RECALLING THE MECHANISM OF RECALL
(Privilege Speech of Rep. V. Dennis M. Socrates
before the House of Representatives in Plenary Session, 28.V.2012)
Mr. Speaker:
I rise on a
matter of personal and collective privilege.
This is about COMELEC Resolution No. 9374 promulgated on March 7, 2012,
“to discontinue actions”, and, in effect, to deny, wholesale, all petitions for
the conduct of recall elections in various local government units all over the
country.
The pertinent
antecedents of my grievance are as follows:
On or about
September 15, 2011, Mr. Caesar R. Ventura, a resident and registered voter of
Coron, Palawan, filed a petition for the recall of the incumbent governor of
Palawan, invoking the provisions of Sections 69 to 75 of the Local Government
Code, as amended. The petition was accompanied
with the signatures of 158,889 registered voters of Palawan who were such
during the last regular election, which is obviously more than the minimum
required by law for such a local government constituency; in this case, 45,000. Mr. Ventura also caused payment to COMELEC of
the required filing fee of Fifty Thousand Pesos (Php50,000.00).
COMELEC found
the petition for recall sufficient in form and in substantial compliance with
the initiatory requirements. All that
remained to be done was the “verification” of these signatures which the
Provincial Election Supervisor of Palawan together with the Election Officers
of the 23 municipalities of the province were poised to conduct when COMELEC issued
the subject Resolution No. 9374.
The gist of the
subject COMELEC Resolution is found in the last two paragraphs thereof, which
read, and I quote:
“Whereas,
the Commission sees that it is no longer feasible to conduct recall elections
at this point and time, considering the aforesaid budget constraints and the
tedious preparatory activities needed for the conduct of recall elections;
“NOW THEREFORE,
the Commission on Elections by Virtue of the Powers vested in it by the
Constitution, The Omnibus Election Code and other related laws, has RESOLVED,
as it hereby RESOLVES, to discontinue actions on all Petitions for Recall.”
Mr. Speaker, this
representation had been the object of a petition for recall in 2002. as mayor
of Puerto Princesa City, via a Preparatory Recall Assembly which was possible
at that time, although the difference with the present modality is immaterial. I am not bitter about it because it was an
exercise of a clear legal right under the Local Government Code. As long as the objective formal, procedural
and substantive requirements are complied with, the petitioners have a
demandable right to the holding of a recall election. That was in 2002.
Going back to
the present context, the petition for recall initiated by Mr. Caesar R. Ventura
also complied with all the initiatory requirements. And that is why this representation was
disheartened on learning about COMELEC Resolution No. 9374.
Lest I be
misunderstood, I would like to state that I am not complaining against
anyone. I am not blaming COMELEC, nor
the parties for their understandable legal maneuverings in prosecuting or blocking,
respectively, the petition for recall.
Indeed, we must believe the reasons adduced by COMELEC for Resolution
No. 9374—that is, time and budgetary constraints—which should make sense as
valid justification even to partisan observers.
But, reflecting
on the subject Resolution No. 9374, this representation cannot help but ask
whether it is a call to abolish the present mechanism of recall in our Local
Government Code. For this purpose, I am
filing today a bill for the repeal of Sections 69 to 75 of the Local Government
Code, which is the entire chapter on Recall.
I hope that our distinguished colleagues would support this move.
The experience
brought to us by COMELEC Resolution No. 9374 teaches that the present mechanism
of recall is vulnerable to the human or subjective dispositions of the COMELEC
Commissioners, as evoked in the very language of Resolution No. 9374 itself. Compliance with the requirements of the law—very
onerous already as they are—does not guarantee that a recall election will be
conducted. The law is open to
“discriminatory enforcement” or does not conform with the idea that “ours is a government
of laws, not of men”; nor does it speak well of the stability of our legal
system.
This
representation is aware, Mr. Speaker, of Section 3, Article X of the
Constitution, which requires Congress to enact a local government code “with
effective mechanisms of recall”. The
present mechanism of recall has proven to be in-effective—and perhaps,
even inimical to the common good, considering the trouble everyone has to go
through for nothing—and therefore, should be abolished, until such time, we do
not know when, as our collective wisdom could conceive of a truly effective
mechanism of recall.
Thank you.