KABATAAN PARTY-LIST, REPRESENTED BY REPRESENTATIVE JAMES MARK TERRY L. RIDON AND MARJOHARA S. TUCAY; SARAH JANE I. ELAGO, PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL UNION OF STUDENTS OF THE PHIL…

Kabataan Party-List versus Commission on Elections

The Case

This is a constitutional challenge brought directly before the Supreme Court by Kabataan Party-List and several youth, student, and sectoral organizations against the Commission on Elections. The petitioners assail the constitutionality of Republic Act Number 10367, the law providing for mandatory biometrics voter registration, together with the COMELEC resolutions implementing it. They argue that requiring registered voters to submit for biometrics validation, on pain of deactivation, amounts to an additional substantive requirement on the right of suffrage and deprives voters of due process. The case matters because it fixes the constitutional boundary between a qualification, which the State may not add, and a mere procedural regulation of registration, which the State may impose.

Procedural History

This was an original action in the Supreme Court, a petition for certiorari and prohibition with a prayer for a temporary restraining order and a writ of preliminary mandatory injunction. There were no lower court proceedings, no trial court ruling, and no appeal from the Court of Appeals. The petitioners went straight to the Supreme Court to challenge the statute and the COMELEC resolutions. On the first of December 2015, the Court required the COMELEC to comment and issued a temporary restraining order directing the COMELEC to desist from deactivating the registration records of voters without biometric information. The COMELEC, through its Chairman, urgently asked that the order be lifted because it would affect the timelines for the 2016 elections. After the COMELEC filed its comment and the petitioners filed a manifestation, the case was submitted for resolution.

Facts

On the fifteenth of February 2013, the President signed into law Republic Act Number 10367, which mandates the COMELEC to implement a mandatory biometrics registration system for new voters, in order to establish a clean, complete, permanent, and updated list of voters through biometric technology. The law was published on the twenty-second of February 2013 and took effect fifteen days later. It directs that registered voters whose biometrics have not been captured shall submit themselves for validation, and that voters who fail to submit for validation on or before the last day of filing of applications for registration for the May 2016 elections shall be deactivated. Voters may nonetheless have their records reactivated after the May 2016 elections by complying with the procedure in the Voter's Registration Act of 1996.

The COMELEC issued Resolution Number 9721 on the twenty-sixth of June 2013, prescribing the procedure for validation, deactivation, and reactivation. It provided that deactivated voters shall not be allowed to vote, and it noted that as of the last day of registration and validation for the 2013 elections, a total of 9,018,256 registered voters were without biometrics data. The COMELEC then commenced the mandatory biometric system on the first of July 2013 and set up satellite registration offices in barangays and malls. Later resolutions moved the validation deadline to the thirty-first of October 2015, set the deactivation hearings for the sixteenth of November 2015, and laid down the posting of lists and the service of individual notices on affected voters. The COMELEC also launched a public information campaign called No Bio, No Boto.

On the twenty-fifth of November 2015, the petitioners filed this petition, contending that biometrics validation is an additional substantial qualification, that deactivation is not the disqualification by law contemplated by the Constitution, that the measure fails strict scrutiny, and that the voters to be deactivated are denied due process. They prayed that the law and the resolutions be declared unconstitutional, that the COMELEC be commanded to desist from deactivating voters, and that the registration period be extended until the eighth of January 2016.

Issues

• Whether or not the procedural objections of the COMELEC, namely the failure to implead indispensable parties, the lack of legal standing, and the wrong choice of remedy, should bar the petition.
• Whether or not the biometrics validation requirement under Republic Act Number 10367 and the assailed COMELEC resolutions, with its penalty of deactivation, amounts to an additional substantive requirement on the exercise of suffrage prohibited by the Constitution.
• Whether or not deactivation for failure to validate is the disqualification by law contemplated by the Constitution.
• Whether or not the voters subject to deactivation are denied due process.

Applicable Provisions

Section 1, Article V of the 1987 Constitution provides:

Section 1. Suffrage may be exercised by all citizens of the Philippines not otherwise disqualified by law, who are at least eighteen years of age, and who shall have resided in the Philippines for at least one year and in the place wherein they propose to vote for at least six months immediately preceding the election. No literacy, property, or other substantive requirement shall be imposed on the exercise of suffrage.

This is the yardstick of the case, because the Court must decide whether biometrics validation is a prohibited substantive requirement or a permissible procedural regulation.

Section 118 of Batas Pambansa Bilang 881, the Omnibus Election Code, provides:

Section 118. Disqualifications. - The following shall be disqualified from voting: (a) Any person who has been sentenced by final judgment to suffer imprisonment for not less than one year, such disability not having been removed by plenary pardon or granted amnesty: Provided, however, That any person disqualified to vote under this paragraph shall automatically reacquire the right to vote upon expiration of five years after service of sentence. (b) Any person who has been adjudged by final judgment by competent court or tribunal of having committed any crime involving disloyalty to the duly constituted government such as rebellion, sedition, violation of the anti-subversion and firearms laws, or any crime against national security, unless restored to his full civil and political rights in accordance with law: Provided, That he shall regain his right to vote automatically upon expiration of five years after service of sentence. (c) Insane or incompetent persons as declared by competent authority.

This shows the kind of statutory disqualification the Constitution allows, which the petitioners wrongly equate with deactivation for failure to validate.

Section 115 of the Omnibus Election Code provides:

Section 115. Necessity of Registration. - In order that a qualified elector may vote in any election, plebiscite or referendum, he must be registered in the permanent list of voters for the city or municipality in which he resides.

This establishes that registration is a mandatory procedural step, distinct from the qualifications of a voter.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court brushed aside the procedural barriers. It held that the petition raises an important constitutional issue on the right of suffrage, a matter of transcendental public importance and compelling significance, and that technicalities should not be allowed to stand in the way if the ends of justice would not be subserved by a rigid adherence to the rules. It also stressed that the controversy demanded immediate adjudication so as not to stymy the operations of a co-constitutional body.

On the second issue, the Court held that the petition is bereft of merit. The right to vote is not a natural right but a right created by law, a privilege granted by the State to such persons or classes as are most likely to exercise it for the public good. The State may regulate suffrage by imposing statutory disqualifications, subject only to the restriction that these do not amount to a literacy, property, or other substantive requirement. The Court traced the history from the first Philippine Election Law, which imposed class and property qualifications, through the 1935 Constitution, to the 1971 Constitutional Convention, where the delegates eliminated the literacy and property requirements to broaden the electoral base and discontinue the exclusion of millions of citizens from the political system. Crucially, the deliberations clarified that the phrase other substantive requirement was used as distinguished from procedural requirements, and that the law may step in as far as procedural requirements are concerned, like requiring registration.

The Court then drew the decisive distinction. A qualification is the possession of qualities inherently or legally necessary to make one eligible, while registration is jurisprudentially regarded as only the means by which a person's qualifications to vote is determined. Citing Yra versus Abaño, the Court held:

Registration regulates the exercise of the right of suffrage. It is not a qualification for such right.

Biometrics validation is part of the registration process, a procedural requirement, and not a substantive qualification. Hence, it does not fall under the constitutional prohibition.

On the third issue, the Court held that deactivation for failure to validate is not the disqualification by law contemplated by the Constitution. The disqualifications contemplated are those in Section 118 of the Omnibus Election Code, such as final conviction for a crime punishable by imprisonment of not less than one year, disloyalty to the government, or insanity. Deactivation merely removes from the list those who failed to complete the registration procedure, and they may be reactivated under the Voter's Registration Act.

On the fourth issue, the Court found no denial of due process, since the resolutions required posting of lists, notice and hearing before the Election Registration Board, and service of individual notices on the deactivated voters.

Doctrine

The right of suffrage is not a natural right but a right created by law, and the State may regulate it by imposing statutory disqualifications, provided these do not amount to a literacy, property, or other substantive requirement under Section 1, Article V of the 1987 Constitution. The phrase other substantive requirement refers to standards based on socio-economic considerations irrelevant to suffrage, and it does not restrict procedural requirements such as registration. Registration regulates the exercise of the right of suffrage; it is not a qualification for that right. Biometrics validation is a procedural component of registration, so its imposition, even with the consequence of deactivation, does not violate the constitutional prohibition. Deactivation for failure to validate is not a disqualification by law, which is confined to the grounds in Section 118 of the Omnibus Election Code.

Disposition

The petition was dismissed for lack of merit, and the constitutionality of Republic Act Number 10367 and the assailed COMELEC resolutions was upheld.

Remember This

Memorize the line: registration regulates the exercise of the right of suffrage, it is not a qualification for such right. Examiners use this case to test whether a candidate can distinguish a prohibited substantive requirement from a permissible procedural regulation, and to test the extent of the State's power to regulate suffrage.