Prepared by: Nicola Jane Alex

1 BGC Eve

Ang Bagong Bayani vs COMELEC

FACTS:

COMELEC promulgated the Omnibus Resolution No 3785 which essentially allows 154 parties and
organizations to participate in the party-list system elections. These parties and organizations include
those that are not representative of the marginalized and underrepresented.

Akbayan Citizens Action Party on April 10,2001 and Bayan Muna and Bayan Muna-Youth on April
11,2001 filed before the COMELEC separate petitions for cancellation of registration and nomination
against some of the respondents. During the hearing however, COMELEC merely directed the parties to
submit their respective memoranda.

Dissatisfied with the pace of the COMELEC, Ang Bagong Bayani-OFW Labor Party and Bayan Muna filed
petitions before the Supreme Court, under the Rule 65 of the Rules of Court, challenging Omnibus
Resolution No. 3785 issued by COMELEC. SC ordered the consolidation of the two (2) petitions and
added that COMELEC may proceed with the counting and canvassing of votes cast for the party list
elections, but barred the proclamation of any winner, until further orders of the Court.

ISSUES:

W/N recourse under Rule 65 is proper under the premises. More specifically, is there no other sppedy or
adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law?

W/N the COMELEC committed grave abuse of discretion in promulgating Omnibus Resolution No. 3785

HELD:

1. YES. Recourse under Rule 65 is proper. Omnibus Resolution 3785 was issued with grave abuse of
discretion insofar as it allowed respondents to participate in the party-list elections of 2001.
Under both the Constitution and the Rules of Court, such challenge may be brought before the
SC in a verified petition for certiorari under Rule 65. Moreover, the assailed resolution was
promulgated by COMELEC en banc; hence, no motion for reconsideration was possible.

COMELEC did not act on the petition filed before them. There was no other adequate recourse
at the time. This case presents an exception to the rule that certiorari shall lie only in the
absence of any other plain, speedy adequate remedy. Certiorari is available, notwithstanding
the presence of other remedies “where the issue raised is one purely of law, where the public
interest is involved and in the case of urgency”

2. YES. When a quasi-judicial agency like the COMELEC violates or ignores the Constitution or the
law, its action can be struck down by the SC on the ground of grave abuse of discretion. The
 function of all judicial and quasi-judicial instrumentalities is to apply the law as they find it, not
to reinvent or second-guess it.

FALLO

WHEREFORE, the case is remanded to the COMELEC, which is hereby directed to immediately conduct
summary evidentiary hearings on the qualifications of the party-list participants in the light of the
guidelines enunciated in this Decision.

Other issues not related to hierarchy of laws and courts:

W/N political parties may participate in the party-list elections – YES

W/N the party-list system is exclusive ton “marginalized and underrepresented” sectors and
organizations - YES