BANAT VS COMELEC

Nature: Pursuant to Sec. 11b of R.A. 7941 or the Party-List System Act, a party-list which garners at least 2% of the total votes cast in the party-list
elections shall be entitled to one seat;

In July and August 2007, the COMELEC, sitting as the National Board of Canvassers, made a partial proclamation of the winners in
the party-list elections which was held in May 2007.
In proclaiming the winners and apportioning their seats, the COMELEC considered the following rules:
1. In the lower house, 80% shall comprise the seats for legislative districts, while the remaining 20% shall come from party-list
representatives (Sec. 5, Article VI, 1987 Constitution);
2. Pursuant to Sec. 11b of R.A. 7941 or the Party-List System Act, a party-list which garners at least 2% of the total votes cast in the
party-list elections shall be entitled to one seat;
3. If a party-list garners at least 4%, then it is entitled to 2 seats; if it garners at least 6%, then it is entitled to 3 seats – this is pursuant
to the 2-4-6 rule or the Panganiban Formula from the case of Veterans Federation Party vs COMELEC.
4. In no way shall a party be given more than three seats even if if garners more than 6% of the votes cast for the party-list election
(3 seat cap rule, same case).
The Barangay Association for National Advancement and Transparency (BANAT), a party-list candidate, questioned the proclamation
as well as the formula being used. BANAT averred that the 2% threshold is invalid; Sec. 11 of RA 7941 is void because its provision
that a party-list, to qualify for a congressional seat, must garner at least 2% of the votes cast in the party-list election, is not supported
by the Constitution. Further, the 2% rule creates a mathematical impossibility to meet the 20% party-list seat prescribed by the
Constitution.
BANAT also questions if the 20% rule is a mere ceiling or is it mandatory. If it is mandatory, then with the 2% qualifying vote, there
would be instances when it would be impossible to fill the prescribed 20% share of party-lists in the lower house. BANAT also proposes
a new computation (which shall be discussed in the “HELD” portion of this digest).
On the other hand, BAYAN MUNA, another party-list candidate, questions the validity of the 3 seat rule (Section 11a of RA 7941). It
also raised the issue of whether or not major political parties are allowed to participate in the party-list elections or is the said elections
limited to sectoral parties.
ISSUES:
I. How is the 80-20 rule observed in apportioning the seats in the lower house?
II. Whether or not the 20% allocation for party-list representatives mandatory or a mere ceiling.
III. Whether or not the 2% threshold to qualify for a seat valid.
IV. How are party-list seats allocated?
V. Whether or not major political parties are allowed to participate in the party-list elections.
VI. Whether or not the 3 seat cap rule (3 Seat Limit Rule) is valid.

HELD:
I. The 80-20 rule is observed in the following manner: for every 5 seats allotted for legislative districts, there shall be one seat
allotted for a party-list representative. Originally, the 1987 Constitution provides that there shall be not more than 250 members of the
lower house. Using the 80-20 rule, 200 of that will be from legislative districts, and 50 would be from party-list representatives.
However, the Constitution also allowed Congress to fix the number of the membership of the lower house as in fact, it can create
additional legislative districts as it may deem appropriate. As can be seen in the May 2007 elections, there were 220 district
representatives, hence applying the 80-20 rule or the 5:1 ratio, there should be 55 seats allotted for party-list representatives.
How did the Supreme Court arrive at 55? This is the formula:
(Current Number of Legislative DistrictRepresentatives ÷ 0.80) x (0.20) = Number of Seats Available to Party-List Representatives
Hence,
(220 ÷ 0.80) x (0.20) = 55

II. The 20% allocation for party-list representatives is merely a ceiling – meaning, the number of party-list representatives
shall not exceed 20% of the total number of the members of the lower house. However, it is not mandatory that the 20% shall
be filled.

III. No. Section 11b of RA 7941 is unconstitutional. There is no constitutional basis to allow that only party-lists which garnered 2%
of the votes cast a requalified for a seat and those which garnered less than 2% are disqualified. Further, the 2% threshold creates
a mathematical impossibility to attain the ideal 80-20 apportionment. The Supreme Court explained:
To illustrate: There are 55 available party-list seats. Suppose there are 50 million votes cast for the 100
participants in the party list elections. A party that has two percent of the votes cast, or one million
votes, gets a guaranteed seat. Let us further assume that the first 50 parties all get one million votes.
Only 50 parties get a seat despite the availability of 55 seats. Because of the operation of the two
percent threshold, this situation will repeat itself even if we increase the available party-list seats to 60
seats and even if we increase the votes cast to 100 million. Thus, even if the maximum number of
parties get two percent of the votes for every party, it is always impossible for the number of occupied
party-list seats to exceed 50 seats as long as the two percent threshold is present.

It is therefore clear that the two percent threshold presents an unwarranted obstacle to the full implementation of Section 5(2), Article
VI of the Constitution and prevents the attainment of “the broadest possible representation of party, sectoral or group interests in the
House of Representatives.”
IV. Instead, the 2% rule should mean that if a party-list garners 2% of the votes cast, then it is guaranteed a seat, and not “qualified”.
This allows those party-lists garnering less than 2% to also get a seat.
But how? The Supreme Court laid down the following rules:
RANKING: 1. The parties, organizations, and coalitions shall be ranked from the highest to the lowest based on the number of votes
they garnered during the elections.
2% GUARANTY. 2. The parties, organizations, and coalitions receiving at least two percent (2%) of the total votes cast for the party-
list system shall be entitled to one guaranteed seat each.
ADDITIONAL SEATS 3. Those garnering sufficient number of votes, according to the ranking in paragraph 1, shall be entitled to
additional seats in proportion to their total number of votes until all the additional seats are allocated.
LIMITATION. 4. Each party, organization, or coalition shall be entitled to not more than three (3) seats.

In computing the additional seats, the guaranteed seats shall no longer be included because they have already been allocated, at one
seat each, to every two-percenter. Thus, the remaining available seats for allocation as “additional seats” are the maximum seats
reserved under the Party List System less the guaranteed seats. Fractional seats are disregarded in the absence of a provision in
R.A. No. 7941 allowing for a rounding off of fractional seats.
In short, there shall be two rounds in determining the allocation of the seats. In the first round, all party-lists which garnered at least
2% of the votes cast (called the two-percenters) are given their one seat each. The total number of seats given to these two-percenters
are then deducted from the total available seats for party-lists. In this case, 17 party-lists were able to garner 2% each. There are a
total 55 seats available for party-lists hence, 55 minus 17 = 38 remaining seats. (Please refer to the full text of the case for the
tabulation).
The number of remaining seats, in this case 38, shall be used in the second round, particularly, in determining, first, the additional
seats for the two-percenters, and second, in determining seats for the party-lists that did not garner at least 2% of the votes cast, and
in the process filling up the 20% allocation for party-list representatives.
How is this done?
Get the total percentage of votes garnered by the party and multiply it against the remaining number of seats. The product,
which shall not be rounded off, will be the additional number of seats allotted for the party list – but the 3 seat limit rule shall
still be observed.
Example:
In this case, the BUHAY party-list garnered the highest total vote of 1,169,234 which is 7.33% of the total votes cast for the party-list
elections (15,950,900).
Applying the formula above: (Percentage of vote garnered) x (remaining seats) = number of additional seat
Hence, 7.33% x 38 = 2.79
Rounding off to the next higher number is not allowed so 2.79 remains 2. BUHAY is a two-percenter which means it has a guaranteed
one seat PLUS additional 2 seats or a total of 3 seats. Now if it so happens that BUHAY got 20% of the votes cast, it will still get 3
seats because the 3 seat limit rule prohibits it from having more than 3 seats.
Now after all the tw0-percenters were given their guaranteed and additional seats, and there are still unoccupied seats, those seats
shall be distributed to the remaining party-lists and those higher in rank in the voting shall be prioritized until all the seats are occupied.

V. No. By a vote of 8-7, the Supreme Court continued to disallow major political parties (the likes of UNIDO, LABAN, etc) from
participating in the party-list elections.
Although the ponencia (Justice Carpio) did point out that there is no prohibition either from the Constitution or from RA 7941 against
major political parties from participating in the party-list elections as the word “party” was not qualified and that even the framers of
the Constitution in their deliberations deliberately allowed major political parties to participate in the party-list elections provided that
they establish a sectoral wing which represents the marginalized (indirect participation), Justice Puno, in his separate opinion,
concurred by 7 other justices, explained that the will of the people defeats the will of the framers of the Constitution precisely because
it is the people who ultimately ratified the Constitution – and the will of the people is that only the marginalized sections of the country
shall participate in the party-list elections. Hence, major political parties cannot participate in the party-list elections, directly or
indirectly.

VI. Yes, the 3 seat limit rule is valid. This is one way to ensure that no one party shall dominate the party-list system.

http://digestiodekaso.blogspot.com/2014/08/banat-vs-comelec.html
ABAKADA Guro Partylist v.
Purisima (G.R. NO. 166715)
Date: July 13, 2018Author: jaicdn1 Comment

Facts:

RA 9335 or Attrition Act of 2005 was enacted to optimize the revenue-generation

capability and collection of the BIR and the BOC. The law intends to encourage their
officials and employees to exceed their revenue targets by providing a system of
rewards and sanctions through the creation of Rewards and Incentives Fund and
Revenue Performance Evaluation Board.

The Boards in the BIR and BOC to be composed by their respective Commissioners,
DOF, DBM, and NEDA, were tasked to prescribe the rules and guidelines for the
allocation, distribution and release of the fund, to set criteria and procedures for
removing service officials and employees whose revenue collection fall short of the
target; and further, to issue rules and regulations. Also, the law tasked the DOF, DBM,
NEDA, BIR, BOC and the CSC to promulgate and issue the IRR of RA 9335, subject to
the approval of the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee created solely for the
purpose of approving the formulated IRR. Later, the JCOO having approved a
formulated IRR by the agencies, JCOO became functus officio and ceased to exist.

Petitioners, invoking their right as taxpayers, filed this petition challenging the
constitutionality of RA 9335 and sought to prevent herein respondents from
implementing and enforcing said law.

Petitioners assail, among others, the creation of a congressional oversight committee

on the ground that it violates the doctrine of separation of powers, as it permits
legislative participation in the implementation and enforcement of the law, when
legislative function should have been deemed accomplished and completed upon the
enactment of the law. Respondents, through the OSG, counter this by asserting that
the creation of the congressional oversight committee under the law enhances rather
than violates separation of powers, as it ensures the fulfillment of the legislative
policy.

Issue:

Whether the creation of the congressional oversight committee violates the doctrine
of separation of powers under the Constitution

(As for the other issue on constitutional principles of bicameralism and rule on
presentment, click this link)
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Ruling: YES.

The Joint Congressional Oversight Committee in RA 9335 having approved the IRR
formulated by the DOF, DBM, NEDA, BIR, BOC and CSC on May 22, 2006, it became
functus officio and ceased to exist. Hence, the issue of its alleged encroachment on the
executive function of implementing and enforcing the law may be considered moot and
academic.
This notwithstanding, this might be as good a time as any for the Court to
confront the issue of the constitutionality of the Joint Congressional.

Congressional oversight is not unconstitutional per se, meaning, it neither necessarily

constitutes an encroachment on the executive power to implement laws nor
undermines the constitutional separation of powers. Rather, it is integral to the
checks and balances inherent in a democratic system of government. It may in fact
even enhance the separation of powers as it prevents the over-accumulation of power
in the executive branch.
However, to forestall the danger of congressional encroachment “beyond the
legislative sphere,” the Constitution imposes two basic and related constraints on
Congress. It may not vest itself, any of its committees or its members with either
executive or judicial power. And, when it exercises its legislative power, it must follow
the “single, finely wrought and exhaustively considered, procedures” specified under
the Constitution, including the procedure for enactment of laws and presentment.
Thus, any post-enactment congressional measure such as this should be limited to
scrutiny and investigation. In particular, congressional oversight must be confined to
the following:

(1) scrutiny based primarily on Congress‘ power of appropriation and the budget
hearings conducted in connection with it, its power to ask heads of departments to
appear before and be heard by either of its Houses on any matter pertaining to their
departments and its power of confirmation and
(2) investigation and monitoring of the implementation of laws pursuant to the power
of Congress to conduct inquiries in aid of legislation.
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Any action or step beyond that will undermine the separation of powers
guaranteed by the Constitution. Legislative vetoes fall in this class.

Legislative veto is a statutory provision requiring the President or an administrative

agency to present the proposed implementing rules and regulations of a law to
Congress which, by itself or through a committee formed by it, retains a “right” or
“power” to approve or disapprove such regulations before they take effect. As such, a
legislative veto in the form of a congressional oversight committee is in the form of
an inward-turning delegation designed to attach a congressional leash (other than
through scrutiny and investigation) to an agency to which Congress has by law
initially delegated broad powers. It radically changes the design or structure of the
Constitution‘s diagram of power as it entrusts to Congress a direct role in enforcing,
applying or implementing its own laws.
Administrative regulations enacted by administrative agencies to implement and
interpret the law which they are entrusted to enforce have the force of law and are
entitled to respect. Congress, in the guise of assuming the role of an overseer, may not
pass upon their legality by subjecting them to its stamp of approval without
disturbing the calculated balance of powers established by the Constitution. In
exercising discretion to approve or disapprove the IRR based on a
determination of whether or not they conformed with the provisions of RA
9335, Congress arrogated judicial power unto itself, a power exclusively vested
in this Court by the Constitution.

From the moment the law becomes effective, any provision of law that empowers
Congress or any of its members to play any role in the implementation or enforcement
of the law violates the principle of separation of powers and is thus unconstitutional.
Under this principle, a provision that requires Congress or its members to approve
the implementing rules of a law after it has already taken effect shall be
unconstitutional, as is a provision that allows Congress or its members to overturn
any directive or ruling made by the members of the executive branch charged with
the implementation of the law.

Wherefore, the petition is hereby partially granted. Section 12 of RA 9335 creating a

Joint Congressional Oversight Committee to approve the implementing rules
and regulations of the law is declared UNCONSTITUTIONAL and therefore NULL
and VOID. The constitutionality of the remaining provisions of RA 9335 is upheld.