Elver P.

Lim

Subject: Constitutional Law

Title: VERA, ET AL. v AVELINO, ET AL.
Citation: 77 Phil 192
Topic: Separation of Powers

FACTS:

Pursuant to a constitutional provision (Section 4, Article X), Commission on Elections

submitted last May 1946 to the President and the Congress of the Philippines a report
regarding the national elections held the previous month. It stated that by reason of certain
specified acts of terrorism and violence in the province of Pampanga, Nueva Ecija, Bulacan
and Tarlac, the voting in said region did not reflect the true and free expression of the
popular will.

During the session, when the senate convened on May 25, 1946, a pendatum resolution
was approved referring to the report ordering that Jose O. Vera, Ramon Diokno and Jose E.
Romero – who had been included among the 16 candidates for senator receiving the
highest number of votes, proclaimed by the Commissions on Elections – shall not be sworn,
nor seated, as members of the chamber, pending the termination of the of the protest
lodged against their election.

Petitioners thus immediately instituted an action against their colleagues responsible

for the resolution, praying for an order to annul it and compelling respondents to permit
them to occupy their seats and to exercise their senatorial prerogative. They also allege that
only the Electoral Tribunal had jurisdiction over contests relating to their election, returns
and qualifications. Respondents assert the validity of the pendatum resolution.

ISSUES:

1.Whether the Commission on Elections has the jurisdiction to determine whether or not
votes cast in the said provinces are valid.

2.Whether administration of oath and the sitting of Jose O. Vera, Ramon Diokno and Jose
Romero should be deferred pending hearing and decision on the protests lodged against
their elections.

RULING:

1. Yes. "There shall be an Electoral Commission composed of three Justices of the

Supreme court designated by the Chief Justice, and of six Members chosen by the National
Assembly, three of whom shall be nominated by the party having the largest number of
Elver P. Lim

votes, and three by the party having the second largest number of votes therein. The senior
Justice in the Commission shall be its Chairman. The Electoral Commission shall be the sole
judge of the election, returns, and qualifications of the Members of the National Assembly."
Under our form of government the judicial department has no power to revise even the
most arbitrary and unfair action of the legislative department, or of either house thereof,
taken in pursuance of the power committed exclusively to that department by the
constitution. (Supra, p. 93)
No court has ever held and we apprehend no court will ever hold that it possesses the
power to direct the Chief Executive or the Legislature or a branch thereof to take any
particular action. If a court should ever be so rash as to thus trench on the domain of either
of the other departments, it will be the end of popular government as we know it in
democracies. (Supra, p. 94.)

2. No. Granting that the postponement of the administration of the oath amounts to
suspension of the petitioners from their office, and conceding arguendo that such
suspension is beyond the power of the respondents, who in effect are and acted as the
Philippine Senate (Alejandrino vs. Quezon, 46 Phil., 83, 88),this petition should be denied.
As was explained in the Alejandrino case, we could not order one branch of the Legislature
to reinstate a member thereof. To do so would be to establish judicial predominance, and to
upset the classic pattern of checks and balances wisely woven into our institutional setup.

The Supreme Court refused to intervene, under the concept of separation of powers,
holding that the case was not a “contest”, and affirmed the inherent right of the legislature
to determine who shall be admitted to its membership.
Case dismissed.