CASE DIGEST: DATU MICHAEL ABAS KIDA, et al. v.

SENATE OF THE PHILIPPINES

FACTS: On August 1, 1989 or two years after the effectivity of the 1987 Constitution, Congress acted
through Republic Act (RA) No. 6734 entitled "An Act Providing for an Organic Act for the Autonomous
Region in Muslim Mindanao."The initially assenting provinces were Lanao del Sur,Maguindanao, Sulu
and Tawi-tawi.RA No. 6734 scheduled the first regular elections for the regional officials of the ARMM
on a date not earlier than 60 days nor later than 90 days after its ratification.

Thereafter, R.A. No. 9054 was passed to further enhance the structure of ARMM under R.A. 6734. Along
with it is the reset of the regular elections for the ARMM regional officials to the second Monday of
September 2001.

RA No. 9333was subsequently passed by Congress to reset the ARMM regional elections to the
2ndMonday of August 2005, and on the same date every 3 years thereafter. Unlike RA No. 6734 and RA
No. 9054, RA No. 9333 was not ratified in a plebiscite.

Pursuant to RA No. 9333, the next ARMM regional elections should have been held onAugust 8, 2011.
COMELEC had begun preparations for these elections and had accepted certificates of candidacies for
the various regional offices to be elected.But onJune 30, 2011, RA No. 10153 was enacted, resetting the
ARMM elections to May 2013, to coincide with the regular national and local elections of the
country.With the enactment into law of RA No. 10153, the COMELEC stopped its preparations for the
ARMM elections.

Several cases for certiorari, prohibition and madamus originating from different parties arose as a
consequence of the passage of R.A. No. 9333 and R.A. No. 10153 questioning the validity of said laws.

OnSeptember 13, 2011, the Court issued a temporary restraining order enjoining the implementation of
RA No. 10153 and ordering the incumbent elective officials of ARMM to continue to perform their
functions should these cases not be decided by the end of their term onSeptember 30, 2011.

The petitioners assailing RA No. 9140, RA No. 9333 and RA No. 10153 assert that these laws amend RA
No. 9054 and thus, have to comply with the supermajority vote and plebiscite requirements prescribed
under Sections 1 and 3, Article XVII of RA No. 9094 in order to become effective.

The petitions assailing RA No. 10153 further maintain that it is unconstitutional for its failure to comply
with the three-reading requirement of Section 26(2), Article VI of the Constitution.Also cited as grounds
are the alleged violations of the right of suffrage of the people of ARMM, as well as the failure to adhere
to the "elective and representative" character of the executive and legislative departments of the
ARMM. Lastly, the petitioners challenged the grant to the President of the power to appoint OICs to
undertake the functions of the elective ARMM officials until the officials elected under the May 2013
regular elections shall have assumed office. Corrolarily, they also argue that the power of appointment
also gave the President the power of control over the ARMM, in complete violation of Section 16, Article
X of the Constitution.
ISSUE:

Does the 1987 Constitution mandate the synchronization of elections?

Does the passage of RA No. 10153 violate the provisions of the 1987 Constitution?

HELD: Court dismissed the petition and affirmed the constitutionality of R.A. 10153 in toto. The Court
agreed with respondent Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) on its position that the Constitution
mandates synchronization, citing Sections 1, 2 and 5, Article XVIII (Transitory Provisions) of the 1987
Constitution. While the Constitution does not expressly state that Congress has to synchronize national
and local elections, the clear intent towards this objective can be gleaned from the Transitory Provisions
(Article XVIII) of the Constitution,which show the extent to which the Constitutional Commission, by
deliberately making adjustments to the terms of the incumbent officials, sought to attain
synchronization of elections.

The objective behind setting a common termination date for all elective officials, done among others
through the shortening the terms of the twelve winning senators with the least number of votes, is to
synchronize the holding of all future elections whether national or local to once every three years.This
intention finds full support in the discussions during the Constitutional Commission deliberations.
Furthermore, to achieve synchronization, Congressnecessarilyhas to reconcile the schedule of the
ARMMs regular elections (which should have been held in August 2011 based on RA No. 9333) with the
fixed schedule of the national and local elections (fixed by RA No. 7166 to be held in May 2013).

In Osme v. Commission on Elections, the court thus explained:

It is clear from the aforequoted provisions of the 1987 Constitution that the terms of office of Senators,
Members of the House of Representatives, the local officials, the President and the Vice-President have
been synchronized to end on the same hour, date and year noon of June 30, 1992.

It is likewise evident from the wording of the above-mentioned Sections that the term
ofsynchronizationis used synonymously as the phraseholding simultaneouslysince this is the precise
intent in terminating their Office Tenure on the sameday or occasion.This common termination date will
synchronize future elections to once every three years (Bernas, the Constitution of the Republic of the
Philippines, Vol. II, p. 605).

That the election for Senators, Members of the House of Representatives and the local officials (under
Sec. 2, Art. XVIII) will have to be synchronized with the election for President and Vice President (under
Sec. 5, Art. XVIII) is likewise evident from the x x xrecords of the proceedings in the Constitutional
Commission.

Although called regional elections, the ARMM elections should be included among the elections to be
synchronized as it is a "local" election based on the wording and structure of the Constitution. Regional
elections in the ARMM for the positions of governor, vice-governor and regional assembly
representatives fall within the classification of "local" elections, since they pertain to the elected officials
who will serve within the limited region of ARMM. From the perspective of the Constitution,
autonomous regions are considered one of the forms of local governments, as evident from Article Xof
the Constitution entitled "Local Government."Autonomous regions are established and discussed under
Sections 15 to 21 of this Article the article wholly devoted to Local Government.

Second issue: Congress, in passing RA No. 10153, acted strictly within its constitutional mandate. Given
an array of choices, it acted within due constitutional bounds and with marked reasonableness in light of
the necessary adjustments that synchronization demands. Congress, therefore, cannot be accused of
any evasion of a positive duty or of a refusal to perform its duty nor is there reason to accord merit to
the petitioners claims of grave abuse of discretion.

In relation with synchronization, both autonomy and the synchronization of national and local elections
are recognized and established constitutional mandates, with one being as compelling as the other.If
their compelling force differs at all, the difference is in their coverage; synchronization operates on and
affects the whole country, while regional autonomy as the term suggests directly carries a narrower
regional effect although its national effect cannot be discounted.

In all these, the need for interim measures is dictated by necessity; out-of-the-way arrangements and
approaches were adopted or used in order to adjust to the goal or objective in sight in a manner that
does not do violence to the Constitution and to reasonably accepted norms.Under these limitations, the
choice of measures was a question of wisdom left to congressional discretion.

However, the holdover contained in R.A. No. 10153, for those who were elected in executive and
legislative positions in the ARMM during the 2008-2011 term as an option that Congress could have
chosen because a holdover violates Section 8, Article X of the Constitution. In the case of the terms of
local officials, their term has been fixed clearly and unequivocally, allowing no room for any
implementing legislation with respect to the fixed term itself and no vagueness that would allow an
interpretation from this Court. Thus, the term of three years for local officials should stay at three (3)
years as fixed by the Constitution and cannot be extended by holdover by Congress.

RA No. 10153, does not in any way amend what the organic law of the ARMM(RA No. 9054) sets outs in
terms of structure of governance.What RA No. 10153 in fact only does is to"appoint officers-in-charge
for the Office of the Regional Governor, Regional Vice Governor and Members of the Regional
Legislative Assembly who shall perform the functions pertaining to the said offices until the officials duly
elected in the May 2013 elections shall have qualified and assumed office."This power is far different
from appointing elective ARMM officials for the abbreviated term ending on the assumption to office of
the officials elected in the May 2013 elections. It must be therefore emphasized that the law must be
interpreted as an interim measure to synchronize elections and must not be interpreted otherwise.