Plebiscite not required in legislative apportionment or reapportionment

Former CDO Congressman Jaraula filed and sponsored House Bill No. 5859. The bill eventually became R.A. No. 9371. It increased CDO’s legislative district from one to two. Rogelio Bagabuyo now seeks to nullify R.A. No. 9371 on constitutional grounds. He argued that the plebiscite requirement under Section 10, Article X of the 1987 Constitution when there is a creation, division, merger, abolition or substantial alteration of boundaries of a province, city, municipality, or barangay was not complied. Does R.A. No. 9371 involve the division and conversion of a local government unit? Is a plebiscite necessary?

SUGGESTED ANSWER:

No. The SC ruled that Article X, Section 10 of the Constitution does not come into play and no plebiscite is necessary to validly apportion Cagayan de Oro City into two districts. R.A. No. 9371 is, on its face, purely and simply a reapportionment legislation passed in accordance with the authority granted to Congress under Article VI, Section 5(4) of the Constitution.

“To illustrate this effect, before the reapportionment, Cagayan de Oro had only one congressman and 12 city council members citywide for its population of approximately 500,000. By having two legislative districts, each of them with one congressman, Cagayan de Oro now effectively has two congressmen, each one representing 250,000 of the city’s population. In terms of services for city residents, this easily means better access to their congressman since each one now services only 250,000 constituents as against the 500,000 he used to represent.”

What is the difference between “legislative apportionment” and “reapportionment”?

SUGGESTED ANSWER:

Legislative apportionment is defined by Black’s Law Dictionary as the determination of the number of representatives which a State, county or other subdivision may send to a legislative body. It is the allocation of seats in a legislative body in proportion to the population; the drawing of voting district lines so as to equalize population and voting power among the districts.

Reapportionment, on the other hand, is the realignment or change in legislative districts brought about by changes in population and mandated by the constitutional requirement of equality of representation.

no plebiscite requirement exists under the apportionment or reapportionment provision (Article 6 (5))

What are the distinctions between a legislative apportionment or reapportionment and the division of a local government unit?

SUGGESTED ANSWER:

In contrast with the equal representation objective of Article VI, Section 5, Article X, Section 10 expressly speaks of how local government units may be “created, divided, merged, abolished, or its boundary substantially altered.” Its concern is the commencement, the termination, and the modification of local government units’ corporate existence and territorial coverage; and it speaks of two specific standards that must be observed in implementing this concern, namely, the criteria established in the local government code and the approval by a majority of the votes cast in a plebiscite in the political units directly affected. Under the Local Government Code (R.A. No. 7160) passed in 1991, the criteria of income, population and land area are specified as verifiable indicators of viability and capacity to provide services. The division or merger of existing units must comply with the same requirements (since a new local government unit will come into being), provided that a division shall not reduce the income, population, or land area of the unit affected to less than the minimum requirement prescribed in the Code.

A pronounced distinction between Article VI, Section 5 and, Article X, Section 10 is on the requirement of a plebiscite. The Constitution and the Local Government Code expressly require a plebiscite to carry out any creation, division, merger, abolition or alteration of boundary of a local government unit. In contrast, no plebiscite requirement exists under the apportionment or reapportionment provision. (Bagabuyo vs. COMELEC, G.R. No. 176970, December 8, 2008)