Postponement of ARMM polls faces opposition at SC

Two petitions have been filed with the Supreme Court challenging the proposal to postpone the elections in Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) this August and synchronize it with the national elections in 2013. In the first petition, lawyer Alex Macalawi and a certain Abdul Jabbar Awat were asking the tribunal to prevent the passage or enactment into law of House Bill No. 4146, which seeks to postpone the ARMM elections and considered a priority legislation of the Aquino administration. Macalawi was a former president of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines-Marawi (IBP-Marawi) while Awat was president of a group called ABC. They were also asking the court to render House Bill No. 4146 "invalid, null and void for enactment as it is contrary to the 1987 Constitution and the Organic Act (for ARMM)." The two argued that the proposed measure would be violative of the Constitution because it would allow President Benigno Aquino III to appoint interim ARMM officials who would govern the region until the conduct of the elections in 2013. Macalawi and Awat said that under the Charter, ARMM officials should be elected, not appointed. "House Bill No. 4146 would be violative of the mandate of the Constitution by providing for the appointment of ARMM officials by the president," they said. They added that deferring the polls would hold as hostage the ongoing peace talks between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). Other petition: Polls should be held in Sept. 2011 The other pleading was filed by a group led by Datu Michael Abas Kida, representing the Maguindanao Federation of Autonomous Irrigators Inc. They said the ARMM elections should not be conducted on August 8 this year or even in August 2013, but on September 2011, citing the Organic Act of ARMM. They said holding the elections in August 2011 or August 2013 will be "violative of the Organic Act of the ARMM, which reset the elections in the ARMM to the second Monday of September." "It also violates the principles of a democratic and republican state mandated by the Constitution, and the right of Muslims in the region to local autonomy," they added. They then asked the Supreme Court to nullify the following: