Groups ask SC to reconsider ruling on ARMM OIC appointments

MANILA, Philippines - Concerned groups asked the Supreme Court (SC) to reconsider its ruling that upheld the constitutionality of Republic Act 10153, allowing the President to appoint officers-in-charge for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARRM).

The groups also asked the SC that elective incumbent officials of the ARMM be allowed to continue in office even in holdover capacities until the next elections are held for the region.

In a motion for reconsideration filed last Nov. 3, the petitioners in G.R. No. 197280 namely Almarim Centi Tillah, Datu Casan Conding, and the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban), through their counsel former Senate president Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel Jr., said the SC failed to appreciate that RA 10153 violated the Constitution, ignored the Local Government Code, and, brushed off the Organic Act creating the ARMM.

The petitioners maintained that RA 10153, calling for synchronized ARMM elections, negates the concept of republican democracy that the constitution mandates.

Under a republican democracy, those who govern in different levels of government must be elected by the people.

However, RA 10153, the constitutionality of which was recently upheld by the High Court, allows government posts to be filled up by appointment instead of election.

The petitioners maintained that vesting the President with power to appoint OICs gives an unwarranted privilege to those who cannot win the mandate of the ARMM electorate. 

They said this would enable “them” to use the power of political connections to get into the portals of power in the region, without the backing of the sovereign will of the people.

“The general rule is that the filling up of vacant elective local government positions is done by succession where the law defines who the successors are,” the petitioners explained.

“If vacancies in elective positions in the LGUs are filled up mainly by election or succession by other elective officials, perhaps, it stands to reason that vacancies in the ARMM should likewise be filled up in the same manner,” petitioners said.

Under RA 10153, the President appoints OICs through the recommendation of a committee.

In a press statement, the petitioners said the will of the committee members, no matter how neutral or qualified, cannot validly substitute for the will of the electorate when the issue refers to the filling up of elective positions in the ARMM.

The petitioners acknowledged that “holding election for the ARMM by the diktat of the Commission on Elections may now be rather difficult to implement.”

They recognized that realistically, the only remaining reasonable option left, probably, is for the incumbent elective officials of the ARMM to continue holding office until the next elections in 2013 as envisioned in RA 10153.

The petitioners also maintained that it may still be better if the ARMM election is, by law, held separately from the national election.