Tolentino vs.

COMELEC Doctrine: The Constitutional Convention of 1971 is subject to the condition and limitation that all amendments to be proposed by the same must be submitted to the people in a single election or plebiscite. Keywords: Constitutional Convention, constitutional amendments, plebiscite Date: 1971 Ponente: Justice Barredo Short version Petition is for prohibition to restrain respondent COMELEC from holding a plebiscite for the ratification of a proposed amendment in the Constitution. Petitioner prays that the resolutions of the Constitutional Convention and the acts of Comelec in obedience to such resolutions be declared null and void. The Court voted to grant the petition.

Facts The 1971 Constitutional Convention was convened through two resolutions (Resolutions 2 and 4) of Congress in its capacity as a constituent assembly to propose amendments to the Constitution. The proposed amendment in the present case is the lowering of the voting age to 18. Petitioner submits that the said resolutions contravene the Constitution on two points: 1) only Congress as a legislative body has the power to call and hold a plebiscite so that it may not be exercised by the Convention, and 2) that the proposed amendments should all be presented to the people for ratification. Respondents posit that the power to provide for, fix the date and lay down the details of the plebiscite is within the authority of the Convention, and that the Convention has the discretion whether to submit the amendments individually or jointly. Intervenors contend that the issue is one of a political question over which the Court cannot rule.

Issues 1. Does the Court have jurisdiction over the present issue? 2. Is it within the power of the Convention to call and hold a plebiscite for the ratification of proposed amendments to the Constitution? 3. Does the Constitution allow the submission to the people of piecemeal proposed amendments?

Ratio 1. Yes. In Angara vs. Electoral Commission, it has been held that the judicial department has the power to determine the proper allocation of powers between the several departments of government and among the integral or constituent units thereof. In considering the present issue justiciable, the Court does not undermine the authority of the Convention. It is simply because both the Court and the Convention are subject to the Constitution and the rule of law, and the Constitution provides that it is the duty of the Court to resolve conflicting claims of authority and to establish for the parties in an actual controversy the rights which the Constitution secures and guarantees to them. 2. Ambiguous. The Court considers it to be of the utmost importance that the Convention should be untrammeled and unrestrained in the performance of its constitutionally assigned mission in the manner and form it may conceive best, and so the Court may step in to clear up doubts as to the boundaries set down by the Constitution only when and to the specific extent only that it would be necessary to do so to avoid a constitutional crises or a clearly demonstrable violation of the existing Charter. The Court refrained from making any pronouncement or expression of views because it is divided in itself, and that it found itself short of time to study and deliberate the case. 3. No. The Court holds that all the amendments to be proposed by the same Convention must be submitted to the people in a single election or plebiscite. Article XV, Section 1 provides that such amendments shall be valid as part of this Constitution when approved by a majority of the votes cast at an election at which the amendments are submitted to the people for their ratification. Any amendment of the Constitution is as important as the whole of it, if only because the Constitution has to be an integrated and harmonious instrument. Once the original constitution is approved, the part that the people play in its amendment becomes harder, for when a whole constitution is submitted to them, more or less they can assume its harmony as an integrated whole, and they can either accept or reject it in its entirety. Submitting to them only the proposed amendment deprives the voter of a fixed frame of reference as to what will be the final draft, so that they cannot decide intelligently whether to accept or reject it.

Justice Makalintal Vote reserved: entertains grave doubts as to the validity of the premises postulated and conclusions reached in support of the dispositive portion.

Justices Reyes, Zaldivar, Castro, Makasiar Concurring: there can be no proper submission of the proposed amendment and that the holding of the plebiscite on the same day as national and local elections is not proper. For there to be proper submission, 1) the people should be afforded ample opportunity to mull over the original provisions, compare them with the proposed amendments, and try to reach an

independent conclusion, and 2) the government should strain every effort to inform citizens of the provisions to be amendment and the meaning, nature and effects thereof. Concentration of the peoples attention is diverted by other issues, such as the choice of local and national officials.

Justice Fernando Concurring and dissenting: concurs that the Court, Congress and the Convention all bow to the supremacy of the Constitution; dissents on the nullification of the action of the Convention. The Constitution uses the word election in the singular, but that is not decisive. The words used in the Constitution are not inert; they derive vitality from the obvious purposes at which they are aimed.