Tolentino vs COMELEC

ARTURO M. TOLENTINO, petitioner,
vs.
COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS, and THE CHIEF ACCOUNTANT, THE AUDITOR, and THE DISBURSING OFFICER OF THE 1971 CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION, respondents, RAUL S. MANGLAPUS, JESUS G. BARRERA, PABLO S. TRILLANA III, VICTOR DE LA SERNA, MARCELO B. FERNAN, JOSE Y. FERIA, LEONARDO SIGUION REYNA, VICTOR F. ORTEGA, and JUAN V. BORRA, Intervenors.

GR. NO. L-34150
OCTOBER 16, 1971

FACTS:

A Constitutional Convention was called upon to propose amendments to the Constitution of the Philippines, in which, the delegates to the said Convention were all elected under and by virtue of resolutions and the implementing legislation thereof, Republic Act 6132. The Convention approved Organic Resolution No. 1, amending section one of article 5 of the Constitution of the Philippines to lower the voting age to 18. Said resolution also provided in its Section 3 that the partial amendment, which refers only to the age qualification for the exercise of suffrage shall be without prejudice to other amendments that will be proposed in the future by the 1971 Constitutional Convention on other portions of the amended Section or on other portions of the entire Constitution.

The main thrust of the petition is that Organic Resolution No. 1 and the other implementing resolutions thereof subsequently approved by the Convention have no force and effect as laws as far as they are in contravention to Section 1 Article XV of the Constitution. Under the said provision, the proposed amendment in question cannot be presented to the people for ratification separately from each and all of the other amendments to be drafted and proposed by the Convention.

ISSUE:

WON the Resolution approved by the 1971 Constitutional Convention constitutional.

HELD:

NO. Organic Resolution No. 1 of the Constitutional Convention of 1971 and the implementing acts and resolutions of the Convention, insofar as they provide for the holding of a plebiscite, as well as the resolution of the respondent COMELEC complying therewith are null and void.

The Court is of the opinion that in providing for the questioned plebiscite before it has finished, and separately from, the whole draft of the constitution it has been called to formulate, the Convention’s Organic Resolution No. 1 and all subsequent acts of the Convention implementing the same violate the condition in Section 1, Article XV that there should only be one “election” or plebiscite for the ratification of all the amendments the Convention may propose. We are not denying any right of the people to vote on the proposed amendment; We are only holding that under Section 1, Article XV of the Constitution, the same should be submitted to them not separately from but together with all the other amendments to be proposed by this present Convention.

Prescinding already from the fact that under Section 3 of the questioned resolution, it is evident that no fixed frame of reference is provided the voter, as to what finally will be concomitant qualifications that will be required by the final draft of the constitution to be formulated by the Convention of a voter to be able to enjoy the right of suffrage, there are other considerations which make it impossible to vote intelligently on the proposed amendment. No one knows what changes in the fundamental principles of the constitution the Convention will be minded to approve. To be more specific, we do not have any means of foreseeing whether the right to vote would be of any significant value at all. Who can say whether or not later on the Convention may decide to provide for varying types of voters for each level of the political units it may divide the country into. The root of the difficulty in other words, lies in that the Convention is precisely on the verge of introducing substantial changes, if not radical ones, in almost every part and aspect of the existing social and political order enshrined in the present Constitution. How can a voter in the proposed plebiscite intelligently determine the effect of the reduction of the voting age upon the different institutions, which the Convention may establish and of which presently he is not given any idea? Clearly, there is improper submission.

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