SC affirms cityhood ruling

MANILA, Philippines -  The Supreme Court (SC) has affirmed its February ruling upholding the constitutionality of laws passed by the 11th Congress on the conversion into cities of 16 municipalities.

In their last summer session in Baguio City yesterday, the SC justices kept their 7-6 vote dismissing the appeal of the League of Cities of the Philippines (LCP) that various cityhood laws be declared unconstitutional.

The cityhood laws are contained in Republic Acts 9389, 9390, 9391, 9392, 9393, 9394, 9398, 9404, 9405, 9407, 9408, 9409, 9434, 9435, 9436, and 9491.

The resolution, however, was not yet released as it was still being circulated for signature of the magistrates, according to SC spokesman Midas Marquez.

The High Court had been criticized by the LCP and other sectors for flip-flopping on the case in its earlier rulings.

This time, the SC stood by its fourth ruling that the cityhood laws do not violate Article X Section 10 and the equal protection clause under Article III Section 1 of the Constitution.

It junked the contention of LCP that the conversion into cities of the 16 municipalities violated Article X Section 10 of the Constitution, which provides that “no province, city, municipality or barangay shall

be created, divided, merged, abolished or its boundary substantially altered, except in accordance with the criteria established in the local government code and subject to approval by a majority of the votes cast in a plebiscite in the political units directly affected.”

In its ruling last Feb. 15, the SC reversed itself for the third time and reverted back to its second ruling in December 2009, which held that respondent LGUs were qualified cityhood applicants before the enactment of RA 9009: “To impose on them the much higher income requirement after what they have gone through would appear to be indeed unfair.

“Thus, the imperatives of fairness dictate that they should be given a legal remedy by which they should be allowed to prove that they have all the necessary qualifications for city status using the criteria set forth under the LGC of 1991 prior to its amendment by RA 9009. Truly, the peculiar conditions of respondent LGUs, which are actual and real, provide sufficient grounds for legislative classification,” the SC said.

The SC’s new ruling on the case was a result of the change in vote cast by Associate Justice Jose Mendoza, who voted last year for the unconstitutionality of the laws but reconsidered his stand last February.

Records showed that during the 11th Congress, a total of 33 bills seeking conversion of 33 municipalities into cities were acted upon while 24 others were not approved.

Meanwhile, the succeeding Congress enacted into law RA 9009 which took effect on June 30, 2001. The new law amended Section 450 of the Local Government Code by increasing the annual income requirement for conversion of a municipality into a city from P20 million to P100 million.

Its amendment was intended to discourage the rush of conversion into cities for the purpose of getting a larger share in the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA).

After the effectivity of RA 9009, the 12th Congress adopted Joint Resolution No. 29, which sought to

exempt from the P100-million income requirement the 24 municipalities whose cityhood bills were not approved in the 11th Congress.

Out of these 24 municipalities, only 16 had expressed intention to be converted into cities. These are the municipalities of Baybay (Leyte); Bogo (Cebu); Catbalogan (Samar); Tandag (Surigao del Sur);

Borongan (Eastern Samar); Tayabas (Quezon province); Lamitan (Basilan); Tabuk (Kalinga); Bayugan (Agusan del Sur); Batac (Ilocos Norte); Mati (Davao Oriental); Guihulngan (Negros Oriental); Cabadbaran (Agusan del Norte); Carcar (Cebu); El Salvador (Misamis Oriental); and Naga (Cebu).

The House and the Senate later approved the cityhood bills which lapsed into law on various dates from March to July 2007.