G.R. No. 246816

G.R. No. 246816, December 7, 2021,
♦ Decision, , [J]
♦ Dissenting Opinion, Gesmundo, [CJ]
♦ Separate Dissenting Opinion, Lopez, [J]
♦ Separate Concurring and Dissenting Opinion, Dimaampao, [J]

ANGKLA: ANG PARTIDO NG MGA MARINONG PILIPINO, INC. (ANGKLA), AND SERBISYO SA BAYAN PARTY (SBP), PETITIONERS, VS. COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS (SITTING AS THE NATIONAL BOARD OF CANVASSERS), CHAIRMAN SHERIFF M. ABAS, COMMISSIONER AL A. PARREÑO, COMMISSIONER LUIE TITO F. GUIA, COMMISSIONER MA. ROWENA AMELIA V. GUANZON, *COMMISSIONER SOCORRO B. INTING, COMMISSIONER MARLON S. CASQUEJO, AND COMMISSIONER ANTONIO T. KHO, JR. RESPONDENTS,

AKSYON MAGSASAKA – PARTIDO TINIG NG MASA (AKMA-PTM) PETITIONER-IN-INTERVENTION.

Petitioners ANGKLA: Ang Partido Ng Mga Pilipinong Marino, Inc., (ANGKLA) and Serbisyo sa Bayan Party (SBP) move for reconsideration of the Court's Decision dated September 15, 2020 upholding the constitutionality of the proviso in Section 11(b) of Republic Act No. (RA) 7941,1 viz.:

Applying this formula, petitioners and intervenor Aksyon Magsasaka – Tinig Partido ng Masa (AKMA-PTM) would be entitled to one (1) seat each at the expense of One Patriotic Coalition of Marginalized Nationals (IPACMAN), Marino Samahan ng mga Seaman, Inc. (MARINO), and Probinsyano Ako.13

Petitioners note that Chief Justice Alexander G. Gesmundo adopted their proposed formula in his Dissenting Opinion. Meanwhile, petitioners "humbly assert that while the method proposed by Justice Zalameda stretches the application of the afore-cited provision, Justice Caguioa totally disregards it."14

Accordingly, petitioners seek to nullify the seat allocation for party-lists in the May 13, 2019 elections on ground that respondent COMELEC, sitting as the National Board of Canvassers, acted in grave abuse of discretion when it applied the unconstitutional proviso in Section 11 (b) of RA 7941 in allocating additional seats to the winning party-lists.

In its Comment, respondent COMELEC, through the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) riposte:

First. The Court simply applied the intent and language of Section 11(b) of RA 7941. It could not have devised a different formula for allocating party-list seats – a matter best left to Congress.15

Second. There is no double counting of votes to speak of. Though there are two (2) rounds of seat allocation, there is only one (1) round of counting of votes which is done at the beginning of the formula for purposes of ranking the party-lists from highest to lowest.16

Finally. The substantial distinction between two-percenters and non-two-percenters justify the preference given to the former. Meanwhile, petitioner's formula which allows for a 2% deduction from the votes of the two percenters would result in an outcome wherein those with lower number of votes will be favored and given seats to the detriment of those that actually obtained higher number of votes.17

Does the proviso in Section 11 (b) of RA 7941, as implemented through the BANAT formula, violate the "one person, one vote" policy, as well as the equal protection clause?

Notably, the issue raised herein has already been passed upon and deliberated in full in the Court's Decision dated September 15, 2020. Indeed, petitioners do not raise any new arguments against the Court's ruling but merely reiterate those raised in their petition.

First. Petitioners are misguided in their view on how the "one person, one vote" policy applies to the party-list system.

To reiterate, the principle of one person-one vote was discussed in the Dissenting Opinion of retired Associate Justice Antonio T. Carpio in Aquino III v. COMELEC,18 (Aquino) thus:

For context, the thrust of Justice Carpio's dissent in Aquino was to have RA 971620 declared unconstitutional. The assailed law reapportioned the legislative districts of Camarines Sur in order to create a new one. According to Justice Carpio, the reapportionment violated the Constitution as it created a legislative district with less than 250,000 inhabitants. Consequently, the law also violated the "one person, one vote" policy as it effectively overvalues the votes of the district with a lower population and undervalues the votes of the district with more inhabitants, viz.:

Verily, Justice Carpio's concept of "one person, one vote" is akin to absolute proportionality. Meaning, the higher the population, the more representatives. Thus, he fought tooth and nail against giving a legislative district with low population the same voting rights as legislative districts in the same province with substantially higher ones.

Subscribing to this concept of "one person, one vote" would cause chaos in the political landscape not only insofar as the application of Section 11(b) of RA 7941 to party-list systems is concerned, but also with respect to laws reapportioning legislative districts. For if Justice Carpio was correct after all in his invocation of the "one person, one vote" policy, then the Court would effectively be abandoning the ruling in Aquino and exposing reapportionment laws such as RA 9716 to possible nullity.

At any rate, we have already discussed in the assailed Decision that the Constitution does not prescribe absolute proportionality in distributing seats to party-lists, organizations, or coalitions. On the contrary, Congress is given a wide latitude of discretion in setting the parameters for determining the actual volume and allocation of party-list representation in the House of Representatives. Section 5(1), Article VI of the Constitution pertinently ordains:

In the exercise of its discretion, Congress enacted RA 7941 which contained mechanisms that prevent the distribution of party-list seats based on absolute proportionality such as the three-seat cap and the two-tiered seat allocation. Notably, these mechanisms are disadvantageous to the two-percenters and beneficial to non-two-percenters. As illustrated in the assailed Decision:

Indeed, these mechanisms essentially offset the advantage given to two-percenters in the first round of seat allocation in the form of a guaranteed seat. This is clear from the fact that ACT-CIS party-list which garnered 2,651,987 is only entitled to three (3) seats or an average of 883,996.67 votes per seat while KABATAAN only needed 195,837 to win a seat in Congress. Indubitably, the votes cast in favor of ACT-CIS were undervalued while those of KABATAAN, overvalued.

Petitioners agreed to this uneven valuation of votes when they concurred in the distribution of party-list seats in two (2) rounds using two (2) different formulae. They agreed to it, too, when they proposed that the three-seat limit under the law should still be observed. But perhaps the most telling sign of petitioners' concurrence was their availment of the benefits of the BANAT formula in previous elections, thus:

The Court is therefore in quandary on why petitioners are now claiming that the votes of non-two-percenters are being diluted in supposed violation of the "one person, one vote" policy when they should have known based on their prior experience that, on the contrary, it is their votes which are being overvalued when seats are allocated in their favor in the second round.

Second. The BANAT formula is in accordance with the clear language and intent of the law.

As it currently stands, the BANAT formula mirrors the textual progression of Section 11(b) of RA 7941. As keenly noted by Senior Associate Justice Estela M. Perlas-Bernabe, the first round is based on the first sentence of Section 11(b), while the second round is based on the first proviso that follows in sequence.

Petitioners admit that there is a substantial distinction between two-percenters and non-two-percenters and agrees that the former should be given preference in the form of a guaranteed seat. But they nevertheless claim that such preference should be limited to the first round of seat allocation; when it comes to the allocation of the additional seats, the votes of the two-percenters should first be reduced by 2%.

The intention behind the proviso is clear – only the two-percenters were supposed to participate in the second round of seat allocation and with full votes at that. This can be deduced from the language of the proviso which originally allocated seats only to those "garnering more than two percent (2%) of the votes."

Thus, in Veterans Federation Party v. COMELEC,25 the Court crafted a formula for seat allocation with two (2) notable characteristics: first, only the two-percenters were allowed to participate in the second round of seat allocation; and second, the two-percenters participated in the second round of seat allocation with their full votes intact. Applying this formula, the Court, in Veterans, awarded only 14 seats to the 13 party-lists which surpassed the 2% threshold despite the availability of 51 seats reserved for the party-list system.

This manner of allocation in Veterans was sustained in Ang Bagong Bayani-OFW Labor Party v. Commission on Elections26 in relation to the 2001 elections, and in Partido ng Manggagawa v. Commission on Elections27 and Citizens' Battle Against Corruption v. Commission on Elections28 both in relation to the 2004 elections.

It was not until 2009, through the Court's ruling in BANAT, when the second round of seat allocation was opened up to non-two-percenters by removing the 2% threshold for additional seats. But this was only to fulfil the constitutional mandate that 20% of the total membership of the House of Representatives be reserved for party-list representatives under Article VI, Section 5(2) of the Constitution.29

In other words, only the first characteristic of the Veterans formula was negated by the removal of the 2% threshold; the second characteristic was retained. This is in clear recognition of the original intent behind the law to allow the two-percenters to participate in the second round of seat allocation with their full votes intact.

Third. Allowing the two-percenters to participate in the second round of seat allocation with full votes does not result in double-counting of votes. We have extensively discussed this in the ponencia, thus:

On the other hand, imposing a 2% penalty against two-percenters in the second round would yield an absurd result which, too, had been illustrated in the assailed Decision:

Fourth. Even assuming arguendo that the proviso in Section 11(b) is void, this does not automatically result in the application of petitioners' formula. To be sure, the nullity of the assailed proviso would result in the following phraseology of Section 11(b):

Meanwhile, petitioners propose that the second round of seat distribution be accomplished, thus:

But these proposed steps do not have textual basis. Nowhere is it stated in RA 7941 that a two percent (2%) deduction would first be imposed on the two-percenters before they may be allowed to participate in the second round of seat allocation. Neither does RA 7941 read that the parties will be re-ranked before distributing additional seats.s

Clearly, petitioners would have us plant words into RA 7941 which are not there. This would be nothing short of judicial legislation, if not usurpation of legislative powers, as it would allow us to substitute the wisdom of Congress with ours.

The Court is not in the position though to give its imprimatur on petitioners' construction of Section 11(b) of RA 7941 at the risk of expanding the law as currently couched. We do not "correct" laws by reading into them more than what they contain; we merely apply what is written. And what is currently written in Section 11(b) of RA 7941 does not need correction as it does not offend any constitutional guarantee. Thus, should petitioners insist on the application of their formula, the proper remedy is not to have the law "corrected" through judicial fiat but to have Congress amend and tailor the law based on their proposal.

The dissents likewise offer varying formulae on what they believe is a more equitable and straightforward distribution of seats to party-lists. But whether these formulae are better, which they may very well be, is beside the point. For they, too, were not spelled out in the law. To stress, we are not here to discuss the merits of each formula, only to determine what the applicable formula actually is based on the text of the law and in accordance with Constitutional standards. And as stated, the textual progression of Section 11(b) of RA 7941 is mirrored by the BANAT formula and, contrary to petitioners' claim, does not offend the equal protection clause.

All told, the idea of the petitioners and the dissents on what is fair and equitable is simply not what was legislated. Indeed, there are infinite methods of allocating additional seats which may be considered fair, equitable, and proportional. But surely, it is not for the Court to recalibrate the formula for the party-list system to obtain the "broadest representation possible" and make it seemingly less confusing and more straightforward. This is definitely a question of wisdom which the legislature alone may determine for itself. Thus, until RA 7941 is amended, Section 11(b) as outlined in BANAT remain to be the applicable law.

Dimaampao, J., on official leave but left and voted. See separate concurring and dissenting opinion.