No choice

The action of the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) on the pending petition filed by Sigaw and ULAP is very crucial. It will either renew the peoples’ trust and confidence or further trim the already thin thread of hope on this agency’s reliability to protect the sanctity of the electoral process. It will be a test on the mettle, independence, integrity and probity of the newly appointed Commissioners.

In the light of the existing jurisprudence on the matter, the COMELEC Commissioners acting as a body have no choice but to junk this petition purporting to be the "peoples’ initiative" mentioned in the Charter as a mode of changing it. Any decision other than scrapping it, even if it is allegedly signed by 10 million people, will be in open defiance of the Supreme Court ruling in Santiago vs. Comelec (G.R.127325, March 19, 1997). This ruling permanently enjoined COMELEC from taking cognizance of petitions to change the Charter via the system of initiative since it remains "entomb in the niche" of our Constitution in the absence of an adequate enabling and implementing law.

If the impeachment complaint is "dead on arrival" at the House of Representatives according to a palace lackey in Congress, this petition is "dead in the water" before reaching the COMELEC. This view is more credible because it is based on reason as embodied in the aforesaid SC ruling unlike that of the Congressman from Malacañang, regarding the impeachment complaint which is only based on the numerical superiority of his colleagues agreeing with him. So if the COMELEC decides to entertain the petition, it only means that nothing much has change in that "Garci" damaged institution despite the appointment of new Commissioners. It is still susceptible, and has again succumbed to tremendous political pressures as in the past.

Sigaw and ULAP should even welcome the junking of their petition. They have been repeatedly contending in the press that there is an implementing law (RA 6735) for the exercise of the peoples’ right to directly propose amendments to the Constitution through the system of initiative under Section 2 Article XVII; that the previous ruling in Santiago declaring said law inadequate, is wrong and should be abandoned. With the dismissal of their petition by the COMELEC the process of going back to the SC and of asking it to revisit and revoke or abandon the Santiago pronouncement is hastened and shortened. Outrightly dismissing the petition immediately shifts the forum for the ventilation and resolution of several issues to the SC and avoids the useless legal skirmishes in the COMELEC.

This case is not only a simple matter of revisiting the previous ruling on the peoples’ initiative or of revoking it and then declaring that the existing law is adequate for the purpose. Granting that the existing law (RA6735) is adequate to enable the people to exercise their right to directly propose changes in the Charter, the SC is also called upon to decide whether petition of Sigaw and ULAP is in accordance with said law. Are Sigaw and ULAP the proper party-petitioners or should the petitioners be the 10 million people whose signatures were allegedly gathered? Were these signatures gathered and verified in accordance with said law? Were the COMELEC Registrars who supposedly verified the signatures officially commissioned to do so, on a proper and legal petition filed before it? Did the COMELEC officially order its Registrars to verify said signatures? In short, is the Sgaw and ULAP petition the correct and proper initiatory petition contemplated by said law which they claim to be valid and adequate?

The contents are also important to determine whether it is the proper and legal initiatory petition. Are the texts of the proposed amendments set forth in the petition itself? Did the proposition come directly from the people or were they merely asked to conform to it? Section 5 of RA 6735 which Sigaw and Ulap claim to be valid and adequate even require that the abstract or summary of the proposition in not more than 100 words shall be legibly printed on top of every page of the petition, was this complied with? These questions are very crucial for they will determine whether the alleged 10 million people really understood and took it upon themselves to propose the amendments or were certain questions already containing the proposed amendments merely propounded to them. Asking them to conform to the proposed amendments in the form of referendum questions like what Sigaw and Ulap had done already partakes of the nature of a plebiscite which is the next rather than the first step in a peoples’ initiative.

It is also necessary to resolve whether there is a distinction between "amendment" and "revision". The ChaCha pushers for the parliamentary government through the peoples’ initiative seem to ignore the difference between the two terms. But since the Constitution itself provides that only "amendments" can be directly proposed by the people through the system of initiative, the clear implication is that the two terms have different connotations. Being different therefore, the next question is whether the proposed shift from the present presidential bicameral form of government to a parliamentary unicameral system is an amendment only or a revision of the Charter. If it is a revision and not a mere amendment, then the alleged peoples’ initiative of Sigaw and Ulap must fail regardless of whether 10 million signatories allegedly support it. Let’s stop this alleged "numbers game". It has no place in a democratic society that is supposed to be under the rule of law.

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