SC: No more appeals on party-list ruling

MANILA, Philippines - The Supreme Court (SC) will no longer entertain any appeal over its decision on the party-list system, the spokesman for the high court said.

“It means no more appeal or MR (motion for reconsideration) will be entertained by the court,” SC spokesman Theodore Te told The STAR yesterday.

Te explained the decision has an “immediately executory” clause that has the same effect as that of a “final and executory” ruling.

He said the ruling that allows groups not representing “marginalized and underrepresented sectors” to participate in the elections is “immediately executory” and should therefore be enforced right away.

“The court makes a decision immediately executory when there’s urgency to enforce it – just like in this case; the relief prayed for by petitioners was urgent since there are only a few weeks left before the polls. That’s why the court will no longer entertain an appeal,” he explained.

Te clarified that “immediately executory” is not the same as “final and executory” – a ruling that is ready to be placed in the high court’s entry of judgment.

He said a final and executory ruling is applied to cases that have gone through the appeal processes in the court, including the resolution of MR.

“In case of rulings with ‘immediately executory’ clause, the aggrieved party may opt to file an appeal, but the high court will only act on it procedurally. In all previous cases, the high court never reconsidered,” Te explained.

Mea culpa

Te admitted the SC public information office made a mistake in the summary of the decision it released Friday in lieu of the actual copy of the ruling. 

He said the sixth parameter held that a participating party-list group may still proceed with its election bid even if its nominee was disqualified by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) provided it has at least another qualified bet - not five as earlier released by the SC PIO.

Te apologized for the error that he attributed to “technical problems.”

“My apologies for the guide we sent out but which we tried to correct minutes after… but were unable to do so because of technical problems... The error is mine, purely inadvertent and brought about by the need to finish the summaries to aid in reporting,” he said.

Te issued the statement after various groups criticized the decision, which was promulgated April 2 and released last Friday.

Poll watchdog Kontra-Daya said the SC ruling would further bastardize the party-list system by giving moneyed and powerful individuals undue opportunity to enter the House of Representatives through the backdoor. 

The group argued that new guidelines removing the earlier requirement for party-list groups to belong to marginalized and underrepresented sectors would also “open the floodgates to non-marginalized groups posing as regional parties.”

Election lawyer Romulo Macalintal said the SC guidelines “practically amended the Party-List Law, which is a legislative function.”

He also questioned the logic of the high court in ruling that the Comelec was correct in disqualifying the 52 groups in the consolidated cases while at the same time effectively ordering the poll body to reverse its ruling based on the new parameters. 

Macalintal agreed with the opinion of Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno, who dissented on the majority decision to set the new parameters and remand the cases to the Comelec.

In the new six-point parameters, the SC removed the previous requirement of the Comelec for groups joining the party-list election to belong to a marginalized or underrepresented sector, which was based on the SC’s ruling in the Ang Bagong Bayani case in June 2001. 

The SC held that the party-list system should not be exclusive to sectoral groups and must be opened to regional parties and groups and even national political organizations that do not represent marginalized sectors enumerated in the law.

In the new ruling that set aside standards laid down in the Ang Bagong Bayani case, the SC also allowed political parties to participate in the party-list elections “provided they register under the party-list system and do not field candidate in legislative district elections.”

As for sectoral parties, the SC held that a majority of members as well as their nominees must belong to the respective sectors they represent that should still be “marginalized and underrepresented.”

The SC also allowed participating groups to proceed with their election bid even if some of their nominees are disqualified provided that they have at least one other qualified reserved nominees. 

But the SC, in a 7-6 vote, ruled the Comelec was correct in disqualifying the petitioners based on the previous standards. It held that there was no grave abuse of discretion on the part of the poll body in its assailed rulings – contrary to the allegations of the groups.