April 23, 2007 - The Supreme Court has turned down the petition of the party-list group Citizens’ Battle Against Corruption (Cibac), headed by the son of evangelist Bro. Eddie Villanueva for a second seat in Congress following the 2004 elections.

The high court ruled that the formula to determine the number of additional congressional seats a winning party-list is entitled to must be consistent with its October 2000 decision in the case of Veterans Federation Party v the Commission on Elections.

The “first party” refers to the party-list group which garnered the highest number of votes in the election.

The high tribunal ruled that Cibac was not entitled to an additional seat based on the Veterans formula and should get only one seat in the House of Representatives.

Cibac has one seat in Congress held by the evangelist’s son, Joel Villanueva.

“The Court laments the fact that the Comelec insisted in using a simplified formula when it is fully aware of the ruling in the Veterans case,” it said in its April 13 decision. “As judicial decisions form part of the law of the land, the Comelec cannot just ignore or be oblivious to the rulings issued by the Court.”

Follow basic rule

It also said the lower courts and quasi-judicial tribunals should follow the basic rule and that they must bow to the decisions and resolutions of the highest court of the land.

The Comelec, in the case of Cibac, used the simplified formula of giving a party-list group one additional seat per additional two percent of the total party-list votes.

The poll body said in a resolution that since Cibac only got 3.86 percent of the votes, it was not entitled to an additional seat.

At least 2 percent

A party-list group should garner at least two percent of all votes cast to be entitled to one seat in the House of Representatives. It can get a maximum of three seats.

Cibac questioned the Comelec’s resolution before the high court, saying it was entitled to an additional seat, based on the formula used in deciding the case of Ang Bagong Bayani-OFW Labor Party v Comelec, which was in turn based on the Veterans formula.

But according to the high court, the formula that Cibac cited used the multiplier “number of allotted seats for the first party” as mentioned in the Ang Bagong Bayani case, instead of the “number of additional seats allocated to the first party” as prescribed in the Veterans case.

Inaccurate

There appeared to have been an “inaccurate presentation” of the Veterans formula in the Ang Bagong Bayani case, the high tribunal said.

If the Ang Bagong Bayani formula was used, the multiplier would be 3 and Cibac would have been entitled to an additional seat. But if the Veterans formula was used, the multiplier would be 2 and Cibac would get no additional seat.

No modification

According to the high court, the Veterans formula should be used since the Ang Bagong Bayani case was not intended to modify the Veterans formula.

“As a matter of fact, there was really no other formula approved by the Court other than the Veterans formula in fixing the number of additional seats for the other qualified party-list groups,” it said.

Source: PDI April 23, 2007 by Leila Salaverria