Monday, January 14, 2019

[DIGESTS OF DISSENTING OPINIONS] NAVARRO vs. ERMITA (G.R. No. 180050)


RODOLFO G. NAVARRO, VICTOR F. BERNAL and RENE O. MEDINA v. EXECUTIVE SECRETARY EDUARDO ERMITA, representing the President of the Philippines; Senate of the Philippines, represented by the SENATE PRESIDENT; House of Representatives, represented by the HOUSE SPEAKER; GOVERNOR ROBERT ACE S. BARBERS, representing the mother province of Surigao del Norte; GOVERNOR GERALDINE ECLEO VILLAROMAN, representing the new Province of Dinagat Islands CONGRESSMAN FRANCISCO T. MATUGAS, HON. SOL T. MATUGAS, HON. ARTURO CARLOS A. EGAY, JR., HON. SIMEON VICENTE G. CASTRENCE, HON. MAMERTO D. GALANIDA, HON. MARGARITO M. LONGOS, and HON. CESAR M. BAGUNDOL, Intervenors

April 12, 2011
 
DISSENTING OPINION

Carpio, J.

Key contentions:

Ø  The Dinagat Islands province simply does not meet the criteria for the creation of a province. To implement the Constitution and for reasons of political practicality and economic viability, Section 461 of the Local Government Code bars the creation of provinces unless two of three minimum requirements are met, viz: average annual income of P20M, a contiguous territory of at least 2,000 square kilometers, and a population of not less than 250,000 inhabitants.

Section 461 requires a province to meet the minimum income requirement and either the minimum land area or minimum population requirement. In short, two of the three minimum requirements must be satisfied, with the minimum income requirement one of the two. The Dinagat Islands province, whose income at the time of its creation in 2006 was P82,696,433.22, satisfies only the minimum income requirement. The Dinagat Islands province does not meet either the minimum land area requirement or the minimum population requirement. Indisputably, Dinagat Islands cannot qualify as a province under Section 461 of the Local Government Code, the law that governs the creation of provinces.

In re: Legislative Construction

The majority argues that since the exception of island provinces from the minimum land area requirement was inserted in the implementing rules by the congressional Oversight Committee, the Court should extend great weight to this “legislative construction” of the Code. This is gross error for two reasons.

First, congressional oversight committee has no power to approve or disapprove the implementing rules of laws because the implementation of laws is purely an executive function. Second, Congress has no power to construe the law. Only the courts are vested with the power to construe the law.
Congress may provide in the law itself a definition of terms but it cannot define or construe the law through its Oversight Committee after it has enacted the law because such power belongs to the courts.

On why Congress did not carve an exception to the land area requirement in the creation of provinces under the LGC:

The province, as the largest political and corporate subdivision of local governance in this country, serves as the geographic base from which municipalities, cities and even another province will be carved, fostering local development. The majority ruling, allowing the creation of an island province irrespective of population and land area so long as it has P20 million annual income, wipes away the territorial and population tiering among provinces, cities and municipalities the Local Government Code has carefully structured, reducing provinces to the level of a rich municipality, unable to host otherwise qualified new smaller local government units for sheer lack of space.

Ø   It is mandatory that a province must have a population of at least 250,000.

The power to create a province or city inherently involves the power to create a legislative district. Thus, when Congress creates a province it necessarily creates at the same time a legislative district. The province must comply with the minimum population of 250,000 because the Constitution mandates that 250,000 shall be the minimum population for the creation of legislative districts.

Because the Province of Dinagat Islands only had 120,813 inhabitants in the year it became a province, in effect it became a premium district. One vote in Dinagat Islands has the weight of more than two votes in Metro Manila for the purpose of representation in the House of Representatives.

What special and compelling circumstances have the majority found that entitle the inhabitants of Dinagat Islands to such a privileged position? This is not what our “one person, one vote” representative democracy is all about.

Ø  RA 9355 creating the Province of Dinagat Islands perpetuates political dynasties. It fosters entrenchment of political dynasties and fuels feudalistic practices by assuring political dynasties easy access to public funds.

Under the majority’s ruling, not only land area but also population is rendered immaterial in creating island provinces. This is an open invitation to ruling political clans strategically situated in this country’s thousands of islands to sponsor the creation of more underpopulated provinces within their political bailiwicks, enabling them to capture more pork barrel funds, thus tightening their grip on the levers of power. This inevitably fuels the feudal practices plaguing Philippine local politics by fortifying patron (congressman) — ward (constituents) relations upon which dynastic politics thrive.

Ø  Population and land area – not income – are the pivotal factors in funding local government units.
Under the Local Government Code, these components determine 75% of the share from the national taxes (Internal Revenue Allotment  or IRA) each local government unit receives, the lifeblood of their operations, based on the following formula: 

Population – Fifty percent (50%)
Land Area – Twenty-five percent (25%)
Equal sharing – Twenty-five percent (25%)

Thus, population, with a weight of 50%, ranks first in importance in determining the financial entitlement of local government units, followed by land area with a weight of 25%.

By treating Dinagat Islands’ land area of 802.12 square kilometers as compliant with the 2,000 square kilometers minimum under Section 461, the majority effectively included in their land area computation the enclosed marine area or waters of Dinagat Islands. This disposition not only reverses, without cause, decades’ old jurisprudence, it also wreaks havoc on the national government’s allocation of the internal revenue allotment to existing island provinces which would be justified in invoking today’s ruling to clamor for increased revenue shares due to increased land area. In short, other island provinces, like Romblon, Marinduque, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi and Palawan, can now claim their enclosed marine areas as part of their land area in computing their share of the IRA.

In its zeal to legalize the creation of an obviously disqualified local government unit, the majority unwittingly creates classes of elite and disadvantaged provinces, using the most arbitrary factor of geographic accident as basis for classification. Even under the most benign equal protection analysis, this does not pass constitutional muster.

Ø  The Constitution and the Local Government Code are normative guides for courts to reasonably interpret and give expression to the will of the Filipino people as encoded in their provisions. Members of this Court go beyond the bounds of their sworn duties when they second guess the intent of the Constitution’s framers and the people’s elected representatives, pretending to act as if they themselves have been accorded electoral mandate to amend statutes as they see fit.

* * *

DISSENTING OPINION


Brion, J.

Key contentions:

The majority ruling disregarded procedural rules that the Court itself had created. Herein respondents’ motion was effectively a third motion for reconsideration, which is a prohibited pleading.
The Court’s Decision of February 10, 2010 became final and executory, and Entry of Judgment was made by the Clerk of Court on May 18, 2010. At that point, the Decision of the Court should have been beyond recall.

Violations of the majority ruling:

Ø  Violation of the Rule on Reconsideration

By a 9-6 vote, the Court declared the entry of judgment lifted. In so doing, it completely disregarded its own rule that any 2nd motion for reconsideration can only be entertained through a vote of 2/3 of the actual membership, or of 10 members, of the Court. It likewise disregarded the rule that a second motion for reconsideration can only be entertained before the ruling sought to be reconsidered becomes final by operation of law or by the Court’s declaration. 

It conveniently forgot, too, when it subsequently claimed that the motion it was considering was not by respondent Governor Ecleo but by the would-be intervenors, that what an original party could no longer do with respect to a final decision, would-be intervenors – practically representing the same interests and who had not even been recognized by this Court – cannot also do; otherwise, what is directly prohibited is allowed through indirect means. Unbelievably, among the majority’s supporting arguments to support their violation, was that (1) a motion to lift entry of final judgment is not a motion for reconsideration of the decision sought to be declared non-final; and that (2) no exact provision of the Internal Rules covers the lifting of an entered final judgment.

Ø  Violation of the Rule on Finality of Judgments

Worse than the above transgression, the Court turned a blind eye to the finality of the judgment it had reached in the case.

Ø  Violation on the Rule of Intervention

The Court disregarded as well the rule on interventions. The motion for intervention was initially denied since the Court’s decision was already final, and intervention could no longer be allowed. To go around this rule, the would-be intervenors, without first successfully securing leave to intervene, instead filed its own motion to lift entry of judgment – the same 2nd motion from the original respondents that the Court previously simply noted without action. The Court granted the motion to lift judgment by a 9-6 vote, under the fiction that it was an intervening party, not the barred original respondents, who had asked for it.

To complete this blow-by-blow account, the respondents’ legal tactician used the ploy of first reopening the case (initially through the original respondents, and subsequently solely through the would-be intervenors), and thereafter moved to allow intervention since the original respondents had by then exhausted their arguments for the constitutionality of RA 9355. 

On two previous attempts, the original respondents had failed. To get around the insurmountable block posed by the rule on 2nd motions for reconsideration, they fell back on their modified Resolution with the position that another party – the would-be intervenors – wanted to lift the entry of judgment. Once the entry of judgment was lifted and intervention was allowed, it was an easy step to reopen the arguments, add to what the original respondents presented, and submit the case for a ruling on the merits. The same magic numbers of course prevailed all throughout: 9 to 6.

In this manner, the original and final ruling of the Court, in what is commonly known as the “Dinagat case” was reversed. Unlike the case of Lazarus who rose from the dead through a miracle, Dinagat resurrected because the Court disregarded its own rules and established jurisprudential principles. Of course, it can similarly be called a miracle as no reversal could have taken place if just one of the series of transgressions pointed out did not take place. How such resurrection can happen in the Supreme Court is a continuing source of wonder!

* * *

DISSENTING OPINION 

Peralta, J.

Key contentions:

Ø  In case of discrepancy between the basic law and the rules and regulations implementing the said law, the basic law prevails, because the rules and regulations cannot go beyond the terms and provisions of the basic law.

Contrary to the contention of the movants-intervenors, Article 9 (2) of the Rules and Regulations Implementing the Local Government Code, which exempts a proposed province from the land area requirement if it is composed of one or more islands, cannot be deemed incorporated in R.A. No. 9355, because rules and regulations cannot go beyond the terms and provisions of the basic law.

Ø  Where the law speaks in clear and categorical language, there is no room for interpretation, but only for application.

Section 461 of the Local Government Code, providing the requisites for the creation of a province, specifically states the requirement of a contiguous territory of at least two thousand (2,000) square kilometers.

Hence, contrary to the arguments of both movants, the requirement of a contiguous territory and the requirement of a land area of at least 2,000 square  kilometers are distinct and separate requirements for land area under paragraph (a) (i) of Section 461 and Section 7 (c) of the Local Government Code.

The exemption (i.e., territory need not be contiguous if it comprises two or more islands or is separated by a chartered city or cities which do not contribute to the income of the province) pertains only to the requirement of territorial contiguity. It clearly states that the requirement of territorial contiguity may be dispensed with in the case of a province comprising two or more islands or is separated by a chartered city or cities which do not contribute to the income of the province. 

Nowhere is it expressly stated or may it be implied that when a province is composed of two or more islands or when the territory of a province is separated by a chartered city or cities, such province need not comply with the land area requirement of at least 2,000 square kilometers.

Ø  The general rule is that an unconstitutional law is void; the doctrine of operative fact is inapplicable. The contention of the intervenors that since the Province of Dinagat Islands has been organized and is functioning as a province anyway does not hold water. A violation or non-observance of a law shall not be excused by disuse or custom or practice to the contrary. Furthermore, when the courts declare a law to be inconsistent with the Constitution, the former shall be void and the latter shall govern.

Ø  The majority’s ruling that the exemption to the land area requirement for component cities and municipalities should also apply to provinces does not deserve even scant merit. The Local Government Code took effect on January 1, 1992, so 19 years have lapsed since its enactment. If the Legislature committed the congressional oversight in Section 461 of R.A. No. 7160 as alleged by Justice Nachura, it would have amended Section 461, which is a function of Congress.

Substantial oversights  in the basic law, particularly as alleged with respect to Section 461 of R.A. No. 7160, cannot be corrected in the implementing rules thereof, as it is settled rule that the implementing rules of the basic law cannot go beyond the scope of the basic law.

Ø  In the creation of the territorial and political subdivisions of the State, the requirements provided by the Local Government Code must also be complied with, which R.A. No. 9355 failed to do.

Based on the criteria for the creation of a province provided for in Section 461 of the Local Government, the Court found that R.A. No. 9355 creating the Province of Dinagat Islands failed to comply with the population or territorial requirement; hence, R.A. No. 9355 was declared unconstitutional.

Ø  The motion for reconsideration filed by movants-intervenors on the denial of the motion for intervention should have been denied since to grant the same would be tantamount to reopening a case which is already final. Worse, movants-intervenors are not even original parties to the present case and therefore are not in a position to file a motion to recall a judgment which is already final and executory.

No second motion for reconsideration of a judgment or final resolution by the same party shall be entertained. When a final judgment is executory, it becomes immutable and unalterable. The judgment may no longer be modified in any respect, even if the modification is meant to correct what is perceived to be an erroneous conclusion of fact or law, and regardless of whether the modification is attempted to be made by the court rendering it or by the highest Court of the land. The doctrine is founded on considerations of public policy and sound practice that, at the risk of occasional errors, judgments must become final at some definite point in time.

See the full case digest of the majority decision HERE