Kida vs Senate of the Philippines

Facts: The State, through Sections 15 to 22, Article X of the 1987 Constitution, mandated the creation of
autonomous regions in Muslim Mindanao and the Cordilleras. Section 15 states:

Section 15. There shall be created autonomous regions in Muslim Mindanao and in the Cordilleras
consisting of provinces, cities, municipalities, and geographical areas sharing common and distinctive
historical and cultural heritage, economic and social structures, and other relevant characteristics within
the framework of this Constitution and the national sovereignty as well as territorial integrity of the
Republic of the Philippines.

Section 18 of the Article, on the other hand, directed Congress to enact an organic act for these
autonomous regions to concretely carry into effect the granted autonomy.

Section 18. The Congress shall enact an organic act for each autonomous region with the assistance and
participation of the regional consultative commission composed of representatives appointed by the
President from a list of nominees from multisectoral bodies. The organic act shall define the basic
structure of government for the region consisting of the executive department and legislative assembly,
both of which shall be elective and representative of the constituent political units. The organic acts shall
likewise provide for special courts with personal, family and property law jurisdiction consistent with the
provisions of this Constitution and national laws.

The creation of the autonomous region shall be effective when approved by a majority of the votes cast
by the constituent units in a plebiscite called for the purpose, provided that only provinces, cities, and
geographic areas voting favorably in such plebiscite shall be included in the autonomous region.

On August 1, 1989 or two years after the effectivity of the 1987 Constitution, Congress acted through
Republic Act (RA) No. 6734 entitled “An Act Providing for an Organic Act for the Autonomous Region in
Muslim Mindanao.” A plebiscite was held on November 6, 1990 as required by Section 18(2), Article X of
RA No. 6734, thus fully establishing the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). The initially
assenting provinces were Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, Sulu and Tawi-tawi. RA No. 6734 scheduled the
first regular elections for the regional officials of the ARMM on a date not earlier than 60 days nor later
than 90 days after its ratification.

RA No. 9054 (entitled “An Act to Strengthen and Expand the Organic Act for the Autonomous Region in
Muslim Mindanao, Amending for the Purpose Republic Act No. 6734, entitled An Act Providing for the
Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, as Amended”) was the next legislative act passed. This law
provided further refinement in the basic ARMM structure first defined in the original organic act, and
reset the regular elections for the ARMM regional officials to the second Monday of September 2001.

Congress passed the next law affecting ARMM – RA No. 91401 – on June 22, 2001. This law reset the
first regular elections originally scheduled under RA No. 9054, to November 26, 2001. It likewise set the
plebiscite to ratify RA No. 9054 to not later than August 15, 2001.

RA No. 9054 was ratified in a plebiscite held on August 14, 2001. The province of Basilan and Marawi
City voted to join ARMM on the same date.
RA No. 93332 was subsequently passed by Congress to reset the ARMM regional elections to the 2nd
Monday of August 2005, and on the same date every 3 years thereafter. Unlike RA No. 6734 and RA No.
9054, RA No. 9333 was not ratified in a plebiscite.

Pursuant to RA No. 9333, the next ARMM regional elections should have been held on August 8, 2011.
COMELEC had begun preparations for these elections and had accepted certificates of candidacies for
the various regional offices to be elected. But on June 30, 2011, RA No. 10153 was enacted, resetting
the ARMM elections to May 2013, to coincide with the regular national and local elections of the
country.

RA No. 10153 originated in the House of Representatives as House Bill (HB) No. 4146, seeking the
postponement of the ARMM elections scheduled on August 8, 2011. On March 22, 2011, the House of
Representatives passed HB No. 4146, with one hundred ninety one (191) Members voting in its favor.

Issue/s:

Whether or not RA 10153 is constitutional.

Whether or not the 1987 Constitution mandates the synchronization of elections.

Held: Yes. Congress acted within its powers and pursuant to a constitutional mandate – the
synchronization of national and local elections – when it enacted RA No. 10153. This Court cannot
question the manner by which Congress undertook this task; the Judiciary does not and cannot pass
upon questions of wisdom, justice or expediency of legislation. As judges, we can only interpret and
apply the law and, despite our doubts about its wisdom, cannot repeal or amend it.

We find that Congress, in passing RA No. 10153, acted strictly within its constitutional mandate. Given
an array of choices, it acted within due constitutional bounds and with marked reasonableness in light of
the necessary adjustments that synchronization demands. Congress, therefore, cannot be accused of
any evasion of a positive duty or of a refusal to perform its duty. We thus find no reason to accord merit
to the petitioners’ claims of grave abuse of discretion.

The policy of the courts is to avoid ruling on constitutional questions and to presume that the acts of the
political departments are valid in the absence of a clear and unmistakable showing to the contrary. To
doubt is to sustain. This presumption is based on the doctrine of separation of powers which enjoins
upon each department a becoming respect for the acts of the other departments. The theory is that as
the joint act of Congress and the President of the Philippines, a law has been carefully studied and
determined to be in accordance with the fundamental law before it was finally enacted. [Emphasis
ours.]

Given the failure of the petitioners to rebut the presumption of constitutionality in favor of RA No.
10153, we must support and confirm its validity.

I. Synchronization as a recognized constitutional mandate

While the Constitution does not expressly state that Congress has to synchronize national and local
elections, the clear intent towards this objective can be gleaned from the Transitory Provisions (Article
XVIII) of the Constitution, which show the extent to which the Constitutional Commission, by
deliberately making adjustments to the terms of the incumbent officials, sought to attain
synchronization of elections.

The objective behind setting a common termination date for all elective officials, done among others
through the shortening the terms of the twelve winning senators with the least number of votes, is to
synchronize the holding of all future elections – whether national or local – to once every three years.
This intention finds full support in the discussions during the Constitutional Commission deliberations.

These Constitutional Commission exchanges, read with the provisions of the Transitory Provisions of the
Constitution, all serve as patent indicators of the constitutional mandate to hold synchronized national
and local elections, starting the second Monday of May, 1992 and for all the following elections.

Although called regional elections, the ARMM elections should be included among the elections to be
synchronized as it is a “local” election based on the wording and structure of the Constitution.

A basic rule in constitutional construction is that the words used should be understood in the sense that
they have in common use and given their ordinary meaning, except when technical terms are employed,
in which case the significance thus attached to them prevails. As this Court explained in People v. Derilo,
“[a]s the Constitution is not primarily a lawyer’s document, its language should be understood in the
sense that it may have in common. Its words should be given their ordinary meaning except where
technical terms are employed.”

Understood in its ordinary sense, the word “local” refers to something that primarily serves the needs of
a particular limited district, often a community or minor political subdivision. Regional elections in the
ARMM for the positions of governor, vice-governor and regional assembly representatives obviously fall
within this classification, since they pertain to the elected officials who will serve within the limited
region of ARMM.

From the perspective of the Constitution, autonomous regions are considered one of the forms of local
governments, as evident from Article X of the Constitution entitled “Local Government.” Autonomous
regions are established and discussed under Sections 15 to 21 of this Article – the article wholly devoted
to Local Government. That an autonomous region is considered a form of local government is also
reflected in Section 1, Article X of the Constitution.

II. The President’s Certification on the Urgency of RA No. 10153

The sufficiency of the factual basis of the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus or declaration of
martial law Art. VII, Section 18, or the existence of a national emergency justifying the delegation of
extraordinary powers to the President under Art. VI, Section 23(2) is subject to judicial review because
basic rights of individuals may be of hazard. But the factual basis of presidential certification of bills,
which involves doing away with procedural requirements designed to insure that bills are duly
considered by members of Congress, certainly should elicit a different standard of review. [Emphasis
supplied.]

The House of Representatives and the Senate – in the exercise of their legislative discretion – gave full
recognition to the President’s certification and promptly enacted RA No. 10153. Under the
circumstances, nothing short of grave abuse of discretion on the part of the two houses of Congress can
justify our intrusion under our power of judicial review.

III. A. RA No. 9333 and RA No. 10153 are not amendments to RA No. 9054

From these legislative actions, we see the clear intention of Congress to treat the laws which fix the date
of the subsequent ARMM elections as separate and distinct from the Organic Acts. Congress only acted
consistently with this intent when it passed RA No. 10153 without requiring compliance with the
amendment prerequisites embodied in Section 1 and Section 3, Article XVII of RA No. 9054.

III. B. Supermajority voting requirement unconstitutional for giving RA No. 9054 the character of an
irrepealable law

Moreover, it would be noxious anathema to democratic principles for a legislative body to have the
ability to bind the actions of future legislative body, considering that both assemblies are regarded with
equal footing, exercising as they do the same plenary powers. Perpetual infallibility is not one of the
attributes desired in a legislative body, and a legislature which attempts to forestall future amendments
or repeals of its enactments labors under delusions of omniscience.

xxx

A state legislature has a plenary law-making power over all subjects, whether pertaining to persons or
things, within its territorial jurisdiction, either to introduce new laws or repeal the old, unless prohibited
expressly or by implication by the federal constitution or limited or restrained by its own. It cannot bind
itself or its successors by enacting irrepealable laws except when so restrained. Every legislative body
may modify or abolish the acts passed by itself or its predecessors. This power of repeal may be
exercised at the same session at which the original act was passed; and even while a bill is in its progress
and before it becomes a law. This legislature cannot bind a future legislature to a particular mode of
repeal. It cannot declare in advance the intent of subsequent legislatures or the effect of subsequent
legislation upon existing statutes.(Emphasis ours.)

Thus, while a supermajority is not a total ban against a repeal, it is a limitation in excess of what the
Constitution requires on the passage of bills and is constitutionally obnoxious because it significantly
constricts the future legislators’ room for action and flexibility.

III. C. Section 3, Article XVII of RA No. 9054 excessively enlarged the plebiscite requirement found in
Section 18, Article X of the Constitution

The requirements of RA No. 9054 not only required an unwarranted supermajority, but enlarged as well
the plebiscite requirement, as embodied in its Section 3, Article XVII of that Act. As we did on the
supermajority requirement, we find the enlargement of the plebiscite requirement required under
Section 18, Article X of the Constitution to be excessive to point of absurdity and, hence, a violation of
the Constitution.

IV. The synchronization issue

As we discussed above, synchronization of national and local elections is a constitutional mandate that
Congress must provide for and this synchronization must include the ARMM elections. On this point, an
existing law in fact already exists – RA No. 7166 – as the forerunner of the current RA No. 10153. RA No.
7166 already provides for the synchronization of local elections with the national and congressional
elections. Thus, what RA No. 10153 provides is an old matter for local governments (with the exception
of barangay and Sanggunian Kabataan elections where the terms are not constitutionally provided) and
is technically a reiteration of what is already reflected in the law, given that regional elections are in
reality local elections by express constitutional recognition.

To achieve synchronization, Congress necessarily has to reconcile the schedule of the ARMM’s regular
elections (which should have been held in August 2011 based on RA No. 9333) with the fixed schedule of
the national and local elections (fixed by RA No. 7166 to be held in May 2013).

During the oral arguments, the Court identified the three options open to Congress in order to resolve
this problem. These options are: (1) to allow the elective officials in the ARMM to remain in office in a
hold over capacity, pursuant to Section 7(1), Article VII of RA No. 9054, until those elected in the
synchronized elections assume office; (2) to hold special elections in the ARMM, with the terms of those
elected to expire when those elected in the synchronized elections assume office; or (3) to authorize the
President to appoint OICs, pursuant to Section 3 of RA No. 10153, also until those elected in the
synchronized elections assume office.

As will be abundantly clear in the discussion below, Congress, in choosing to grant the President the
power to appoint OICs, chose the correct option and passed RA No. 10153 as a completely valid law.