Miriam: People's initiative advocates will lose SC case

By JOAN DAIRO, GMANews.TV Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago said Tuesday advocates of a people's initiative to change the Constitution would lose their case in the Supreme Court, which is now conducting oral arguments on the issue. Santiago, in a statement, said: "The Supreme Court will declare unconstitutional for lack of legal basis the people's initiative for Charter change." "(The petition) was dead on arrival (at the SC). Using the words of an old decision, the people's initiative petition is a patent illegality which, when it rears its ugly head, should be slain on sight," she said. Nine years ago, Santiago challenged before the high tribunal the Charter change campaign launched by the People's Initiative for Reform, Modernization and Action (Pirma) during the term of former President Fidel Ramos. This time, Santiago cited three reasons as basis for her "shocking" prediction on the fate of the petition filed by the multi-sectoral Sigaw ng Bayan and Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP). She said the petition would be rejected by the high court because "it defies the Supreme Court ruling in the 1997 case of Defensor Santiago versus Comelec, where the Court required that there should first be a law passed by Congress providing for a people's initiative on Charter change." She said the legal principle stare decisis et non quieta movere, which means to adhere to judicial precedents or prior decided cases, bars the high court from reversing its old decision. "According to the doctrine of stare decisis, when the court has once laid down a principle of law as applicable to a certain state of facts, it will adhere to that principle and apply it to all future cases, where the facts are substantially the same, regardless of whether the parties are the same. The facts are the same: there is still no enabling law passed by Congress for a people's initiative on Charter change... the Supreme Court should not depart from precedent," she stressed. She likewise noted that the changes sought by people's initiatives proponents "constitutes an entire revision of and not a mere amendment (of the Constitution)." Groups pushing for a plebiscite to introduce changes in the Constitution want, among others, to replace the present presidential, bicameral form of government with a parliamentary, federal system. In the process, the Senate would be abolished and executive powers from a nationally elected president would be transferred to a prime minister elected by members of parliament. "These measures together constitute a revision and not a mere amendment," she said. Money matters Besides, she added, even if the high court grants the Sigaw and ULAP petitions and reverses itself, the holding of a plebiscite should be supported by a budgetary appropriation. The proposed 2007 budget for the Commission on Elections does not include an appropriation for a plebiscite. "There is no such provision, and the Senate will not approve it (if there is one)," she added. Elections Commissioner Florentino Tuason Jr told senators in a budget hearing Tuesday that the Comelec could realign the P2.5 billion appropriation for the local and national elections next year for the plebiscite but conceded this would need the approval of Congress. The SC is still holding oral arguments on the people's initiative issue as of posting time. The Senate, as an intervenor, is represented in the high court by Sen. Joker Arroyo. -GMANews.TV