League of Cities of the Philippines v. COMELEC, et al. G.R. Nos. 176951, 177499, 178056, Nov. 18, 2008; Dec.

21, 2009; Aug. 4, 2010; Feb. 15, 2011; Apr. 12, 2011; June 28, 2011 FACTS: 11th Congress (June 1998 June 2001) o 57 cityhood bills were pending in Congress. o 33 were passed, 24 were not acted upon. 12th Congress (June 2001 June 2004) o Republic Act No. 9009 (RA 9009) was enacted, amending Section 450 of the Local Government Code of 1991. It increased the annual income requirement for conversion of a municipality into a city from P20 million to P100 million. o The House of Representatives adopted Joint Resolution No. 29 which sought to exempt from the P100 million income requirement the 24 municipalities whose cityhood bills were not approved in the 11 th Congress. o The Senate did not approve said Joint Resolution. 13th Congress (June 2004 June 2007) o The House of Representatives readopted Joint Resolution No. 29 as Joint Resolution No. 1, but again, the Senate failed to approve it. o 161 of the 24 municipalities whose cityhood bills were not approved filed anew their individual cityhood bills, each with a common provision exempting each municipality from the P100 million income requirement prescribed by RA 9009. o The cityhood bills were approved and lapsed into law (Cityhood Laws) on various dates from March to July 2007. The present petitions were filed to declare the Cityhood Laws unconstitutional for violating: o Section 10, Article X of the 1987 Constitution; and o The equal protection clause. RELEVANT PROVISIONS: Article X, 1987 Constitution Section 10. No province, city, municipality, or barangay may be created, divided, merged, abolished, or its boundary substantially altered, except in accordance with the criteria established in the local government code and subject to approval by a majority of the votes cast in a plebiscite in the political units directly affected. Local Government Code of 1991 (RA 7160), as amended by RA 9009 Section 450. Requisites for Creation. (a) A municipality or a cluster of barangays may be converted into a component city if it has a locally generated average annual income, as certified by the Department of Finance, of at least One hundred million pesos (P100,000,000.00) for the last two (2) consecutive years based on 2000 constant prices, and if it has either of the following requisites: x x x ISSUES: 1. WoN the Cityhood Laws violate Section 10, Article X of the 1987 Constitution. 2. WoN the Cityhood Laws violate the equal protection clause. NOVEMBER 18, 2008 DECISION: the Cityhood Laws are unconstitutional.

The Municipalities whose Cityhood Bills were approved by the 13 th Congress are as follows: Baybay, Leyte Bayugan, Agusan del Sur Bogo, Cebu Batac, Ilocos Norte Catbalogan, Samar Mati, Davao Oriental Tandag, Surigao del Sur Guilhulngan, Negros Oriental Borongan, Eastern Samar Cabdbaran, Agusan del Norte Tayabas, Quezon Carcar, Cebu Lamitan, Basilan El Salvador, Misamis Oriental Tabuk, Kalinga Naga, Cebu Ish Guidote 1

On non-retroactivity: respondents cannot invoke this principle because the passing of RA 9009 preceded the passing of the Cityhood Laws. On 10, Art. X: the Constitution is clear. Congress must provide the criteria in a local government code and not in any other law. Congress cannot write such criteria in any other law, like the Cityhood Laws. On statutory construction: the words of Section 450 are clear, plain, and unambiguous. There is no room for construction. It does not provide any exemptions from its requirements. On legislative intent: Congress discussed the possibility of exempting respondent municipalities from the increased requirement prescribed by RA 9009. However, this was not written into the law. On Congress as a non-continuing body: the resort to deliberations in past Congresses (11 th and 12th) is not permitted because all unapproved bills filed in one Congress become functus officio upon adjournment of that Congress. When respondent municipalities filed anew during the 13th Congress, they had to start from square one. Both the Senate and House rules provide that matters pending at the end of the term of a Congress are deemed terminated. Furthermore, the Senate rules provide that should these matters be taken up again during a succeeding Congress, they shall be treated as if they were presented for the first time. On equal protection: the exemptions provided in the Cityhood Laws are not valid classifications permitted by the 1987 Constitution. 1. Substantial distinctions the exemption will be based solely on the fact that the 16 municipalities exempted are those with bills pending in the 11 th Congress. 2. Germane to the purpose of the law mere pendency of a cityhood bill in the 11 th Congress is not rationally related to the purpose of the law which is to prevent fiscally non-viable municipalities from converting into cities. 3. Not limited to existing conditions the fact of pendency in the 11th Congress limits the applicability of the exemption to one condition only, that existing at the time RA 9009 was passed. It will never happen again. 4. Applicable to all members of the same class municipalities with the same income as respondent municipalities cannot be exempted despite being similarly situated.

DECEMBER 21, 2009 MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION: the Cityhood Laws are constitutional. On the Resolution of March 31, 2009: the split 6-6 vote on the MR does not comply with the constitutional requirement that the constitutionality any law must be decided with the concurrence of a majority of the Members who actually took part in the deliberations on the issues in the case and voted thereon. (Section 4(2), Article VIII, 1987 Constitution) Thus, the Court resolved to grant the Motion for Reconsideration. On the presumption of constitutionality: the burden of proof is on petitioners to show that the challenged statute is repugnant to the fundamental law, and that it is not capable of any other construction that would render it constitutional. On 10, Art. X: the criteria need not be provided only in the Local Government Code. o Since Congress possesses the plenary power to create political subdivisions, surely it can exercise the lesser authority of requiring a set of criteria for their creation. o Thus, the only conceivable reason why the Constitution employs the clause in accordance with the criteria established in the local government code is to lay stress that it is Congress alone, and no other, which can impose the criteria. o It bears stressing that at the time the 1987 Constitution was drafted, there was an existing local government code (BP 337). If the framers intended that the criteria be laid down nowhere else but the local government code, then it would not have given Congress a mandate to enact a new local government code. On the Senate deliberations on RA 9009: the Court accepted the use of these deliberations as extrinsic aids. No less than Senator Pimentel himself, sponsor of RA 9009 (then S.B. No. 2157), stated that the law will not retroact so as to affect the rights of municipalities whose bills were already pending during the 11 th Congress. The Court concluded that the clear legislative intent of Congress in enacting RA 9009 was to exempt the 16 municipalities from the new income requirement. On the exemptions provided in the Cityhood Laws: they merely carry out the intent of RA 9009 to exempt respondent municipalities. On Congress as a non-continuing body: it does not matter. Deliberations of the 11th or 12th Congress are extrinsic aids in interpreting a law passed in the 13th Congress as they form part of the legislative history of that law. On equal protection: the favorable treatment accorded the 16 municipalities rests on substantial distinctions. o They already met the P20 million requirement years before RA 9009 was enacted.
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The non-approval of their bills during the 11th Congress was due to extraneous circumstances (Erap impeachment, jueteng investigation). o The classification is germane to the purpose of the law, which was meant to reduce the inequality occasioned by the passage of RA 9009. o The exemption also applies to all others similarly situated, that is, all municipalities who had pending cityhood bills before the passage of RA 9009 and were compliant with the P20 million income requirement. On the doctrine of operative fact: the cities created by the challenged laws are already organized and functioning accordingly. This provides another reason for upholding the constitutionality of the Cityhood Laws. o

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AUGUST 24, 2010 MOTION TO ANNUL THE DEC. 21, 2009 DECISION: the Cityhood Laws are unconstitutional. Reverted to the November 18, 2008 Decision of the Court, with the same arguments, to wit: o 10, Art. X, 1987 Constitution is clear. Criteria for the creation of LGUs must be set forth in the Local Government Code. The Cityhood Laws are obviously not local government codes because there is only one LGC, RA 7160. o The exemptions violate the equal protection clause as the classification (pendency of a cityhood bill in the 11th Congress) is not rationally related to the purpose of the law which is to prevent fiscally non-viable municipalities from converting into cities. It is also limited to existing conditions only (that of the 16 respondent municipalities), and does not apply equally to all members of the same class (those municipalities whose income is between 20 million and 100 million prior to the enactment of RA 9009). On the doctrine of operative fact: the minority would have the Court rule that the enactment of the Cityhood Laws and the functioning of the 16 municipalities with new sets of officials and employees operate to constitutionalize the unconstitutional Cityhood Laws. o This contention is untenable because the doctrine of operative fact is actually just an exception to the general rule that unconstitutional laws produce no effect whatsoever. o According to Planters Products v. Fertiphil, The doctrine of operative fact only applies as a matter of equity and fair play. It nullifies the effects of an unconstitutional law by recognizing that the existence of a statute prior to its determination of unconstitutionality is an operative fact and may have consequences which cannot always be ignored. The past cannot always be erased by a new judicial declaration. o Thus, the doctrine does not serve to validate an unconstitutional law. It merely recognizes that the effects of its implementation must be left undisturbed as a matter of equity and fair play. o The Cityhood Laws remain unconstitutional. But its effects, such as the payment of salaries and supplies by the new cities or issuance of licenses or executions of contracts may be recognized as valid. On the Courts 6-6 vote on the respondents Motion for Reconsideration: it was error for the Court to grant the MR (basis of the 2009 decision) on the basis of the required majority vote enunciated in 4(2), Art. VII, 1987 Constitution. o 7, Rule 56 of the Rules of Court provide that where the Court en banc is equally divided in opinion, they shall re-deliberate, and if no decision is reached, the petition should be denied. o Since there was a majority vote to declare the Cityhood Laws unconstitutional in 2008, that decision is binding. The MR in 2009 resulted in a split vote, which, according to the Rules, should cause the denial of the motion. A tie vote cannot overrule a majority action. FEBRUARY 15, 2011 MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION OF THE AUG. 24, 2010 RESOLUTION: the Cityhood Laws are constitutional. Considering that the Court twice changed its stance on the constitutionality of the Cityhood Laws, this petition was given due course. On 10, Art. X: the Cityhood Laws do not violate this provision because the exemption clauses found therein in effect amended RA 9009. The exemptions, then, are not found in laws other than the local government code because they have the effect of amending the LGC itself. o The Court looked at the legislative intent behind RA 9009 and held that when it amended the LGC, the amendment carried with it both the letter and the intent of the law, and such were incorporated in the LGC. o It also sought to justify its position by discussing how the 16 respondent municipalities have proven themselves viable and capable to become component cities. On equal protection: the exemption clauses do not violate the equal protection clause because there in fact exists substantial distinctions between respondent municipalities and other municipalities. o The Court described the P100 million income requirement in RA 9009 as arbitrary. It held that Congress enacted such provision only because it was difficult to comply with. o Moreover, highly urbanized cities only have an income requirement of P50 million, whereas component cities now require P100 million as per RA 9009. o The Court further held that the 16 municipalities are similarly situated with the 33 municipalities whose Cityhood Laws were enacted during the 11th Congress. o In other words, the exemption clauses found in the Cityhood Bills merely serve to correct the injustice caused by the enactment of RA 9009. On the internal revenue allotment (IRA): petitioners claim that they stand to be injured by the operation of the Cityhood Laws because their IRA will be reduced.
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To be sure, the Constitution provides that they are entitled to a just share in the IRA. This just share is not a fixed amount. Petitioners based the reduction on the amounts they would received had the 16 respondent municipalities not been converted to cities. The argument is specious. Petitioners shares actually increased after the enactment of the Cityhood Laws.

APRIL 12, 2011 MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION OF THE FEB. 15, 2011 RESOLUTION: the Cityhood Laws are constitutional. In this Resolution, the Court denied petitioners Motion for Reconsideration with finality. The Court reiterated the following arguments: o The clear legislative intent of Congress in enacting RA 9009 was to exempt those municipalities with cityhood bills pending in Congress from the P100 million income requirement. o RA 9009, and, by necessity, the Local Government Code of 1991, were amended, not by repeal but by way of the express exemptions being embodied in the exemption clauses of the Cityhood Laws. It also elaborated on the arbitrariness of the P100 million income requirement, in that it in effect prioritizes metropolis-located local governments in terms of funding, only because they have more qualifications to become a city. o This is antithetical to what the Constitution and the LGC have nobly envisioned in favor of countryside development and national growth. o It is also to be noted that when Congress chose the figure of P100 million, there was no empirical data to support the imposition of such an amount. On the issue of petitioners reduced IRA, the Court held that it is true that as the number of cities increases, the entitlement of each city decreases. However, it is entirely possible that the actual amount received by a city is more than that received in the previous year. JUNE 28, 2011 MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION OF THE APR. 12, 2011 RESOLUTION : the Cityhood Laws are constitutional. In this resolution, the Court denied petitioners Motion for Reconsideration and granted respondents Motion for Entry of Judgment. This is actually a Second Motion for Reconsideration of the Feb. 15, 2011 Resolution. It basically raises the same arguments as the Motion for Reconsideration denied by the Court in its Resolution of April 12, 2011. There is only one issue appearing in the present Motion not found in its predecessorthat concerning the constitutionality of RA 9009. At any rate, this issue is irrelevant to the case at bar because reference to the law is made only for purposes of discussion. Section 2, Rule 51 of the Rules of Court states that no second motion for reconsideration shall be entertained. This rule however admits of certain exceptions, according to the SCs Internal Rules. o The SC Rules state that any exception to this rule can only be granted in the higher interest of justice by the Court en banc upon a vote of at least two-thirds of its actual membership. o It moreover provides that a second MR can only be entertained before the decision sought to be reconsidered becomes final and executory. The ruling embodied in the Resolution of February 15, 2011 became final when the Court denied the MR of said decision in its resolution of April 12, 2011. Consequently, the denial of the current MR is immediately warranted. Since the Courts decisions have attained finality, entry of judgment is proper. Respondents Motion is granted.

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