Election lawyer seeks abolition of PET, asks SC to sit on poll protests

MANILA, Philippines – Election lawyer Romulo Macalintal has sought the abolition of the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) and asked the Supreme Court to exercise its constitutional mandate to sit on electoral protests against the President and the Vice President.

Macalintal said the PET should be abolished simply because it is “a misnomer” since the Constitution provides that election cases involving the President or the Vice President shall be decided by the Supreme Court “sitting en banc” without any mention of creating a separate quasi-judicial body like the PET.

“Since the Constitution clearly says that it is the Supreme Court, sitting en banc, that shall decide on all election cases involving the President or the Vice-President, the creation of the PET is a misnomer. Otherwise, we would have the anomaly of a decision of the PET rendered by the members of the SC exercising quasi-judicial function being asked to be reviewed by the same members of the SC, this time, exercising its strictly judicial power,” he explained.

The poll lawyer also believes there is a conflict in SC justices sitting as members of PET with quasi-judicial power.

“The Constitution provides that the Supreme Court cannot exercise quasi-judicial function (or functions of administrative bodies exercising discretion of a judicial nature) and that no member of the Supreme Court shall be designated in any agency performing quasi-judicial or administrative function (Article VIII Section 12),” he stressed.

“Furthermore, the PET being a quasi-judicial body, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is merely addressed as ‘Mr. Chairman’ and the associate justices as mere ‘Mr. Member of the Tribunal’ which practically diminishes their title and position,” the lawyer added.

Macalintal cited the January 2004 decision of the Supreme Court on the case of Buac against the Commission on Elections where it admitted exercising a quasi-judicial power when it sits as PET.

Apart from the PET, Macalintal also proposed the abolition of the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET) and Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET) and the eventual creation of a seven-man Congressional Electoral Tribunal (CET).

He said the consolidation of the two electoral tribunals in both chambers of Congress would be practical for the government, as it will save cost in handling electoral complaints in the House of Representatives and Senate.

The HRET is composed of three SC justices and six congressmen while the SET has three SC justices and six senators. The two bodies have a combined budget of P155 million.

“The close to P70 million budget for SET and the P85 million budget for the HRET would be considerably reduced if their entire 18-man membership is just reduced to a seven-man CET, aside from getting assurance that they would be independent and non-partisan and will discharge their functions with complete detachment, impartiality and independence,” Macalintal said.

“Furthermore, the congressmen could concentrate on their jobs as lawmakers while the justices could focus their work on purely judicial matters for, after all, the Constitution clearly prohibits them from being designated to any agency performing quasi-judicial or administrative functions,” he added.

Macalintal also proposed that the CET members be lawyers with not less than 10 years of law practice and not a candidate in any election or member of any political party for the past 10 years prior to their appointment.

However, he admitted that an amendment of some provisions of the Constitution is necessary in replacing the HRET and SET with the CET.