Navarro vs. Ermita

G.R. No. 180050
Dinagat Islands' creation via RA 9355 ruled unconstitutional for failing population and land area requirements; IRR exemption invalidated.
unconstitutional population requirement land area requirement

Case Summary (G.R. No. 180050)

Factual Background

The Dinagat Islands consist of the municipalities of Basilisa, Cagdianao, Dinagat, Libjo, Loreto, San Jose and Tubajon and an aggregate land area stated in R.A. No. 9355 as approximately 802.12 square kilometers. Congress passed the house bill creating the Province of Dinagat Islands and the President signed it into law as R.A. No. 9355 on October 2, 2006. The plebiscite held on December 3, 2006 produced 69,943 affirmative votes and 63,502 negative votes. The Provincial Board of Canvassers proclaimed the result, the President appointed provincial officers who took oath on January 26, 2007, and the constituents elected provincial officers in the May 14, 2007 synchronized elections. The official NSO population for Dinagat Islands per the 2000 Census was 106,951. A special provincial census in 2003 reportedly yielded 371,576 inhabitants but lacked NSO certification. The NSO 2007 Census certified a population of 120,813 for Dinagat Islands.

Procedural History

Petitioners initially challenged the creation of the province in an earlier petition dismissed on technical grounds in G.R. No. 175158. They then filed the present petition for certiorari and prohibition, which culminated in the Court’s February 10, 2010 decision declaring R.A. No. 9355 unconstitutional and void, annulling the proclamation of the Province of Dinagat Islands and the election and appointment of its officials, and declaring Article 9(2) of the IRR null and void. The Office of the Solicitor General filed a Motion for Reconsideration on behalf of the public respondents. Governor Geraldine Ecleo Villaroman filed a separate Motion for Reconsideration. The Court, sitting En Banc, denied both motions by resolution dated May 12, 2010. The majority opinion was announced by the Court and was joined by Chief Justice Puno and Justices Carpio, Carpio Morales, Brion, Mariano C. Del Castillo, Villarama, Jr., and Mendoza. A dissenting opinion by Justice Perez was joined by Justices Corona, Velasco, Jr., Nachura, Leonardo-De Castro, Bersamin, and Abad.

Issues Presented

The principal issues were whether R.A. No. 9355 complied with the requisites for creation of a province under Section 461 of the Local Government Code—specifically the mandatory income requirement and either the territorial requirement of a contiguous territory of at least 2,000 square kilometers or the population requirement of at least 250,000 inhabitants as certified by the NSO—and whether Article 9(2) of the IRR, which stated that the land area requirement shall not apply where the proposed province is composed of one or more islands, legitimately interpreted or unlawfully expanded the statutory criteria. Ancillary issues included whether the presumption of constitutionality and the operative fact doctrine required sustaining the law and the existence of the proclaimed province despite noncompliance.

Parties’ Contentions

The Office of the Solicitor General and Governor Villaroman advanced substantially similar grounds in their motions. They argued that (i) the creation of the Province of Dinagat Islands complied with the Constitution and the Local Government Code and that Article 9 of the IRR is interpretative of Section 461; (ii) the creation of local government units is a legislative prerogative and the acts of the Legislature and Executive in enacting R.A. No. 9355 enjoy the presumption of validity; and (iii) prevailing jurisprudence and the operative fact doctrine counsel in favor of upholding the law because the province had already come into being and its officials had been elected and were performing functions. Respondents relied on the provincial special census of 2003 to assert that the population criterion was met and invoked Article 9(2) of the IRR to claim exemption from the land area requirement. Petitioners countered that the NSO did not certify the 2003 special census, that the official NSO counts (2000 and 2007) showed populations well below 250,000, and that the statutory land area requirement of 2,000 square kilometers was not met because the province’s land area as stated in R.A. No. 9355 is approximately 802.12 square kilometers.

Ruling

The Court denied the Motions for Reconsideration for lack of merit. It reaffirmed the February 10, 2010 decision that R.A. No. 9355 is unconstitutional for failure to comply with the requisites for provincial creation under Section 461 of the Local Government Code. The Court declared the proclamation of the Province of Dinagat Islands and the appointment and election of its officials null and void. The Court also declared null and void the provision in Article 9(2) of the IRR providing that the land area requirement shall not apply where the proposed province is composed of one or more islands.

Legal Basis and Reasoning

The Court first reiterated that the Constitution, in Art. X, Sec. 10, 1987 Constitution, mandates that the creation of a province must be in accordance with the criteria established in the Local Government Code and subject to plebiscitary approval. The Court examined Section 7 and Section 461 of the Local Government Code and concluded that land area requirements comprise two distinct elements: contiguity and sufficiency to provide basic services, with the sufficiency benchmark for a province set at a contiguous territory of at least 2,000 square kilometers in Section 461(a)(i). Paragraph (b) of Section 461 provides an exemption only to the requirement of territorial contiguity where the territory comprises two or more islands or is separated by a chartered city or cities which do not contribute to the income of the province. The Court held that paragraph (b) does not dispense with the separate land area requirement of at least 2,000 square kilometers. The Court therefore struck down Article 9(2) of the IRR insofar as it purported to eliminate the land area requirement for island provinces, reasoning that implementing rules cannot go beyond the terms of the enabling statute. The Court emphasized that where statutory language is clear and categorical, the judiciary may not read into the law exceptions or qualifications not provided by the Legislature. On the factual showing, the Court found that R.A. No. 9355 did not satisfy either the population criterion or the land area criterion as required by Section 461. The NSO-certified population figures showed 106,951 in 2000 and 120,813 in 2007, both short of the 250,000-inhabitant requirement. The purported 2003 special census that yielded 371,576 inhabitants lacked NSO certification and therefore could not satisfy the statutory requirement that population be certified by the NSO. The law’s declared land area of approximately 802.12 square kilometers plainly fell short of the 2,000-square-kilometer threshold. The Court rejected the argument that deference to the legislative and executive acts or the operative fact doctrine required validating the law. It cited authority that although statutes are presumptively valid, the judiciary must exercise its duty to declare unconstitutional acts of the political branches that contravene the Constitution. The Court distinguished League of Cities of the Philippines v. COMELEC and other precedents relied upon by movants, explaining that those cases concerned different factual and legal circumstances and did not compel validation where there was an utter failure to meet statutory requisites.

Dissenting Opinion

Justice Perez, joined by Justices Corona, Velasco, Jr., Nachura, Leonardo-De Castro, Bersamin, and Abad, dissented from the denial of the motions for reconsideration. The dissent emphasized the strong presumption of constitutionality of statutes and urged that the groun

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