House asks SC to junk plea vs postponement of ARMM polls

The House of Representatives has asked the Supreme Court to dismiss a Mindanao-based group's petition that is seeking to thwart the plan to defer the August 2011 Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) elections to 2013. In a 25-page comment, the House's Legal Affairs Department said the petition filed by a group led by Datu Michael Abas Kida of the Maguindanao Federation of Autonomous Irrigators Inc. should be junked for lack of merit. The petitioners had asked the Supreme Court to nullify Republic Act No. 9333, an existing law which set the ARMM polls to Aug. 8, 2011; and Senate Bill 2756 and House Bill 4146, which seek to synchronize the ARMM polls with the mid-term elections in May 2013. The House has approved HB 4146 last March 22 while the counterpart bill in the Senate remains pending. The petitioners said the ARMM elections should not be held in August this year or even in May 2013, but on the second Monday of September 2011, pursuant to Republic Act No. 9054 or the Organic Act of ARMM. But in its comment, the House said it was "premature" for the petitioners to challenge HB 4146 because it has not yet been enacted into law. "Whatever issues or arguments that petitioners may put forward against House Bill No. 4146 at this time would therefore remain hypothetical. And any constitutional challenge that petitioners may hurl against House Bill No. 4146 before it becomes a law therefore must fail for being premature," the House said. They likewise questioned the timing of the petition, considering that two ARMM elections — both held in the second Monday of August in 2005 and 2008 — have been conducted since RA 9333 was signed into law in 2004. "In their haste, petitioners failed to consider the fact that they have complacently allowed almost seven years to lapse before contesting the validity of Republic Act No. 9333," the House said. It added that the petition "must not be allowed to proposer as it seeks to diminish the legislative power lodged in the Congress by the Constitution of the Philippines." Senate makes same request Last month, the Senate asked the Supreme Court to junk the petition of Kida's group for being premature. The Senate said the matter is not yet ripe for judicial determination because HB 4146 has not yet been signed into law and SB 2756 has not even been approved yet by the Senate. "One thing is clear, however, before HB No. 4146 becomes a law through the legislative process as laid down in the Constitution and under the Rules of both House of Representatives and respondent Senate, it cannot be the basis for the postponement of ARMM Elections to 2013. At this point in time, therefore, the issue on the legality of HB No. 4146 is not a justiciable controversy because HB 4146 is not yet a law. Nor is the issue on HB No. 4146 ripe for judicial determination," the Senate said. The Senate also contended that the Organic Act's provision for the holding the elections on the first Monday of September only applies to the ARMM polls in 2001. "The Expanded Organic Act clearly did not specify when the subsequent elections for ARMM officials, i.e. after 2001, should take place. Said provision of the law did not specifically state that elections of ARMM officials should be held every three years thereafter on the second Monday of September," the Senate said SC junks other petition The petition filed by Kida''s group is one of the two pending pleas challenging the plan to move the ARMM polls to 2013. A third petition, filed by Alex Macalawi and Abdul Jabbar Awat, was junked by the high court Tuesday last week for being premature. Macalawi and Awata have argued that the House bill is "invalid, null and void for enactment as it is contrary to the 1987 Constitution and the Organic Act (for ARMM)." They said the proposed measure would be violative of the 1987 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 also 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. — RSJ, GMA News