Case Digest (G.R. No. 114783)
Facts:
Robert V. Tobias, Ramon M. Guzman, Terry T. Lim, Gregorio D. Gabriel, and Roberto R. Tobias, Jr. v. Hon. City Mayor Benjamin S. Abalos, City Treasurer William Marcelino, and the Sangguniang Panlungsod of the City of Mandaluyong, G.R. No. 114783, December 08, 1994, Supreme Court En Banc, Bidin, J., writing for the Court.Petitioners, who describe themselves as taxpayers and residents of Mandaluyong, assailed the constitutionality of Republic Act No. 7675 ("An Act Converting the Municipality of Mandaluyong into a Highly Urbanized City to be Known as the City of Mandaluyong"). The bill that became R.A. No. 7675 was sponsored in Congress by then-Representative Ronaldo Zamora and was signed into law by President Ramos on February 9, 1994.
Pursuant to the Local Government Code of 1991, a plebiscite was conducted on April 10, 1994 to ratify the conversion. Voter turnout was 14.41% of the voting population; 18,621 voted "yes" and 7,911 voted "no." Based on those results, R.A. No. 7675 was declared ratified and took effect.
Petitioners specifically challenged Article VIII, Section 49 of R.A. No. 7675, which provided that the newly created City of Mandaluyong "shall have its own legislative district" and directed that the remainder of the former San Juan/Mandaluyong district become the new legislative district of San Juan. They advanced three constitutional objections: (1) that Section 49 violated the "one subject–one bill" requirement of Article VI, Section 26(1) of the Constitution by embracing an unrelated subject (division of a congressional district) apart from city conversion; (2) that the division contravened Article VI, Sections 5(1) and (4) — namely, by increasing the House of Representatives beyond its constitutional limit without census-based reapportionment; and (3) that the statute preempted Congress' exclusive power to reapportion legislative districts and that the plebiscite wrongly excluded San Juan voters and effectuated...(Pro-only)
Issues:
- Does Article VIII, Section 49 of R.A. No. 7675 violate the one subject–one bill rule under Article VI, Section 26(1) of the Constitution?
- Does Section 49 violate Article VI, Sections 5(1) and (4) of the Constitution by effectively increasing the House membership without census-based reapportionment and by preempting Congress' reapportionment power?
- Were the inhabitants of San Juan improperly excluded from the plebiscite on R.A. No. 7675, and does Section 49 ...(Pro-only)
Ruling:
- (Pro-only)
Ratio:
- (Pro-only)
Doctrine:
- (Pro-only)