EN BANC

 

 

G.R. No. 191771 – LIBERAL PARTY, represented by its President Manuel A. Roxas II and Secretary General Joseph Emilio A. Abaya, Petitioners, v. COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS, NACIONALISTA PARTY, represented by its President Manuel B. Villar and NATIONALIST PEOPLE’S COALITION, allegedly represented by its Chairman Faustino S. Dy, Jr., Respondents.

 

 

Promulgated:

                                                                             May 6, 2010

 

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SEPARATE CONCURRING OPINION

 

 

 

CARPIO, J.:

 

 

          I vote to grant the petition. First, the petition to register the political coalition of the Nacionalista Party (NP) and the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC) was filed out of time. Second, the NP and NPC officers who signed the coalition agreement acted without authority in violation of their parties’ respective Constitutions and By-Laws.

 

NP and NPC’s Petition Filed Out of Time

 

The Commission on Elections (COMELEC) released the list of all deadlines relating to the 10 May 2010 elections on 14 July 2009 as embodied in Resolution No. 8646 (Resolution 8646), or more than nine months before the start of the election period.[1] First on the list of deadlines is the last day for filing petitions for “registration of political parties” which is 17 August 2009, or over three months before the deadline to file certificates of candidacy on 30 November 2009.  The generous time-gap between party registration and filing of certificates of candidacy rests on two grounds: (1) to give the COMELEC ample time to comply with the constitutional mandate to “[r]egister, after sufficient publication, political parties, organizations, or coalitions which, in addition to other requirements, must present their platform or program of government”[2] thus ensuring efficiency in the registration process (as publication and confirmatory hearings expectedly take time); and (2) to give political parties and coalitions ample time to hold post-registration conventions to nominate their candidates, a requirement for seeking office, thus eliminating inter-party or inter-coalition rivalries.

 

As major political parties, respondents NP and NPC are charged with knowing the deadline to register coalitions.  Despite such knowledge, NP and NPC chose not to coalesce and seek registration before the 17 August 2009 deadline. Instead, NP and NPC fielded their own candidates for national and local positions for the 10 May 2010 elections, submitting separate nomination papers to the COMELEC. It was only on 12 February 2010, almost six months after the deadline under Resolution 8646 had lapsed, that NP and NPC sought to register their so-called coalition, coupled with a prayer for the coalition’s accreditation as dominant minority party. What triggered the NP and NPC to coalesce deep into the election period, long past the COMELEC deadline to register their coalition? Petitioner Liberal Party sheds light:

[T]the alleged “NP-NPC Coalition” was supposedly entered into only on 28 January 2010 as indicated in their Joint Resolution, a day after the COMELEC promulgated the Resolution No. 8752 which, among others, provides for the rules and criteria for the accreditation [of] the dominant minority party. The NP and NPC, in a desperate afterthought, belatedly forged the alleged NP-NPC Coalition,” after having known the criteria for the accreditation of [the] dominant minority party and the obvious fact that neither of them as individual political parties can even be at par with the Liberal Party position, as in fact it was also declared as the [d]ominant [m]inority [p]arty during the last May 2007 [e]lections.[3] (Emphasis supplied)

 

 

          In its assailed resolution, the COMELEC entertained the NP and NPC’s application for registration because “there is no resolution setting a deadline for the registration of coalitions.”[4] Respondents NP and NPC agree, emphasizing that under Resolution 8646, the word “coalitions” is found only in the deadline for the registration of parties under the party-list system.[5]

 

          A simple referral to its own procedural rules could have spared the COMELEC from committing an egregious error.   Section 1, Rule 32 of the COMELEC Rules of Procedure on registration of political parties lumps together “political party, organization or coalition” for purposes of registration, thus:

 

          Section 1. Petition for Registration – Any political party, organization or coalition of political parties seeking registration pursuant to Section 2(5), Subdivision C of Article IX of the Constitution shall file with the Law Department of the Commission a petition duly verified by its President and Secretary-General, or any official duly authorized to do so under its Constitution and By-laws. (Boldfacing and underscoring supplied)

 

The COMELEC issued Resolution 8646 to supplement Section 1, Rule 32 of its Rules of Procedure by providing the deadlines for registration for purposes of the 10 May 2010 elections. Thus, Resolution 8646’s deadline for registration of “political parties” on 17 August 2009 logically covers “[a]ny political party, organization or coalition of political parties” for under Section 1, Rule 32 of the Rules of Procedure, the term “political party” includes “organization or coalition of political parties.”

 

NP and NPC’s submission that only coalitions under the party-list system are covered by Resolution 8646 defies common sense and logic. Parties under the party-list system represent sectors seeking membership only in the House of Representatives. In contrast, regular political parties or their coalitions field candidates in the executive and legislative branches and, for the legislature, in both lower and upper Houses.[6] Hence, for purposes of preventing “inter-coalition rivalries” and bogus coalitions, it is illogical and nonsensical for the COMELEC to schedule way ahead of elections the screening for registrants under the party-list system and leave open the door, up until the eve of elections, for registrants under the regular system.

 

          By entertaining and granting relief to a very stale registration application, the COMELEC negated the purpose of the party nomination process. Thus, we are now treated with the spectacle of NP and NPC rival candidates, supposed “coalition-mates,” campaigning against each other and attacking each other’s program of governance who, as “coalition members,” should ideally hew along the same principles and policies.[7]

 

          Worse still, the COMELEC betrayed its raison d'ętre   of ensuring “free, orderly, honest, peaceful, and credible elections”[8] by undermining the constitutional policy of fostering stable, party-based, program-driven electoral system.[9] The constitutional mandate that the COMELEC “[r]egister, after sufficient publication, political parties, organizations, or coalitions which, in addition to other requirements, must present their platform or program of government x x x” is meant to insure free, orderly, honest, peaceful and credible elections.  The early screening of party or coalition registrants implements this policy. Because the COMELEC ignored its self-imposed deadline, a dubious, hastily patched coalition has now belatedly entered the electoral system, flouting a constitutionally rooted policy.  

 

The NP and NPC Coalesced in Violation of

their Constitutions and By-Laws

 

 

The NP-NPC coalition was created through Joint Resolution No. 01-2010, dated 28 January 2010 (Coalition Resolution), signed by two national officers of the NP and three national officers of the NPC.[10]  Under the Coalition Resolution, the NP and NPC:

 

 

RESOLVED, by the Executive Committee of the Nacionalista Party and the Executive Committee of the Nationalist People’s Coalition to unite and coalesce into a single opposition political group, to be known as the “NP-NPC Coalition[.][11] (Emphasis supplied)

 

However, there is no “Executive Committee” under the Constitutions and By-Laws of the NP and NPC. What the Constitutions and By-Laws of the NP and NPC provide are “National Central Committees.”[12] Under each party’s structural hierarchy, the National Central Committee is subordinate to the National Convention, the central decision-making body.[13]

 

          The records are bereft of formal authorization from either the NP and NPC National Central Committees or their National Conventions for the Coalition Resolution signatories to sign Joint Resolution No. 01-2010. True, the NP’s National Central Committee is granted the authority to “deliberate and decide upon all matters respecting x x x coalition [sic],”[14] but this presupposes a collegial action, not the unilateral moves of a few members (two to be exact) acting without the consent of, much less notice to, the National Central Committee members. The lack of authorization on the NPC’s side was highlighted during the COMELEC hearings where NPC Chairman Faustino Dy, Jr. revealed that he merely talked to party members. When pressed, NPC Chairman Dy, Jr. admitted that he failed to confer with several members,[15] including a National Central Committee member, Darlene Antonino, not because she was unavailable but because her mother, a former member of the House of Representatives, is supporting the national candidates of another party.[16] Another NPC National Central Committee member, Daniel Laogan, confirmed that he first heard of the NP-NPC coalition in the newspapers.[17] More damning still is the disclosure of NPC’s own General Counsel Atty. Sixto Brillantes, an NPC national officer and thus member of its National Central Committee, that there was no “meeting or assembly that discussed the issue of coalition.”[18]

 

No amount of invocation of technical rules of evidence (such as the rules on admission of hearsay evidence and attorney-client communication which NP and NPC invoked in their Comment[19]) can stifle the truth of Laogan and Brillantes’ disclosures. The COMELEC and certainly this Court enjoy ample leeway in admitting credible evidence to perform the task at hand. Indeed, it would defeat the purpose of this proceeding for the Court to close its eyes to undisputed, material proof only because their sources cannot verbally attest to their words. At any rate, Atty. Brillantes’ statement that there was no NPC “meeting or assembly that discussed the issue of coalition” involves no attorney-client “communication.”[20]  It is a statement of a negative fact made not so much in Atty. Brillantes’ capacity as NPC’s party counsel but as NPC national officer and member of its National Central Committee.

 

The lack of authority of the Coalition Resolution signatories would have been cured if the coalition’s Constitution and By-Laws, no doubt drafted by Coalition Resolution signatories, were submitted to the parties’ respective National Central Committees or general memberships for ratification. However, no such curative process took place because the heads[21] of NP and NPC took it upon themselves to “ratify” the coalition’s Constitution and By-Laws they had written.  

Thus, not only were the NP and NPC National Central Committees and general memberships denied participation in the coalition-building, they are now bound without their consent to a supra-Constitution placing the NP and NPC under the control of a “National Coalition Committee.” Styled as “the supreme authority and administrative arm of the Coalition,”[22] this supra-party body is vested under the coalition’s Constitution and By-Laws with sweeping powers such as the authority to “act upon such matters and transact such business as it may deem necessary or appropriate”[23] and to “format the platform and ideology of the Party and amend the same when circumstances warrant.”[24]

 

These powers are concentrated on the National Coalition Committee’s six members,[25] elected by the NP and NPC’s “Executive Committees,” and who are also the coalition’s national officers.   To repeat, the NP and NPC’s Constitutions and By-Laws do not provide for an “Executive Committee.”  There are no resolutions of the NP and NPC’s respective general memberships authorizing the creation of either an “Executive Committee” within their respective parties or of a supra-party “National Coalition Committee” with the power to amend the platform and ideology of their respective parties.  Clearly, the so-called “Executive Committees” of the NP and NPC have no authority to act for and bind their respective parties.  Neither does the so-called “National Coalition Committee” have authority to bind both NP and NPC. 

 

The COMELEC would have been left with no choice but to deny registration to the NP-NPC coalition had it passed upon the validity of the Coalition Resolution. Instead, it refused to reach the merits of this issue by finding petitioner Liberal Party without personality to raise the matter.[26]  It could not have been lost on the COMELEC that the NP and NPC coalition’s request for registration was merely a preliminary step to its ultimate goal of obtaining the coveted accreditation as dominant minority political party[27] entitling the coalition to the sixth copy of the election returns.[28] As the political party accorded this status in the 2007 elections, petitioner Liberal Party will certainly be prejudiced by the registration of the NP-NPC coalition as a preliminary step for the coalition’s accreditation as the dominant minority party. Thus, petitioner is possessed with legal personality to question the registration of the NP-NPC coalition. 

 

 

Orderly and Credible Elections

 

The NP and NPC’s stale request for registration of their coalition is nothing but a strategic election move by some of their officers. Determined to secure accreditation as dominant minority party and thus enjoy an election privilege the law attaches to that status, these officers belatedly devised a coalition despite lack of authorization by their parties’ governing bodies.  A more assiduous devotion to its core function as sentinel of “free, orderly, honest, peaceful, and credible elections” would have steeled the COMELEC to withhold its blessing to this belated and unauthorized political union.   

 

Clearly, in issuing the assailed resolution the COMELEC committed grave abuse of discretion for violating its own rules as well as its constitutional mandate of insuring orderly and credible elections. It does not matter whether this case involves the administrative or quasi-judicial functions of the COMELEC. Under Section 1, Article VIII of the Constitution, this Court has the power to determine “whether or not there has been a grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction on the part of any branch or instrumentality of the Government.” The act assailed before this Court may be executive, quasi-judicial or legislative in nature. Moreover, Section 7, Article IX-A of the Constitution provides that “[u]nless otherwise provided by this Constitution  or by law, any decision, order, or ruling of each Commission may be brought to the  Supreme Court on certiorari by the aggrieved party within thirty days from receipt of a copy thereof.” Such COMELEC decision, order, or ruling may arise from its administrative or quasi-judicial functions.

 

Accordingly, I vote to GRANT the petition, SET ASIDE the COMELEC Resolution dated 12 April 2010 in SPP No. 10-005 (DM), and DIRECT the COMELEC to desist from conducting further proceedings in SPP No. 10-005 (DM).

 

 

 

                                                                   ANTONIO T. CARPIO

                                                                          Associate Justice

 

                                                                      


[1]               This is consistent with the COMELEC’s practice to release ahead of the election period the list of election related deadlines. Thus, for the 14 May 2007 elections, it released the list on 30 August 2006 (Resolution No. 7707) and for the 10 May 2004 elections, on 25 November 2003 (Resolution No. 6420) (Petition, pp. 31-32).

[2]               Section 2(5), Article IX-C (emphasis supplied).

[3]               Petition, p. 48.

[4]               COMELEC Resolution in SPP No. 10-005 (DM), dated 12 April 2010, p. 7.

[5]               NP-NPC Coalition Comment, pp. 22-24.

[6]               Thus, the so-called coalition under review is fielding candidates for President, Vice-President,           Senators, Representatives, Governors, Vice-Governors, Mayors, Vice-mayors and Councilors.

[7]               Thus introducing to the lexicon of election law the oxymoron “hostile coalition.”

[8]               Sections 2(4) and 4, Article IX-C of the Constitution (emphasis supplied).

[9]               As textualized in Section 6, Article IX-C of the Constitution which provides: “A free and open          party system shall be allowed to evolve according to the free choice of the people, x x x.”

[10]             By Faustino S. Dy, Jr, Chairman, Frisco San Juan, President and Michael John R. Duavit, Secretary General for NPC and by Manuel B. Villar, President and Alan Peter S. Cayetano, Secretary General for NP.

[11]             Records, p. 69.

[12]             For the NP, the National Central Committee is composed of the national officers of the party, two senators, four members of the House of Representatives, two provincial governors, two mayors, three members of the advisory council, five members of sectoral group representatives and two members-at-large. The National Officers are the President, Executive Vice-President, Secretary General, thirteen National Vice-Presidents (regional chairmen), treasurer and Chief Legal Counsel (Section 24, Article IV, Revised Rules of the Nacionalista Party). For the NPC, its National  Central Committee is composed of “such members as may be provided by the national convention” (Section 3, Article VI,NPC Constitution and By-Laws). Its current membership cannot be determined from the records.

[13]             Section 14, Article IV of the 1993 Revised Rules of the Nacionalista Party provides: “Supreme Authority of the Party. The supreme authority of the Party shall reside in the National Convention. Decisions of the National Convention may be revered, altered or modified only by the National Convention itself.” Similarly, Section 1, Article VI of the NPC’s Constitution and By-Laws provides: “The National Convention. The National Convention supreme authority of the Party which has the final decision on all matters, issues or conflicts involving the Party or its members.”

[14]             Section 25(d), Article V, 1993 Revised Rules of the Nacionalista Party. The NPC’s Constitution and By-Laws carry no parallel provision although it vests on the National Central Committee “all the powers of the National Convention when the same is not in session x x x.”   (Section 2(i), Article VI, NPC Constitution and By-Laws).

[15]              Such as Negros Oriental Governor Emilio Macias II, Southern Leyte Governor Marissa Lerias, Camiguin Governor Jurdin Romualdo, Congresswoman Rizalina Seachon-Lanete, Congressman Arnulfo Fuentebella, Congressman Rodolfo Plaza, Congressman Jules Ledesma, Claude Bautista, Manny Pińol, Kimi Cojuangco, Enrique Cojuangco, Ramon Durano, and President Emeritus Ernesto Maceda.

[16]             TSN (Faustino S. Dy, Jr.), 11 March 2010, pp. 17-41.

[17]             Petition, Annex “EE.”

[18]                            Petition, Annex “DD.”

[19]             NP-NPC Coalition Comment, pp. 36-39.

[20]             E.g. verbal statements, documents or papers entrusted to the counsel or facts learned by counsel    through the act or agency of his client. (Regalado, II Remedial Law Compendium 711 (10th ed.)

[21]             Through Joint Resolution No. 02-2010, dated 6 February 2010, signed by NP President Manuel         Villar and NPC Chairman Faustino S. Dy, Jr.

[22]             Section 1, Article VI, NP-NPC Coalition Constitution and By-Laws.

[23]             Section 3(b), Article V, NP-NPC Coalition Constitution and By-Laws.

[24]             Section 3(e), Article V, NP-NPC Coalition Constitution and By-Laws. (Emphasis supplied)

[25]             Manuel B. Villar, Faustino S. Dy. Jr., Luis R. Villafuerte, Frisco San Juan, Alan Peter Cayetano           and Rimpy Bondoc.

[26]             COMELEC Resolution in SPP No. 10-005 (DM), dated 12 April 2010,  pp. 8-9.

[27]             Thus, in their petition before the COMELEC, NP and NPC’s second prayer was for the coalition’s accreditation as the dominant minority party (on which the COMELEC deferred ruling). The NP and NPC also resolved in their Coalition Resolution to “obtain accreditation of the NP-NPC COALITION as the Dominant Minority Political Party.” (Records, p. 69)

[28]             Under Section 22, B(6) of Republic Act No. 9369. With the maiden, nationwide use of an automated system in the 10 May 2010 elections, which dispenses with all paper-trail except the canvassed-ballots and election return print-outs, the latter has become a prized document to protect votes, and perhaps,  substantiate future legal actions.