distribution of the legislative districts is unequal. District 1 has only 93,719 registered voters while District 2 has 127,071. District 1 is composed mostly of rural barangays while District 2 is composed mostly of urban barangays. Thus, R.A. No. 9371 violates the principle of equality of representation.

            A clarification must be made. The law clearly provides that the basis for districting shall be the number of the inhabitants of a city or a province, not the number of registered voters therein. We settled this very same question in Herrera v. COMELEC when we interpreted a provision in R.A. No. 7166 and COMELEC Resolution No. 2313 that applied to the Province of Guimaras. We categorically ruled that the basis for districting is the number of inhabitants of the Province of Guimaras by municipality based on the official 1995 Census of Population as certified to by Tomas P. Africa, Administrator of the National Statistics Office.

            The petitioner, unfortunately, did not provide information about the actual population of Cagayan de Oro City. However, we take judicial notice of the August 2007 census of the National Statistics Office which shows that barangays comprising Cagayan de Oro's first district have a total population of 254,644, while the second district has 299,322 residents. Undeniably, these figures show a disparity in the population sizes of the districts.