Fannie M.

Nagallo

Macalintal v. PET, GR No. 191618, Nov. 23, 2010

Facts:

Atty. Romulo B. Macalintal (Atty. Macalintal) questions the constitution of the Presidential Electoral
Tribunal (PET) as an illegal and unauthorized progeny of Section 4, Article VII of the Constitution:
“The Supreme Court, sitting en banc, shall be the sole judge of all contests relating to the election,
returns, and qualifications of the President or Vice-President, and may promulgate its rules for the
purpose.”
He reiterates that the constitution of the PET, with the designation of the Members of the Court as
Chairman and Members thereof, contravenes Section 12, Article VIII of the Constitution, which prohibits
the designation of Members of the Supreme Court and of other courts established by law to any agency
performing quasi-judicial or administrative functions.
Atty. Macalintal argues that, (1) the Chief Justice and Associate Justices are referred to as
“Chairman” and “Members,” respectively; (2) the PET uses a different seal; (3) the Chairman is
authorized to appoint personnel; and (4) additional compensation is allocated to the “Members,” in
order to bolster his claim of infirmity in the establishment of the PET, are too superficial to merit further
attention by the Court.

Issue 1:

Whether the creation of the PET is unconstitutional for being a violation of paragraph 7,
section 4 of Article VII of the Constitution?

Held:

No. A plain reading of Article VII, Section 4, paragraph 7, readily reveals a grant of authority to the
Supreme Court sitting en  banc. In the same vein, although the method by which the Supreme Court
exercises this authority is not specified in the provision, the grant of power does not contain any
limitation on the Supreme Court’s exercise thereof. The Supreme Court’s method of deciding
presidential and vice-presidential election contests, through the PET, is actually a derivative of the
exercise of the prerogative conferred by the aforequoted constitutional provision. Thus, the subsequent
directive in the provision for the Supreme Court to “promulgate its rules for thep urpose.”
The conferment of full authority to the Supreme Court, as a PET, is equivalent to the full authority
conferred upon the electoral tribunals of the Senate and the House of Representatives,  i.e., the Senate
Electoral Tribunal (SET) and the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET), which we have
affirmed on numerous occasions.
Particularly cogent are the discussions of the Constitutional Commission on the parallel provisions of
the SET and the HRET. The discussions point to the inevitable conclusion that the different electoral
tribunals, with the Supreme Court functioning as the PET, are constitutional bodies,  independent of the
three departments of government—Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary—but not separate therefrom.
Fannie M. Nagallo

Issue 2:

Held:
No. The structure of the PET as a legitimate progeny of Section 4, Article VII of the Constitution,
composed of members of the Supreme Court, sitting en banc.
By the same token, the PET is not a separate and distinct entity from the Supreme Court, albeit it
has functions peculiar only to the Tribunal. It is obvious that the PET was constituted in implementation
of Section 4, Article VII of the Constitution, and it faithfully complies—not unlawfully defies—the
constitutional directive. The adoption of a separate seal, as well as the change in the nomenclature of
the Chief Justice and the Associate Justices into Chairman and Members of the Tribunal, respectively,
was designed simply to highlight the singularity and exclusivity of the Tribunal’s functions as a special
electoral court.