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G.R. No. 188078 -- VICTORINO B. ALDABA, CARLO JOLETTE S. FAJARDO, JULIO G. MORADA and MINERVA ALDABA MORADA, Petitioners, versus COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS, Respondent.
Promulgated: January 25, 2010
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DISSENTING OPINION
ABAD, J.:
This case is about a law that establishes a new legislative district based on a projected population of the National Statistics Office (NSO) to meet the population requirement of the Constitution in the reapportionment of legislative districts.
The Facts and the Case
The
City of
On May 1, 2009 Congress enacted
Republic Act (R.A.) 9591, to amend Section 57 of R.A. 8754, the charter of the
City of
The Challenge
On June
16, 2009 petitioners Victorino Aldaba, Carlo Jolette S. Fajardo, Julio G.
Morada, and Minerva Aldaba Morada, all claiming to be taxpayers from
The Dissenting View
First.Section 5, paragraphs (3) and (4), Article VI of the 1987 Constitution reads:
(3)Each legislative district shall comprise, as far as practicable, contiguous, 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.
For
a city to merit one representative it should have a population of at least
250,000.A province, however, is
entitled to one representative no matter what its population size.In this case, the basis of House Bill 3696 is the certification of the NSO that the projected population of the City of
National Statistics Office
Region III
CERTIFICATION
To whom it may concern:
This is to certify that based on the 2000 census of population in housing census 2000 conducted by the National Statistics Office, the total population of Malolos, Bulacan as of May 1, 2000 is 175,291.
This is to certify that the results of the census 2000 were
proclaimed and declared official by the President of the
It is further certified that the projected population of the
This certification is issued upon the request of Mayor Danilo
A. Domingo of the City of
By authority of the Administrator
(Sgd.) ALBERTO N. MIRANDA
Regional Director[1]
I cannot agree with petitioners’
claim that the Congress gravely abused its discretion in relying on the 2010 projected population of
Here, nothing in Section 5, Article VI of the Constitution prohibits the use of estimates or population projections in the creation of legislative districts.As argued by the Solicitor General, the standard to be adopted in determining compliance with the population requirement involves a political question.In the absence of grave abuse of discretion or patent violation of established legal parameters, the Court cannot intrude into the wisdom of the standard adopted by the legislature.
In fact, in Macias v. Commission on Elections,[3] the Court upheld the validity of a reapportionment law based on the NSO’s “preliminary count of population” which may be subject to revision.The Court held there that “although not final, and still subject to correction, a census enumeration may be considered official, in the sense that Governmental action may be based thereon even in matters of apportionment of legislative districts.”
Majority opinion ably written by Justice Antonio T. Carpio points out, however, that “no legal effect” can be accorded to the certification of demographic projection for Malolos City issued by the NSO Region III Director because it violates the provisions of Executive Order 135 dated November 6, 1993 of President Fidel V. Ramos, which requires that such demographic projection be declared official by the National Statistics Coordination Board and that the certification be issued by the NSO administrator or a designated officer.In addition, the intercensal population estimates must, according to the Executive Order, “be as of middle of every year.”
But Executive Order 135 cannot apply to this case for the following reasons:
a.The President issued Executive Order 135 specifically to provide guidelines on the issuance of Certification of Population sizes pursuant to the following provisions of the Local Government Code: Section 7 (the creation and conversion of local government units); Section 386 (the creation of a barangay), Section 442 (the creation of a municipality); Section 450 (the conversion of a municipality or a cluster of barangay into a component city); Section 452 (the creation of highly urbanized cities); and Section 461 (the creation of urbanized cities).
Since R.A. 9591 is not concerned with the creation or conversion of a local government unit but with the establishment of a new legislative district, which is by no means a local government unit, the same is not governed by the requirements of Executive Order 135.
b.R.A. 9591 is based on a “legislative” finding of fact that Malolos will have a population of over 250,000 by the year 2010.The rules of legislative inquiry or investigation are unique to each house of Congress.Neither the Supreme Court nor the Executive Department can dictate on Congress the kind of evidence that will satisfy its law-making requirement.It would be foolhardy for the Court to suggest that the legislature consider only evidence admissible in a court of law or under the rules passed by the Office of the President.Obviously, the Judicial Department will resist a mandate from Congress on what evidence its courts may receive to support its decisions.
c.At any rate, the certification issued by the NSO
Region III Director, whose office has jurisdiction over
The majority opinion claims that the NSO Regional Director’s projection of the population of Malolos by 2010 is erroneous.Given that the total population of Malolos as of May 1, 2000 was 175,291 and its growth rate was 3.78% per year, its population will grow, according to the dissenting opinion, to only 241,550 in 2010.
But the majority
opinion uses the following formula: 175,291 x 37.80% (arrived at by multiplying
the 3.78 annual growth rate by 10 for the 10 years between 2000 and 2010) =
241,550.It uses a growth rate of 37.80%
per 10 years to substitute for the stated official growth rate of 3.78% per
year.It ignores logic and the natural
cumulative growth of population.
In contrast, the NSO Regional Director’s computation applies the growth rate of 3.78% per year, which is more logical in that the base is adjusted annually to reflect the year to year growth.Thus:
BaseRateGrowthYear
175,291x 3.78%=181,917 2001
181,917x3.78%=188,7932002
188,793x3.78%=195,9292003
195,929x3.78%=203,3352004
203,335x3.78%=211,0212005
211,021x3.78%=218,9982006
218,998x3.78%=227,2762007
227,276x3.78%=235,8672008
235,867x3.78%=244,7832009
244,783x3.78%=254,0362010
Second.The constitutional check against “gerrymandering,” which means the creation of representative districts out of separate points of territory in order to favor a candidate,[4] is found in Section 5(3), Article VI of the Constitution.It states that “each legislative district shall comprise, as far as practicable, contiguous, compact and adjacent territory.”
It should be noted, however, that this rule is qualified by the phrase “as far as practicable.”Hence, the fact that the creation of a legislative district for Malolos would separate the town of Bulacan from the rest of the towns comprising the first district, would not militate against the constitutionality of R.A. 9716.This is so because there is no showing that Congress enacted R.A. 9591 to favor the interest of any candidate.A city can aspire to have one representative who will represent its interest in Congress.
Third.Contrary to petitioners’ claim, R.A. 9591 is a reapportionment bill.It does not require the conduct of a plebiscite for its validity.As the Court held in Bagabuyo v. Commission on Elections,[5] the holding of a plebiscite is not a requirement in legislative apportionment or reapportionment.A plebiscite is necessary only in the creation, division, merger, abolition or alteration of boundaries of local government units, which is not the case here.
I vote to dismiss the petition.
Associate Justice
[1]Senate Journal, Session No. 49, February 9, 2009, Fourteenth Congress, p. 1557.
[2]Dueñas, Jr. v. Commission on Elections, G.R. No. 185401, July 21, 2009.
[3]113 Phil. 1, 5-6 (1961).
[4]Bernas, S.J., The 1987 Constitution of the
Republic of the
[5]G.R. No. 176970, December 8, 2008, 573 SCRA 290, 306-307.
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