Kida vs.

Senate (Self Executing and Non-Self Executing Provisions)

Facts:
On August 1, 1989, Congress acted through RA No. 6734 entitled "An Act Providing for an Organic
Act for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao." A plebiscite was held on November 6, 1990 as
required by Section 18(2), Article X of RA No. 6734, thus fully establishing the Autonomous Region of
Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). RA No. 6734 scheduled the first regular elections for the regional officials of
the ARMM.
On March 31, 2001, RA 9054 was enacted and amended the RA 6743. The law provided further
refinement in the basic ARMM structure and reset the regular elections for the ARMM regional officials
to the second Monday of September 2001.
On June 22, 2001 Congress passed the RA 9140, which reset the first regular election to November
26, 2001. Subsequently the Congress passed the RA 9333 to reset the ARMM regional elections to the 2nd
Monday of August 2005, and on the same date every 3 years thereafter.
On June 26, 2011 Republic Act 10153 was enacted and resetting the ARMM election to May 2013
elections to coincide with the regular national and local elections of the country.
Pursuant to RA 9333 the next election of ARMM should be August 2011. COMELEC had begun
preparations for these elections and had accepted certificates of candidacies for the various regional
offices to be elected.

Issue: Whether or not ARMMs Election should be synchronized with National and Local Elections under
RA 10153?

Held:
The Constitution does not expressly state that Congress has to synchronize national and local
elections, the clear intent towards this objective can be gleaned from the Transitory Provisions (Article
XVIII) of the Constitution, which show the extent to which the Constitutional Commission, by deliberately
making adjustments to the terms of the incumbent officials, sought to attain synchronization of elections.
ARMMs Election is a regional election. Autonomous regions are considered one of the forms of
local governments, as evident from Article X of the Constitution entitled Local Government. Under this
Article Autonomous regions are established and discussed in Sections 15 to 21. Also it was stated in Sec.
1, Article X of the Constitution, that an autonomous region is considered a form of local government.
Therefore ARMMs Election should be synchronized.