Constitutional Law Review (Sunga)

6. Lambino v. COMELEC (RPE)
G.R. No. 174153. Oct. 25, 2006
FACTS:
1. Lambino & Aumentado (Lambino Group),
with other groups and individuals,
gathered signature for an initiative
petition to change the 1987 Constitution
(from the present Bicameral-Presidential
System to a Unicameral-Parliamentary
form of Government).
2. The Lambino group filed a petition with
the COMELEC to hold a plebiscite that will
ratify their initiative petition after due
publication. According to them, the
petition is supported with 6.3 million
individuals.
3. The COMELEC denied the petition for lack
of enabling law governing the initiative
petitions to amend the Constitution.
4. The Lambino Group contends that the
COMELEC committed GAD and claims that
the Santiago v. COMELEC case is not a
binding precedent and that the petition
deserves cognizance as an expression of
the “will of the sovereign people.”
the signature sheet. Neither does the signature
sheet state that the text of the proposed changes
is attached to it. 
Atty. Lambino expressly admitted that they
printed only 100,000 copies of the draft petition.
The majority of the people who signed the
petition failed to examine the proposed changes.
Also, the framers of the Constitution intended,
and wrote, that only congress or
constitutional convention may propose a
revision to the Constitution. (not through
initiative)
A change in the structure of government is a
revision of the Constitution, as when the three
great co-equal branches of government in the
present Constitution are reduced into two. This
alters the separation of powers in the
Constitution. 
On the face alone of the Lambino Group's
proposed changes, it is readily apparent that the
changes will radically alter the framework of
government as set forth in the Constitution.

ISSUE: Whether the Petition of Lambino group

should be granted. – NO . It does not comply
with Sec. 2 Art. XVII (see codal)

HELD:
The deliberations of the Constitutional
Commission explicitly reveal that the framers
intended that the people must first see the full
text of the proposed amendments before they
sign, and that the people must sign on a
petition containing such full text.

 
Two essential elements must be present.
1. The people must author and thus sign the
entire proposal. No agent or
representative can sign on their behalf.
2. As an initiative upon a petition, the
proposal must be embodied in a petition.

There is not a single word, phrase, or sentence of

text of the Lambino Group's proposed changes in