Case Title Quinto v COMELEC Docket No. G.R. No.

189698

Ponente Puno, J. Date February 22, 2010

Doctrine/s

Section 4 (a) of COMELEC Resolution 8678 IS CONSTITUTIONAL, viz:

 Incumbent Appointive Official. — Under Section 13 of RA 9369, which reiterates Section 66 of the
Omnibus Election Code, any person holding a public appointive office or position, including active
members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, and officers and employees in government-owned or -
controlled corporations, shall be considered ipso facto resigned from his office upon the filing of his
certificate of candidacy.
 Incumbent Elected Official. — Upon the other hand, pursuant to Section 14 of RA 9006 or the Fair
Election Act, which repealed Section 67 of the Omnibus Election Code and rendered ineffective Section
11 of R.A. 8436 insofar as it considered an elected official as resigned only upon the start of the campaign
period corresponding to the positions for which they are running, an elected official is not deemed to
have resigned from his office upon the filing of his certificate of candidacy for the same or any other
elected office or position. In fine, an elected official may run for another position without forfeiting his seat.

Summary

COMELEC filed an MR to assail a previous SC Decision which stuck down particular laws that deemed appointive
officials as resigned upon the filing of their CoC. SC now, contrary to its previous ruling, has found (1) that there is
no violation of equal protection clause, as there are substantial distinctions between appointive and elective
officials and; (2) that there is no violation of the overbreadth doctrine, as contrary to its previous belief, the
probable harm to society in permitting incumbent appointive officials to remain in office, even as they actively
pursue elective posts, far outweighs the less likely evil of having arguably protected candidacies blocked by the
possible inhibitory effect of a potentially overly broad statute, and the more prudent approach would be to deal with
these conceivably impermissible applications through case-by-case adjudication rather than through a total
invalidation of the statute itself. And also, their previous view fails to consider a different, yet equally plausible,
threat to the government posed by the partisan potential of a large and growing bureaucracy: the danger of
systematic abuse perpetuated by a "powerful political machine" that has amassed "the scattered powers of
government workers" so as to give itself and its incumbent workers an "unbreakable grasp on the reins of power.
SC has noted that the anomalies spawned by the assailed Decision have already taken place wherein Cabinet
members, COMELEC election officers, the Secretary of Justice, and even an RTC judge have already filed their
CoCs without relinquishing their appointive positions. Thus, the SC reversed its previous Decision and declared
such provisions where ‘appointed officials are deemed resigned upon the filing of their CoCs’ as constitutional.

Relevant Facts

● COMELEC filed an MR against the Decision of the SC last Dec 1, 2009 which granted the Petition for
Certiorari and Prohibition filed by Eleazar P. Quinto and Gerino A. Tolentino, Jr. and declared as
unconstitutional the second proviso in the third paragraph of Section 13 of Republic Act No. 9369, Section
66 of the Omnibus Election Code and Section 4 (a) of COMELEC Resolution No. 8678, mainly on the
ground that they violate the equal protection clause of the Constitution and suffer from overbreadth.

o The assailed Decision paved the way for public appointive officials to continue discharging the
powers, prerogatives and functions of their office notwithstanding their entry into the political
arena.

● In this MR, COMELEC argued:

 1. The assailed Decision is contrary to, and/or violative of, the constitutional proscription against the
participation of public appointive officials and members of the military in partisan political activity;

2. The assailed provisions do not violate the equal protection clause when they accord differential
treatment to elective and appointive officials, because such differential treatment rests on material
and substantial distinctions and is germane to the purposes of the law

3. The assailed provisions do not suffer from the infirmity of overbreadth

4. There is a compelling need to reverse the assailed Decision, as public safety and interest demand
such reversal

Issues and Ratio Decidendi

OVERARCHING ISSUE: WON the second proviso in the third paragraph of Section 13 of Republic Act No.
9369, Section 66 of the Omnibus Election Code and Section 4 (a) of COMELEC Resolution No. 8678 (which
provide that appointive officials are deemed resigned upon COC filing) are constitutional – YES

ISSUE #1: W/N Section 4 (a) of COMELEC Resolution 8678 Is Compliant with Law – YES

Section 4 (a) of COMELEC Resolution 8678 is a faithful reflection of the present state of the law and jurisprudence
on the matter, viz.:

Incumbent Appointive Official. — Under Section 13 of RA 9369, which reiterates Section 66 of the
Omnibus Election Code, any person holding a public appointive office or position, including active
members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, and officers and employees in government-owned or -
controlled corporations, shall be considered ipso facto resigned from his office upon the filing of his
certificate of candidacy.

Incumbent Elected Official. — Upon the other hand, pursuant to Section 14 of RA 9006 or the Fair
Election Act, which repealed Section 67 of the Omnibus Election Code and rendered ineffective Section
11 of R.A. 8436 insofar as it considered an elected official as resigned only upon the start of the campaign
period corresponding to the positions for which they are running, an elected official is not deemed to have
resigned from his office upon the filing of his certificate of candidacy for the same or any other elected
office or position. In fine, an elected official may run for another position without forfeiting his seat.

These laws and regulations implement Section 2 (4), Article IX-B of the 1987 Constitution, which prohibits civil
service officers and employees from engaging in any electioneering or partisan political campaign. [The
ConComm delibs are instructive…]

The intention to impose a strict limitation on the participation of civil service officers and employees in partisan
political campaigns is unmistakable.

To emphasize its importance, this constitutional ban on civil service officers and employees is presently reflected
and implemented by a number of statutes. Section 46 (b) (26), Chapter 7 and Section 55, Chapter 8 — both of
Subtitle A, Title I, Book V of the Administrative Code of 1987 — respectively provide in relevant part:

Section 44. Discipline: General Provisions:

 xxx xxx xxx

(b) The following shall be grounds for disciplinary action:

xxx xxx xxx

(26) Engaging directly or indirectly in partisan political activities by one holding a non-political office.

xxx xxx xxx

Section 55. Political Activity. — No officer or employee in the Civil Service including members of the
Armed Forces, shall engage directly or indirectly in any partisan political activity or take part in any
election except to vote nor shall he use his official authority or influence to coerce the political activity of
any other person or body. Nothing herein provided shall be understood to prevent any officer or employee
from expressing his views on current political problems or issues, or from mentioning the names of his
candidates for public office whom he supports: Provided, That public officers and employees holding
political offices may take part in political and electoral activities but it shall be unlawful for them to solicit
contributions from their subordinates or subject them to any of the acts involving subordinates prohibited
in the Election Code.

Section 261 (i) of Batas Pambansa Blg. 881 (the Omnibus Election Code) further makes intervention by civil
service officers and employees in partisan political activities an election offense, viz.:

SECTION 261. Prohibited Acts. — The following shall be guilty of an election offense:

xxx xxx xxx

(i) Intervention of public officers and employees. — Any officer or employee in the civil service, except
those holding political offices; any officer, employee, or member of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, or
any police force, special forces, home defense forces, barangay self-defense units and all other para-
military units that now exist or which may hereafter be organized who, directly or indirectly, intervenes in
any election campaign or engages in any partisan political activity, except to vote or to preserve public
order, if he is a peace officer.

The intent of both Congress and the framers of our Constitution to limit the participation of civil service officers and
employees in partisan political activities is too plain to be mistaken.

But Section 2 (4), Article IX-B of the 1987 Constitution and the implementing statutes apply only to civil servants
holding apolitical offices. Stated differently, the constitutional ban does not cover elected officials,
notwithstanding the fact that " [t]he civil service embraces all branches, subdivisions, instrumentalities, and
agencies of the Government, including government-owned or controlled corporations with original charters." This
is because elected public officials, by the very nature of their office, engage in partisan political activities almost all
year round, even outside of the campaign period. Political partisanship is the inevitable essence of a political
office, elective positions included.

The prohibition notwithstanding, civil service officers and employees are allowed to vote, as well as express their
views on political issues, or mention the names of certain candidates for public office whom they support.

ISSUE #2: W/N Section 4(a) of Resolution 8678, Section 13 of RA 9369, and Section 66 of the Omnibus Election
Code Violate the Equal Protection Clause – NO

NOTE: SC previously said YES

 i. Fariñas, et al. v. Executive Secretary, et al. is Controlling

In Fariñas, the constitutionality of Section 14 of the Fair Election Act, in relation to Sections 66 and 67 of the
Omnibus Election Code, was assailed on the ground, among others, that it unduly discriminates against appointive
officials.

 As Section 14 repealed Section 67 (i.e., the deemed-resigned provision in respect of elected

officials) of the Omnibus Election Code, elected officials are no longer considered ipso facto
resigned from their respective offices upon their filing of certificates of candidacy.
 In contrast, since Section 66 was not repealed, the limitation on appointive officials continues to be
operative — they are deemed resigned when they file their certificates of candidacy.

The petitioners in Fariñas thus brought an equal protection challenge against Section 14, with the end in view of
having the deemed-resigned provisions "apply equally" to both elected and appointive officials.

 We held, however, that the legal dichotomy created by the Legislature is a reasonable classification, as
there are material and significant distinctions between the two classes of officials
o Comparison #1
 [Elective officials] occupy their office by virtue of the mandate of the electorate.
They are elected to an office for a definite term and may be removed therefrom only upon
stringent conditions.
 On the other hand, appointive officials hold their office by virtue of their designation
thereto by an appointing authority. Some appointive officials hold their office in a
permanent capacity and are entitled to security of tenure while others serve at the
pleasure of the appointing authority.
o Comparison #2 -- Under the Admin Code
 appointive officials, as officers and employees in the civil service, are strictly
prohibited from engaging in any partisan political activity or take (sic) part in any
election except to vote.
 elective officials, or officers or employees holding political offices, are obviously
expressly allowed to take part in political and electoral activities.
 By repealing Section 67 but retaining Section 66 of the Omnibus Election Code, the legislators
deemed it proper to treat these two classes of officials differently with respect to the effect on their
tenure in the office of the filing of the certificates of candidacy for any position other than those
occupied by them.

The case at bar is a crass attempt to resurrect a dead issue. The miracle is that our assailed Decision gave it new
life. We ought to be guided by the doctrine of stare decisis et non quieta movere.

ii. Classification Germane to the Purposes of the Law

The Fariñas ruling on the equal protection challenge stands on solid ground even if reexamined.
Four requisites [of a valid classification]:

(1) The classification rests on substantial distinctions;

(2) It is germane to the purposes of the law;

(3) It is not limited to existing conditions only; and

(4) It applies equally to all members of the same class.

Our assailed Decision readily acknowledged that these deemed-resigned provisions satisfy the first, third and
fourth requisites of reasonableness. It, however, proffers the dubious conclusion that the differential
treatment of appointive officials vis-à-vis elected officials is not germane to the purpose of the law,
because "whether one holds an appointive office or an elective one, the evils sought to be prevented by
the measure remain"

SC now:

 This conclusion conveniently ignores the long-standing rule that to remedy an injustice, the Legislature
need not address every manifestation of the evil at once; it may proceed "one step at a time."
 any person who poses an equal protection challenge must convincingly show that the law creates
a classification that is "palpably arbitrary or capricious."
o He must refute all possible rational bases for the differing treatment, whether or not the
Legislature cited those bases as reasons for the enactment, such that the constitutionality of the
law must be sustained even if the reasonableness of the classification is "fairly debatable."
o In the case at bar, the petitioners failed — and in fact did not even attempt — to discharge
this heavy burden.
o Our assailed Decision was likewise silent as a sphinx on this point
 the assailed Decision would have us "equalize the playing field" by invalidating provisions of law
that seek to restrain the evils from running riot. Under the pretext of equal protection, it would favor a
situation in which the evils are unconfined and vagrant, existing at the behest of both appointive and
elected officials, over another in which a significant portion thereof is contained. The absurdity of that
position is self- evident, to say the least.

The concern, voiced by our esteemed colleague, Mr. Justice Nachura, in his dissent, that elected officials
(vis-à-vis appointive officials) have greater political clout over the electorate, is indeed a matter worth
exploring — but not by this Court.

 Suffice it to say that the remedy lies with the Legislature. It is the Legislature that is given the authority,
under our constitutional system, to balance competing interests and thereafter make policy choices
responsive to the exigencies of the times.

iii. Mancuso v Taft Has Been Overruled

Finding no Philippine jurisprudence to prop up its equal protection ruling, our assailed Decision adverted to, and
extensively cited, Mancuso v. Taft (a 1973 First Circuit of US CA Decision)

 Mancuso v Taft claimed:

o The right to run for public office is "inextricably linked" with two fundamental freedoms — freedom
of expression and association;
o Any legislative classification that significantly burdens this fundamental right must be subjected to
strict equal protection review; and
o While the state has a compelling interest in maintaining the honesty and impartiality of its public
work force, the deemed-resigned provisions pursue their objective in a far too heavy-handed
manner as to render them unconstitutional.
 SC’s OG Decision concluded with the exhortation that since "the Americans, from whom we
copied the provision in question, had already stricken down a similar measure for being
unconstitutional[,] it is high-time that we, too, should follow suit."

SC now:

 Our assailed Decision's reliance on Mancuso is completely misplaced. We cannot blink away the fact
that the United States Supreme Court effectively overruled Mancuso three months after its
promulgation by the United States Court of Appeals.
 American case law has in fact never recognized a fundamental right to express one's political
views through candidacy, as to invoke a rigorous standard of review.
o Bart v. Telford pointedly stated that "[t]he First Amendment does not in terms confer a right to run
for public office, and this court has held that it does not do so by implication either."
 Thus, one's interest in seeking office, by itself, is not entitled to constitutional protection.
 Moreover, one cannot bring one's action under the rubric of freedom of association, absent any
allegation that, by running for an elective position, one is advancing the political ideas of a
particular set of voters.
 the Morial court even quoted Broadrick and stated that: In any event, the legislature must have some
leeway in determining which of its employment positions require restrictions on partisan political
activities and which may be left unregulated. And a State can hardly be faulted for attempting to limit
the positions upon which such restrictions are placed.

ISSUE #3: W/N Section 4(a) of Resolution 8678, Section 13 of RA 9369, and Section 66 of the Omnibus Election
Code Suffer from Overbreadth – NO

Our assailed Decision struck them down for being overbroad in two respects, viz.:

● The assailed provisions limit the candidacy of all civil servants holding appointive posts without due regard
for the type of position being held by the employee seeking an elective post and the degree of influence
that may be attendant thereto; and
● The assailed provisions limit the candidacy of any and all civil servants holding appointive positions
without due regard for the type of office being sought, whether it be partisan or nonpartisan in character,
or in the national, municipal or barangay level.

SC now: on second look, we have to revise our assailed Decision.

i. Limitation on Candidacy Regardless of Incumbent Appointive Official's Position, Valid

[The assumption of the assailed Decision] appears to be that the evils sought to be prevented are extant
only when the incumbent appointive official running for elective office holds an influential post.

 Such a myopic view obviously fails to consider a different, yet equally plausible, threat to the
government posed by the partisan potential of a large and growing bureaucracy: the danger of
systematic abuse perpetuated by a "powerful political machine" that has amassed "the scattered
powers of government workers" so as to give itself and its incumbent workers an "unbreakable
grasp on the reins of power."
 As elucidated in our prior exposition:
o Attempts by government employees to wield influence over others or to make use of their
respective positions (apparently) to promote their own candidacy may seem tolerable — even
innocuous — particularly when viewed in isolation from other similar attempts by other
government employees. Yet it would be decidedly foolhardy to discount the equally (if not
more) realistic and dangerous possibility that such seemingly disjointed attempts, when
taken together, constitute a veiled effort on the part of an emerging central party structure
to advance its own agenda through a "carefully orchestrated use of [appointive and/or
elective] officials" coming from various levels of the bureaucracy.
o ...[T]he avoidance of such a "politically active public work force" which could give an
emerging political machine an "unbreakable grasp on the reins of power" is reason
enough to impose a restriction on the candidacies of all appointive public officials without
further distinction as to the type of positions being held by such employees or the degree of
influence that may be attendant thereto. (citations omitted)

ii. Limitation on Candidacy Regardless of Type of Office Sought, Valid

[The assumption of the assailed Decision is] that "the concerns of a truly partisan office and the temptations
it fosters are sufficiently different from those involved in an office removed from regular party politics [so
as] to warrant distinctive treatment," so that restrictions on candidacy akin to those imposed by the challenged
provisions can validly apply only to situations in which the elective office sought is partisan in character. To the
extent, therefore, that such restrictions are said to preclude even candidacies for nonpartisan elective
offices, the challenged restrictions are to be considered as overbroad.

 a careful study of the challenged provisions and related laws on the matter will show that the alleged
overbreadth is more apparent than real.
 even if we were to assume, for the sake of argument, that Section 66 of the Omnibus Election Code and
the corresponding provision in Section 13 of RA 9369 are general rules that apply also to elections for
nonpartisan public offices, the overbreadth challenge would still be futile
 This Court would do well to proceed with tiptoe caution, particularly when it comes to the
application of the overbreadth doctrine in the analysis of statutes that purportedly attempt to restrict or
burden the exercise of the right to freedom of speech, for such approach is manifestly strong
medicine that must be used sparingly, and only as a last resort
 In the case at bar, the probable harm to society in permitting incumbent appointive officials to
remain in office, even as they actively pursue elective posts, far outweighs the less likely evil of
having arguably protected candidacies blocked by the possible inhibitory effect of a potentially
overly broad statute.
 the more prudent approach would be to deal with these conceivably impermissible applications
through case-by-case adjudication rather than through a total invalidation of the statute itself.

Indeed, the anomalies spawned by our assailed Decision have taken place:

 a number of high-ranking Cabinet members had already filed their Certificates of Candidacy without
 relinquishing their posts.
 Several COMELEC election officers had likewise filed their Certificates of Candidacy in their respective
provinces.
 Even the Secretary of Justice had filed her certificate of substitution for representative of the first district
of Quezon province last December 14, 2009 — even as her position as Justice Secretary includes
supervision over the City and Provincial Prosecutors, who, in turn, act as Vice- Chairmen of the respective
Boards of Canvassers.
 The Judiciary has not been spared, for a Regional Trial Court Judge in the South has thrown his hat into
the political arena.

We cannot allow the tilting of our electoral playing field in their favor.

Ruling

we now rule that Section 4 (a) of Resolution 8678 and Section 13 of RA 9369, which merely reiterate Section 66 of
the Omnibus Election Code, are not unconstitutionally overbroad.