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ROGELIO Z. BAGABUYO, Petitioner, - versus - COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS, Respondent. |
G.R. No. 176970
Present:
PUNO, C.J., Quisumbing, *Ynares-Santiago, CARPIO, AUSTRIA-MARTINEZ, CARPIO MORALES, AZCUNA,
TINGA,
CHICO-NAZARIO, velasco,
JR., NACHURA, REYES, leonardo-de castro, and brion, JJ. Promulgated: December 8, 2008 |
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D E C I S I O N
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BRION, J.:
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Before us is the petition for certiorari,
prohibition, and mandamus,[1]
with a prayer for the issuance of a temporary restraining order and a writ of
preliminary injunction, filed by Rogelio Bagabuyo (petitioner) to prevent the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) from implementing Resolution
No. 7837 on the ground that Republic Act
No. 9371[2] – the
law that Resolution No. 7837 implements – is unconstitutional.
BACKGROUND FACTS
On
Section 1 of R.A. No. 9371
apportioned the City’s barangays as follows:
Legislative
Districts – The lone legislative
district of the City of
On
Petitioner Rogelio Bagabuyo filed the
present petition against the COMELEC on
In
asking for the nullification of R.A. No. 9371 and Resolution No. 7837 on
constitutional grounds, the petitioner argued that the COMELEC cannot implement
R.A. No. 9371 without providing for the rules, regulations and guidelines for
the conduct of a plebiscite which is indispensable for the division or
conversion of a local government unit. He prayed for the issuance of an order
directing the respondents to cease and desist from implementing R.A. No. 9371
and COMELEC Resolution No. 7837, and to revert instead to COMELEC Resolution No.
7801 which provided for a single legislative district for Cagayan de Oro.
Since the Court did not grant the
petitioner’s prayer for a temporary restraining order or writ of preliminary
injunction, the May 14 National and Local Elections proceeded according to R.A.
No. 9371 and Resolution No. 7837.
The
respondent’s Comment on the petition, filed through the Office of the Solicitor
General, argued that: 1) the petitioner did not respect the hierarchy of courts,
as the Regional Trial Court (RTC) is vested with concurrent jurisdiction
over cases assailing the constitutionality of a statute; 2) R.A. No. 9371 merely
increased the representation of Cagayan de Oro City in the House of
Representatives and Sangguniang Panglungsod pursuant to Section 5,
Article VI of the 1987 Constitution; 3) the criteria established under Section
10, Article X of the 1987 Constitution only apply when there is a creation,
division, merger, abolition or substantial alteration of boundaries of a
province, city, municipality, or barangay;
in this case, no such creation, division, merger, abolition or alteration of
boundaries of a local government unit took place; and 4) R.A. No. 9371 did not
bring about any change in Cagayan de Oro’s territory, population and income
classification; hence, no plebiscite is required.
The
petitioner argued in his reply that: 1) pursuant to the Court’s ruling in Del
Mar v. PAGCOR,[9]
the Court may take cognizance of this petition if compelling reasons, or the
nature and importance of the issues raised, warrant the immediate exercise of
its jurisdiction; 2) Cagayan de Oro City’s reapportionment under R.A. No. 9371
falls within the meaning of creation, division, merger, abolition or
substantial alteration of boundaries of cities under Section 10, Article X of
the Constitution; 3) the creation, division, merger, abolition or substantial
alteration of boundaries of local government units involve a common denominator
– the material change in the political and economic rights of the local
government units directly affected, as well as of the people therein; 4) a
voter’s sovereign power to decide on who should be elected as the entire city’s
Congressman was arbitrarily reduced by at least one half because the questioned
law and resolution only allowed him to vote and be voted for in the district
designated by the COMELEC; 5) a voter was also arbitrarily denied his right to
elect the Congressman and the members of the city council for the other
legislative district, and 6) government funds were illegally disbursed without
prior approval by the sovereign electorate of Cagayan De Oro City.[10]
THE ISSUES
The
core issues, based on the petition and the parties’ memoranda, can be limited
to the following contentious points:
1) Did the petitioner
violate the hierarchy of courts rule; if so, should the instant petition be
dismissed on this ground?
2) Does R.A. No. 9371
merely provide for the legislative reapportionment of Cagayan de Oro City, or
does it involve the division and conversion of a local government unit?
3) Does R.A. No. 9371
violate the equality of representation doctrine?
OUR RULING
Except for the issue of the hierarchy of
courts rule, we find the petition totally without merit.
The hierarchy of courts principle.
The
Supreme Court has original jurisdiction over petitions for certiorari,
prohibition, mandamus, quo warranto, and habeas corpus.[11] It was pursuant to this original jurisdiction
that the petitioner filed the present petition.
While this
jurisdiction is shared with the Court of Appeals[12]
and the RTCs,[13]
a direct invocation of the Supreme
Court’s jurisdiction is allowed only when there are special and important
reasons therefor, clearly and especially set out in the petition. Reasons of practicality, dictated by
an increasingly overcrowded docket and the need to prioritize in favor of matters
within our exclusive jurisdiction, justify the existence of this rule otherwise
known as the “principle of hierarchy of
courts.” More generally stated, the principle requires that recourse must first be made to the
lower-ranked court exercising concurrent jurisdiction with a higher court.[14]
Among the cases we have considered sufficiently special and important to
be exceptions to the rule, are petitions for certiorari, prohibition, mandamus and
quo warranto against our nation’s lawmakers when the validity of their
enactments is assailed.[15] The present petition is of this nature; its
subject matter and the nature of the issues raised – among them, whether
legislative reapportionment involves a division of Cagayan de Oro City as a
local government unit – are reasons enough for considering it an exception to
the principle of hierarchy of courts.
Additionally, the petition assails as well a resolution of the COMELEC en banc issued to implement the legislative apportionment that R.A.
No. 9371 decrees. As an action against a
COMELEC en banc resolution, the case
falls under Rule 64 of the Rules of Court that in turn requires a review by
this Court via a Rule 65 petition for
certiorari.[16] For these reasons, we do not see the
principle of hierarchy of courts to be a stumbling block in our consideration
of the present case.
The Plebiscite Requirement.
The
petitioner insists that R.A. No. 9371 converts and divides the City of Cagayan de
Oro as a local government unit, and does not merely provide for the City’s
legislative apportionment. This argument essentially proceeds from a
misunderstanding of the constitutional concepts of apportionment of legislative
districts and division of local government units.
Legislative
apportionment is defined by Black’s
Law Dictionary as the determination of the number of representatives which a
State, county or other subdivision may send to a legislative body.[17]
It is the allocation of seats in a legislative body in proportion to the
population; the drawing of voting district lines so as to equalize population
and voting power among the districts.[18] Reapportionment,
on the other hand, is the realignment or change in legislative districts
brought about by changes in population and mandated by the constitutional
requirement of equality of representation.[19]
Article VI (entitled Legislative
Department) of the 1987 Constitution lays down the rules on legislative
apportionment under its Section 5 which provides:
Sec. 5(1). (1) The House of Representatives shall be
composed of not more than two hundred fifty members unless otherwise fixed by
law, who shall be elected from legislative districts apportioned among the
provinces, cities, and the Metropolitan Manila area in accordance with the
number of their respective inhabitants, and on the basis of a uniform and
progressive ratio, and those who, as provided by law, shall be elected through
a party-list system of registered national, regional and sectoral parties or
organizations.
x x x
(3) Each legislative district shall comprise, as far
as practicable, continuous, compact, and adjacent territory. Each city with a population of at least two
hundred fifty thousand, or each province, shall have at least one
representative.
(4) Within
three years following the return of every census, the Congress shall make a
reapportionment of legislative districts based on the standards provided in
this section.
Separately from the legislative
districts that legal apportionment or reapportionment speaks of, are the local
government units (historically and generically referred to as “municipal
corporations”) that the Constitution itself classified into provinces, cities,
municipalities and barangays.[20] In its strict and proper sense, a
municipality has been defined as “a body politic and corporate constituted by
the incorporation of the inhabitants of a city or town for the purpose of local
government thereof.”[21] The creation, division, merger, abolition or
alteration of boundary of local government units, i.e., of provinces, cities, municipalities, and barangays,
are covered by the Article on Local Government (Article X). Section 10 of this
Article provides:
No province, city, municipality, or barangay
may 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 unit directly affected.
Under both Article VI, Section 5, and
Article X, Section 10 of the Constitution, the authority to act has been vested
in the Legislature. The Legislature
undertakes the apportionment and reapportionment of legislative districts,[22]
and likewise acts on local government units by setting the standards for their
creation, division, merger, abolition and alteration of boundaries and by actually creating, dividing,
merging, abolishing local government units and altering their boundaries
through legislation. Other than this,
not much commonality exists between the two provisions since they are
inherently different although they interface and relate with one another.
The concern that leaps from the text
of Article VI, Section 5 is political representation and the means to make a
legislative district sufficiently represented so that the people can be
effectively heard. As above stated, the
aim of legislative apportionment is “to equalize population and voting power
among districts.”[23] Hence, emphasis is given to the number of
people represented; the uniform and progressive ratio to be observed among the
representative districts; and accessibility and commonality of interests in
terms of each district being, as far as practicable, continuous, compact and
adjacent territory. In terms of the
people represented, every city with at least 250,000 people and every province
(irrespective of population) is entitled to one representative. In this sense,
legislative districts, on the one hand, and provinces and cities, on the other,
relate and interface with each other. To
ensure continued adherence to the required standards of apportionment, Section
5(4) specifically mandates reapportionment as soon as the given standards are
met.
In contrast with the equal
representation objective of Article VI, Section 5, Article X, Section 10
expressly speaks of how local government units may be “created, divided,
merged, abolished, or its boundary substantially altered.” Its concern is the commencement, the
termination, and the modification of local government units’ corporate
existence and territorial coverage; and it speaks of two specific standards
that must be observed in implementing this concern, namely, the criteria
established in the local government code and the approval by a majority of the
votes cast in a plebiscite in the political units directly affected. Under the Local Government Code (R.A. No. 7160)
passed in 1991, the criteria of income, population and land area are specified
as verifiable indicators of viability and capacity to provide services.[24] The division or merger of existing units must
comply with the same requirements (since a new local government unit will come
into being), provided that a division shall not reduce the income, population,
or land area of the unit affected to less than the minimum requirement
prescribed in the Code.[25]
A pronounced distinction between
Article VI, Section 5 and, Article X, Section 10 is on the requirement of a plebiscite. The Constitution and the Local Government
Code expressly require a plebiscite to carry out any creation, division,
merger, abolition or alteration of boundary of a local
government unit.[26] In
contrast, no plebiscite requirement exists under the apportionment or
reapportionment provision. In Tobias
v. Abalos,[27] a case
that arose from the division of the congressional district formerly covering
The
need for a plebiscite under Article X, Section 10 and the lack of requirement
for one under Article VI, Section 5 can best be appreciated by a consideration
of the historical roots of these two provisions, the nature of the concepts
they embody as heretofore discussed, and their areas of application.
A Bit of History.
In Macias v. COMELEC,[28]
we first jurisprudentially acknowledged the American roots of our apportionment
provision, noting its roots from the
Fourteenth Amendment[29]
of the U.S. Constitution and from the constitutions of some American
states. The Philippine Organic Act of
1902 created the Philippine Assembly,[30] the body that acted as the lower
house of the bicameral legislature under the Americans, with the Philippine
Commission acting as the upper house. While
the members of the Philippine Commission were appointed by the U.S. President
with the conformity of the U.S. Senate, the members of the Philippine Assembly
were elected by representative districts previously delineated under the Philippine
Organic Act of 1902 pursuant to the mandate to apportion the seats of the
Philippine Assembly among the provinces as nearly as practicable according to
population. Thus, legislative apportionment first started in our country.
The Jones Law or the Philippine
Autonomy Act of 1916 maintained the apportionment provision, dividing the
country into 12 senate districts and 90 representative districts electing one
delegate each to the House of Representatives.
Section 16 of the Act specifically vested the Philippine Legislature
with the authority to redistrict the Philippine Islands.
Under the 1935 Constitution, Article
VI, Section 5 retained the concept of legislative apportionment together with “district”
as the basic unit of apportionment; the concern was “equality of representation
. . . as an essential feature of republican institutions” as expressed in the
leading case of Macias v. COMELEC.[31] The
case ruled that inequality of representation is a justiciable, not a political
issue, which ruling was reiterated in Montejo
v. COMELEC.[32] Notably, no issue regarding the holding of a
plebiscite ever came up in these cases and the others that followed, as no
plebiscite was required.
Article VIII, Section 2 of the 1973
Constitution retained the concept of equal representation “in accordance with
the number of their respective inhabitants and on the basis of a uniform and
progressive ratio” with each district being, as far as practicable, contiguous,
compact and adjacent territory. This formulation was essentially carried over
to the 1987 Constitution, distinguished only from the previous one by the
presence of party-list representatives.
In neither Constitution was a plebiscite required.
The need for a plebiscite in the
creation, division, merger, or abolition of local government units was not constitutionally
enshrined until the 1973 Constitution.
However, as early as 1959, R.A. No. 2264[33]
required, in the creation of barrios by Provincial Boards, that the creation
and definition of boundaries be “upon
petition of a majority of the voters in the areas affected.” In 1961, the
Charter of the City of Caloocan (R.A. No. 3278) carried this further by
requiring that the “Act shall take effect
after a majority of voters of the Municipality of Caloocan vote in favor of the
conversion of their municipality into a city in a plebiscite.” This was followed up to 1972 by other
legislative enactments requiring a plebiscite as a condition for the creation
and conversion of local government units as well as the transfer of sitios
from one legislative unit to another.[34] In 1973, the plebiscite requirement was
accorded constitutional status.
Under these separate historical
tracks, it can be seen that the holding of a plebiscite was never a requirement
in legislative apportionment or reapportionment. After it became constitutionally entrenched,
a plebiscite was also always identified with the creation, division, merger,
abolition and alteration of boundaries of local government units, never with
the concept of legislative apportionment.
Nature and Areas of Application.
The legislative district that Article VI, Section 5 speaks of may, in a
sense, be called a political unit because it is the basis for the election of a
member of the House of Representatives and members of the local legislative
body. It is not, however, a political
subdivision through which functions of government are carried out. It can more appropriately be described as a representative unit that may or may not
encompass the whole of a city or a province, but unlike the latter, it is not a
corporate unit. Not being a corporate
unit, a district does not act for and in behalf of the people comprising the
district; it merely delineates the areas occupied by the people who will choose
a representative in their national affairs. Unlike a
province, which has a governor; a city or a municipality, which has a mayor;
and a barangay, which has a punong barangay, a district does not
have its own chief executive. The role
of the congressman that it elects is to ensure that the voice of the
people of the district is heard in Congress, not to oversee the affairs of the
legislative district. Not being a corporate unit also signifies that it has no
legal personality that must be created or dissolved and has no capacity to
act. Hence, there is no need for any
plebiscite in the creation, dissolution or any other similar action on a
legislative district.
The local government units, on the
other hand, are political and corporate
units. They are the territorial and
political subdivisions of the state.[35]
They possess legal personality on the authority of the Constitution and by
action of the Legislature. The
Constitution defines them as entities that Congress can, by law, create,
divide, abolish, merge; or whose boundaries can be altered based on standards
again established by both the Constitution and the Legislature.[36] A local government unit’s corporate existence begins upon
the election and qualification of its chief executive and a majority of the
members of its Sanggunian.[37]
As a political
subdivision, a local government unit is an “instrumentality of the state in
carrying out the functions of government.”[38]
As a corporate entity with a distinct and separate juridical personality from
the State, it exercises special functions for the sole benefit of its
constituents. It acts as “an agency of the community in the administration of local affairs”[39] and
the mediums through which the people act in their corporate capacity on local
concerns.[40] In light of these roles, the Constitution saw
it fit to expressly secure the consent of the people affected by the creation,
division, merger, abolition or alteration of boundaries of local government
units through a plebiscite.
These
considerations clearly show the distinctions between a legislative
apportionment or reapportionment and the division of a local government
unit. Historically and by its intrinsic
nature, a legislative apportionment does not mean, and does not even imply, a division of a local government unit where
the apportionment takes place. Thus, the
plebiscite requirement that applies to the division of a province, city,
municipality or barangay under the Local Government Code should not
apply to and be a requisite for the validity of a legislative apportionment or
reapportionment.
R.A. No. 9371 and COMELEC Res. No. 7837
R.A. No. 9371 is, on its face, purely
and simply a reapportionment legislation passed in accordance with the
authority granted to Congress under Article VI, Section 5(4) of the Constitution. Its core provision – Section 1 – provides:
SECTION 1. Legislative
Districts. — The lone legislative district of the City of
Under these wordings, no division of
Cagayan de Oro City as a political and corporate entity takes place or is
mandated. Cagayan de Oro City politically remains a single unit and its
administration is not divided along territorial lines. Its territory remains
completely whole and intact; there is only the addition of another legislative
district and the delineation of the city into two districts for purposes of
representation in the House of Representatives. Thus, Article X, Section 10 of
the Constitution does not come into play and no plebiscite is necessary to
validly apportion Cagayan de Oro City into two districts.
Admittedly, the legislative
reapportionment carries effects beyond the creation of another congressional district
in the city by providing, as reflected in COMELEC Resolution No. 7837, for
additional Sangguniang Panglunsod
seats to be voted for along the lines of the congressional apportionment
made. The effect on the Sangguniang Panglunsod, however, is not
directly traceable to R.A. No. 9371 but to another law – R.A. No. 6636[41] –
whose Section 3 provides:
SECTION 3. Other
Cities. — The provision of any law to the contrary notwithstanding the City of
Cebu, City of Davao, and any other city with more than one representative
district shall have eight (8) councilors for each district who shall be
residents thereof to be elected by the qualified voters therein, provided that
the cities of Cagayan de Oro, Zamboanga, Bacolod, Iloilo and other cities
comprising a representative district shall have twelve (12) councilors each and
all other cities shall have ten (10) councilors each to be elected at large by
the qualified voters of the said cities: Provided, That in no case shall the
present number of councilors according to their charters be reduced.
However, neither does this law have
the effect of dividing the City of
To illustrate this effect, before the
reapportionment, Cagayan de Oro had only one congressman and 12 city council
members citywide for its population of approximately 500,000.[42] By having two legislative districts, each of
them with one congressman, Cagayan de Oro now effectively has two congressmen,
each one representing 250,000 of the city’s population. In terms of services for city residents, this
easily means better access to their congressman since each one now services
only 250,000 constituents as against the 500,000 he used to represent. The same goes true for the Sangguniang Panglungsod with its ranks
increased from 12 to 16 since each legislative district now has 8 councilors.
In representation terms, the fewer constituents represented translate to a
greater voice for each individual city resident in Congress and in the Sanggunian;
each congressman and each councilor represents both a smaller area and fewer constituents
whose fewer numbers are now concentrated in each representative. The City, for
its part, now has twice the number of congressmen speaking for it and voting in
the halls of Congress. Since the total
number of congressmen in the country has not increased to the point of doubling
its numbers, the presence of two congressman (instead of one) from the same
city cannot but be a quantitative and proportional improvement in the
representation of Cagayan de Oro City in Congress.
Equality of representation.
The petitioner argues that the
distribution of the legislative districts is unequal. District 1 has only
93,719 registered voters while District 2 has 127,071. District 1 is composed mostly of rural
barangays while District 2 is composed mostly of urban barangays.[43]
Thus, R.A. No. 9371 violates the principle of equality of representation.
A
clarification must be made. The law clearly provides that the basis for
districting shall be the number of the
inhabitants of a city or a province, not
the number of registered voters therein. We settled this very same question
in Herrera v. COMELEC[44]
when we interpreted a provision in R.A. No. 7166 and COMELEC Resolution No. 2313 that applied to the
The
petitioner, unfortunately, did not provide information about the actual
population of Cagayan de Oro City. However, we take judicial notice of the
August 2007 census of the National Statistics Office which shows that barangays comprising Cagayan de Oro’s
first district have a total population of 254,644, while the second district
has 299,322 residents. Undeniably, these figures show a disparity in the
population sizes of the districts.[45]
The Constitution, however, does not require mathematical exactitude or rigid
equality as a standard in gauging equality of representation.[46]
In fact, for cities, all it asks is that “each
city with a population of at least two hundred fifty thousand shall have one
representative,” while ensuring representation for every province
regardless of the size of its population.
To ensure quality representation through commonality of interests and
ease of access by the representative to the constituents, all that the
Constitution requires is that every legislative district should comprise, as far as practicable, contiguous,
compact, and adjacent territory. Thus, the Constitution leaves the local
government units as they are found and does not require their division, merger
or transfer to satisfy the numerical standard it imposes. Its requirements are satisfied despite some
numerical disparity if the units are contiguous, compact and adjacent as far as
practicable.
The
petitioner’s contention that there is a resulting inequality in the division of
Cagayan de Oro City into two districts because the barangays in the first district are mostly rural barangays while the second district is
mostly urban, is largely unsubstantiated.
But even if backed up by proper proof, we cannot question the division
on the basis of the difference in the barangays’ levels of development
or developmental focus as these are not part of the constitutional standards
for legislative apportionment or reapportionment. What the components of the two districts of
Cagayan de Oro would be is a matter for the lawmakers to determine as a matter
of policy. In the absence of any grave abuse of discretion or violation of the
established legal parameters, this Court cannot intrude into the wisdom of
these policies.[47]
WHEREFORE, we hereby DISMISS the petition
for lack of merit. Costs against the petitioner.
SO
ORDERED.
ARTURO
D. BRION
Associate Justice
WE CONCUR:
|
REYNATO S. PUNO Chief Justice |
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LEONARDO A. QUISUMBING Associate Justice ANTONIO T. CARPIO Associate Justice RENATO C. CORONA Associate Justice ADOLFO S. AZCUNA Associate Justice MINITA V. CHICO-NAZARIO Associate Justice ANTONIO EDUARDO B. NACHURA Associate Justice |
(On leave) CONSUELO YNARES-SANTIAGO Associate Justice MA. ALICIA AUSTRIA-MARTINEZ Associate Justice CONCHITA CARPIO MORALES Associate Justice DANTE O. TINGA Associate Justice PRESBITERO J. VELASCO, JR. Associate Justice RUBEN T. REYES Associate Justice |
TERESITA J. LEONARDO-DE CASTRO
Associate Justice
REYNATO S. PUNO
Chief Justice
* On leave.
[1]
Under Rule 65 of the Rules of Court.
[2] “An Act Providing for the Apportionment
of the Lone Legislative District of the City of
[3] Rollo,
p. 214.
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9] G.R. No. 138298,
[10] Rollo,
pp. 123-148.
[11] CONSTITUTION, Article VIII, Section
5(1).
[12]
Sec. 9 (1), B.P. Blg. 129.
[13]
Sec. 21 (1), B.P. Blg. 129.
[14] See: People v. Cuaresma, G.R. No. 67787,
[15]
[16] See: Bautista v. COMELEC, G.R. Nos.
154796-97,
[17] Black’s
Law Dictionary, 5th Edition, p. 91.
[18] Clapp,
James E., Dictionary of Law (2000), p. 33.
[19] Black’s Law
Dictionary, supra
note 17, p.
1137.
[20]
CONSTITUTION, Art. X, Sec. 1.
[21]
Martin, Public Corporations, Revised 1983 Edition, p. 5.
[22]
Article VI, Section 5; Montejo v.
COMELEC, 312 Phil. 492 (1995).
[23] Supra note 18.
[24] Section
7, Local Government Code.
[25]
CONSTITUTION, Art. X, Sec. 10.
[26] SEC.
10. Plebiscite Requirement. - No
creation, division, merger, abolition, or substantial alteration of boundaries of
local government units shall take effect unless approved by a majority of
the votes cast in a plebiscite called for the purpose in the political unit or
units directly affected. Said plebiscite shall be conducted by the Commission
on Elections (Comelec) within one hundred twenty (120) days from the date of
effectivity of the law or ordinance effecting such action, unless said law or
ordinance fixes another date.
[27] G.R. No. 114783,
[28] G.R. No. L-18684,
[29] The Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S.
Constitution provides the basis for the requirement of an equitable
apportionment scheme. See generally, Colegrove v. Green, 328
[30] People v.
[31] Supra note 28.
[32]
G.R. No. 118702,
[33] “An Act Amending
the Laws Governing
Local Governments by Increasing
their Autonomy and Reorganizing
Provincial Governments.”
[34] A
plebiscite was a conditio sine qua non in the creation of municipal corporations including, but not limited
to, the following: 1) the City of Angeles, R.A. 3700; 2) the Municipality of
Pio Duran in the Province of Albay, R.A. 3817; 3) the Provinces of Northern
Samar, Eastern Samar and Western Samar, R.A. 4221; 4) the Provinces of Agusan del
Norte and Agusan del Sur, R.A. 4979. The prior approval of a majority of the
qualified voters of certain sitios of
the
[35] Metropolitan
Manila Development Authority v. Bel-Air Village Association, Inc., G.R. No.
135962, March 27, 2000, 328 SCRA 836.
[36] CONSTITUTION, Article X, Secs. 3 and 10;
Aquilino Pimentel, Jr., The Local Government Code of 1991: The Key to
National Development, p. 5.
[37] Sec.
14, Local Government Code.
[38] Lidasan v. Commission on Elections, G.R. No. L-28089
[39] Ibid.
[40] Section 15 of the Local
Government Code provides: Political and Corporate
Nature of Local
Government Units. - Every local
government unit created or recognized under this Code is a body politic and
corporate endowed with powers to be exercised by it in conformity with law. As such, it shall exercise powers as a
political subdivision of the national government and as a corporate entity
representing the inhabitants of its territory.
[41] Enacted
into law on
[42] As
provided by COMELEC Res. No. 7801 that COMELEC Res. No. 7837 superseded.
[43] Rollo, p. 71.
[44] G.R. No. 131499,
[45] Total Population by Province,
City, Municipality and Barangay:
as of
[46] Harlan,
dissenting opinion in Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186 citing Allied Stores of Ohio v. Bowers, 358 U.S. 522
and McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420,
in which the Supreme Court ruled that the Equal Protection Clause does not
demand of legislation “finicky or exact conformity to abstract correlation xxx.
The Constitution is satisfied if a legislature responds to the practical living
facts with which it deals. Through what precise points in a field of many
competing pressures a legislature might most suitably have drawn its lines is
not a question for judicial re-examination. It is enough to satisfy the
Constitution that in drawing them the principle of reason has not been
disregarded. And what degree of uniformity reason demands of a statute is, of
course, a function of the complexity of the needs which the statute seeks to
accommodate.”
[47] Tobias v. Abalos, G.R. No. L-114783,