Kabataan Party-List v. Commission on Elections, G.R. No.

221318, December 16, 2015

FACTS

Herein petitioners filed the instant petition with application for temporary restraining order (TRO)
and/or writ of preliminary mandatory injunction (WPI) assailing the constitutionality of the biometrics
validation requirement imposed under RA 10367, as well as COMELEC Resolution Nos. 9721, 9863, and
10013, all related thereto, which among others, provides for the deactivation of voters without
biometrics data who failed to submit for validation on or before the last day of filing of applications for
registration for the purpose of the May 9, 2016 National and Local Elections.

ISSUE

Whether or not the implementation of a biometrics validation requirement and other related votation
registration conditions under RA 10367 and related resolutions is a valid exercise of police power

SUPREME COURT

a) Yes. The Court, citing the AKBAYAN-Youth case, held that “proceeding from the significance of
registration as a necessary requisite to the right to vote, the State undoubtedly, in the exercise of its
inherent police power, may then enact laws to safeguard and regulate the act of voter’s registration for
the ultimate purpose of conducting honest, orderly and peaceful election to the incidental yet generally
important end, that even preelection activities could be performed by the duly constituted authorities in
a realistic and orderly manner — one which is not indifferent and so far removed from the pressing
order of the day and the prevalent circumstances of the times.”

b) Thus, unless it is shown that a registration requirement rises to the level of a literacy, property or
other substantive requirement - that is, one which propagates a socio-economic standard which is
bereft of any rational basis to a person’s ability to intelligently cast his vote and to further the public
good — the same cannot be struck down as unconstitutional, as in this case.