Case Digest (G.R. No. 191618)
Facts:
Atty. Romulo B. Macalintal v. Presidential Electoral Tribunal, G.R. No. 191618, November 23, 2010, the Supreme Court En Banc, Nachura, J., writing for the Court. Petitioner Atty. Romulo B. Macalintal filed an undesignated petition challenging the constitution of the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) as an unlawful and unauthorized creation under Paragraph 7, Section 4, Article VII of the 1987 Constitution. He complained that the PET, as reflected in the 2005 PET Rules, functions as a separate tribunal because it designates the Chief Justice and Associate Justices as "Chairman and Members" (Rule 3), authorizes appointment of personnel by the Chairman (Rule 8[e]), establishes an "Administrative Staff of the Tribunal" with a Clerk and Deputy Clerk (Rule 9), and adopts a seal distinct from the Supreme Court (Rule 11); petitioner acknowledged only that "additional personnel" may be appointed.The Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) filed a Comment, raising primarily the procedural question of petitioner’s locus standi and crystallizing three issues: standing; constitutionality of the PET’s creation under Article VII, Section 4(7); and whether designation of Supreme Court justices to the PET violates Article VIII, Section 12. Petitioner replied that the issues were of transcendental importance and insisted the PET was an unauthorized separate body exercising quasi‑judicial functions.
The Court summarized antecedent authorities: prior rulings such as Tecson v. Commission on Elections and Lopez v. Roxas established that the Supreme Court sitting en banc has original jurisdiction as PET and that election contests are to be adjudicated after proclamation; Buac v. COMELEC had described PET’s exercise of quasi‑judicial power in an obiter dictum. The Court also reviewed historical antecedents — R.A. No. 1793, B.P. Blg. 884, and the 1986 Constitutional Commission debates — showing the constitutionalization of a statutory PET and the framers’ intent to empower the Supreme Court to promulgate rules and to perform the electoral‑tribunal function.
The petition reached the Supreme Court by an undesignated petition challenging constitutionalit...(Subscriber-Only)
Issues:
- Does petitioner have locus standi to maintain this petition?
- Is the creation and constitution of the Presidential Electoral Tribunal unconstitutional as violating Paragraph 7, Section 4, Article VII of the 1987 Constitution?
- Does the designation of Members of the Supreme Court as members of the PET violate Section 12, Article VIII of the 1987 Constitution by assigning them to an agency performing quasi‑j...(Subscriber-Only)
Ruling:
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Ratio:
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Doctrine:
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