G.R. No.

174153 October 25, 2006

G.R. No. 174299 October 25, 2006

Facts:

In G.R. No. 174153, the Lambino Group prays for the issuance of the writs of certiorari and
mandamus to set aside the COMELEC Resolution of 31 August 2006 and to compel the
COMELEC to give due course to their initiative petition.

In G.R. No. 174299, petitioners ("Binay Group") pray that the Court require respondent
COMELEC Commissioners to show cause why they should not be cited in contempt for the
COMELEC's verification of signatures.

Petitioners Lambino Group, with other groups and individuals, commenced gathering signatures
for an initiative petition to change the 1987 Constitution. They filed a petition with the COMELEC
to hold a plebiscite that will ratify their initiative petition under Section 5(b) and (c) and Section 7
of Republic Act No. 6735 or the Initiative and Referendum ("RA 6735"). The Lambino Group
alleged that their petition had the support of 6,327,952 individuals constituting at least twelve
per centum (12%) of all registered voters, with each legislative district represented by at least
three per centum (3%) of its registered voters. The Lambino Group also claimed that COMELEC
election registrars had verified the signatures of the 6.3 million individuals.

The Lambino Group's initiative petition changes the 1987 Constitution by modifying Sections 1-7
of Article VI (Legislative Department) and Sections 1-4 of Article VII (Executive Department)5
and by adding Article XVIII entitled "Transitory Provisions." These proposed changes will shift
the present Bicameral-Presidential system to a Unicameral-Parliamentary form of government.

On 30 August 2006, the Lambino Group filed an Amended Petition with the COMELEC
indicating modifications in the proposed Article XVIII (Transitory Provisions) of their initiative.The
COMELEC issued its Resolution denying due course to the Lambino Group's petition for lack of
an enabling law governing initiative petitions to amend the Constitution.

Issue: Whether the Lambino Group's initiative petition complies with Section 2, Article XVII of
the Constitution on amendments to the Constitution through a people's initiative.

Ruling:

The Initiative Petition does not comply with Section 2, Article XVII of the Constitution on Direct
Proposal by the People.
The Lambino Group miserably failed to comply with the basic requirements of the Constitution
for conducting a people's initiative.

Section 2, Article XVII of the Constitution is the governing constitutional provision that allows a
people's initiative to propose amendments to the Constitution. This section states:

Sec. 2. Amendments to this Constitution may likewise be directly proposed by the people
through initiative upon a petition of at least twelve per centum of the total number of registered
voters of which every legislative district must be represented by at least three per centum of the
registered voters therein.

The framers of the Constitution intended that the "draft of the proposed constitutional
amendment" should be "ready and shown" to the people "before" they sign such proposal.
The framers plainly stated that "before they sign there is already a draft shown to them."
The framers also "envisioned" that the people should sign on the proposal itself because the
proponents must "prepare that proposal and pass it around for signature."

The essence of amendments "directly proposed by the people through initiative upon a
petition" is that the entire proposal on its face is a petition by the people. This means two
essential elements must be present. First, the people must author and thus sign the entire
proposal. No agent or representative can sign on their behalf. Second, as an initiative upon a
petition, the proposal must be embodied in a petition.

These essential elements are present only if the full text of the proposed amendments is first
shown to the people who express their assent by signing such complete proposal in a petition.
Thus, an amendment is "directly proposed by the people through initiative upon a petition" only
if the people sign on a petition that contains the full text of the proposed amendments.

The full text of the proposed amendments may be either written on the face of the petition, or
attached to it. If so attached, the petition must state the fact of such attachment. This is an
assurance that every one of the several millions of signatories to the petition had seen the full
text of the proposed amendments before signing. Otherwise, it is physically impossible, given
the time constraint, to prove that every one of the millions of signatories had seen the full text of
the proposed amendments before signing.

The framers of the Constitution directly borrowed the concept of people's initiative from the
United States where various State constitutions incorporate an initiative clause. In almost all
States which allow initiative petitions, the unbending requirement is that the people must first
see the full text of the proposed amendments before they sign to signify their assent, and that
the people must sign on an initiative petition that contains the full text of the proposed
amendments.
The rationale for this requirement has been repeatedly explained in several decisions of various
courts. Thus, in Capezzuto v. State Ballot Commission, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts,
affirmed by the First Circuit Court of Appeals, declared:

A signature requirement would be meaningless if the person supplying the signature has not
first seen what it is that he or she is signing. Further, and more importantly, loose interpretation
of the subscription requirement can pose a significant potential for fraud. A person permitted to
describe orally the contents of an initiative petition to a potential signer, without the signer
having actually examined the petition, could easily mislead the signer by, for example, omitting,
downplaying, or even flatly misrepresenting, portions of the petition that might not be to the
signer's liking. This danger seems particularly acute when, in this case, the person giving the
description is the drafter of the petition, who obviously has a vested interest in seeing that it gets
the requisite signatures to qualify for the ballot.

Likewise, in Kerr v. Bradbury,18 the Court of Appeals of Oregon explained:

The purposes of "full text" provisions that apply to amendments by initiative commonly are
described in similar terms. x x x (The purpose of the full text requirement is to provide sufficient
information so that registered voters can intelligently evaluate whether to sign the initiative
petition."); x x x (publication of full text of amended constitutional provision required because it is
"essential for the elector to have x x x the section which is proposed to be added to or
subtracted from. If he is to vote intelligently, he must have this knowledge. Otherwise in many
instances he would be required to vote in the dark.")

Moreover, "an initiative signer must be informed at the time of signing of the nature and effect of
that which is proposed" and failure to do so is "deceptive and misleading" which renders the
initiative void.

Section 2, Article XVII of the Constitution does not expressly state that the petition must set forth
the full text of the proposed amendments. However, the deliberations of the framers of our
Constitution clearly show that the framers intended to adopt the relevant American
jurisprudence on people's initiative. In particular, the deliberations of the Constitutional
Commission explicitly reveal that the framers intended that the people must first see the full text
of the proposed amendments before they sign, and that the people must sign on a petition
containing such full text. Indeed, Section 5(b) of Republic Act No. 6735, the Initiative and
Referendum Act that the Lambino Group invokes as valid, requires that the people must sign
the "petition x x x as signatories."

The Lambino Group did not attach to their present petition with this Court a copy of the paper
that the people signed as their initiative petition. The Lambino Group submitted to this Court a
copy of a signature sheet after the oral arguments of 26 September 2006 when they filed their
Memorandum.
It is basic in American jurisprudence that the proposed amendment must be incorporated with,
or attached to, the initiative petition signed by the people. In the present initiative, the Lambino
Group's proposed changes were not incorporated with, or attached to, the signature sheets. It is
extremely doubtful that the Lambino Group prepared, printed, circulated, from February to
August 2006 during the signature-gathering period, the draft of the petition or amended petition
they filed later with the COMELEC. Even assuming the Lambino Group circulated the amended
petition during the signature-gathering period, the Lambino Group admitted circulating only very
limited copies of the petition.

The Lambino Group's initiative is void and unconstitutional because it dismally fails to comply
with the requirement of Section 2, Article XVII of the Constitution that the initiative must be
"directly proposed by the people through initiative upon a petition."