Q No. 17 | Political Law | Bar 2023
Congress enacted a law providing for mandatory biometrics voter registration.
The Commission on Elections (COMELEC) then issued resolutions
implementing said law and further providing that registered voters who fail to submit their biometrics for validation by the last day of filing of application for
registration for the May 2025 elections shall be deactivated. Consequently, those who fail to be validated, those without biometrics data, or those who have incomplete biometrics data will be deactivated and shall not be allowed to vote.
A petition for certiorari and prohibition was filed before the Supreme Court
assailing the constitutionality of the law and the COMELEC resolutions, on the
ground that biometrics validation constitutes an additional and substantial
qualification not contemplated by the 1987 Constitution, because non-compliance therewith results in voter deactivation. Will the petition prosper?
Explain briefly.
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SUGGESTED ANSWER
Preliminary |
Essentially, the present petition is a constitutional challenge against the biometrics validation requirement imposed under RA 10367, including COMELEC Resolution Nos. 9721, 9863, and 10013. As non-compliance with the same results in the penalty of deactivation, petitioners posit that it has risen to the level of an unconstitutional substantive requirement in the exercise of the right of suffrage.64
They submit that the statutory requirement of biometric validation is no different from the unconstitutional requirement of literacy and property because mere non-validation already absolutely curtails the exercise of the right of suffrage through deactivation.65 Further, they advance the argument that deactivation is not the disqualification by law contemplated as a valid limitation to the exercise of suffrage under the 1987 Constitution.66
Supreme Court's Ruling |
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As early as the 1936 case of The People of the Philippine Islands v. Corral,67 it has been recognized that
"[t]he right to vote is not a natural right but is a right created by law. Suffrage is a privilege granted by the State to such persons or classes as are most likely to exercise it for the public good.
Section 1, Article V of the 1987 Constitution delineates the current parameters for the exercise of suffrage:
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Section 1. Suffrage may be exercised by all citizens of the Philippines not otherwise disqualified by law, who are at least eighteen years of age, and who shall have resided in the Philippines for at least one year and in the place wherein they propose to vote for at least six months immediately preceding the election. No literacy, property, or other substantive requirement shall be imposed on the exercise of suffrage.
Dissecting the provision, one must meet the following qualifications in order to exercise the right of suffrage:
first, he must be a Filipino citizen; second, he must not be disqualified by law; and third, he must have resided in the Philippines for at least one (1) year and in the place wherein he proposes to vote for at least six (6) months immediately preceding the election.
RE: REGISTRATION | Registration regulates the exercise of the right of suffrage. It is not a qualification for such right.
A "qualification" is loosely defined as "the possession of qualities, properties (such as fitness or capacity) inherently or legally necessary to make one eligible for a position or office, or to perform a public duty or function."76
RELATED
Properly speaking, the concept of a "qualification", at least insofar as the discourse on suffrage is concerned, should be distinguished from the concept of "registration", which is jurisprudentially regarded as only the means by which a person's qualifications to vote is determined.
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In Yra v. Abaño,77 citing Meffert v. Brown,78 it was stated that
"[t]he act of registering is only one step towards voting, and it is not one of the elements that makes the citizen a qualified voter [and] one may be a qualified voter without exercising the right to vote."
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79 In said case, this Court definitively characterized registration as a form of regulation and not as a qualification for the right of suffrage:
Registration regulates the exercise of the right of suffrage. It is not a qualification for such right.80
RE: Registration; a form of regulation |
As a form of regulation, compliance with the registration procedure is dutifully enjoined. Section 115 of the Omnibus Election Code provides:
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"Section 115. Necessity of Registration. - In order that a qualified elector may vote in any election, plebiscite or referendum, he must be registered in the permanent list of voters for the city or municipality in which he resides[.]" (Emphasis supplied)
Thus, although one is deemed to be a "qualified elector," he must nonetheless still comply with the registration procedure in order to vote.
As the deliberations on the 1973 Constitution made clear, registration is a mere procedural requirement which does not fall under the limitation that
"[n]o literacy, property, or other substantive requirement shall be imposed on the exercise of suffrage."
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This was echoed in AKBAYAN-Youth v. COMELEC81 (AKBAYAN-Youth), wherein the Court pronounced that the process of registration is a procedural limitation on the right to vote. Albeit procedural, the right of a citizen to vote nevertheless remains conditioned upon it:
Needless to say, the exercise of the right of suffrage, as in the enjoyment of all other rights, is subject to existing substantive and procedural requirements embodied in our Constitution, statute books and other repositories of law.
Thus, as to the substantive aspect, Section 1, Article V of the Constitution provides:
x x x x
As to the procedural limitation, the right of a citizen to vote is necessarily conditioned upon certain procedural requirements he must undergo: among others, the process of registration. Specifically, a citizen in order to be qualified to exercise his right to vote, in addition to the minimum requirements set by the fundamental charter, is obliged by law to register, at present, under the provisions of Republic Act No. 8189, otherwise known as the Voters Registration Act of 1996. [82]
RE: RATIONALE
RA 8189 primarily governs the process of registration. It defines "registration" as "the act of accomplishing and filing of a sworn application for registration by a qualified voter before the election officer of the city or municipality wherein he resides and including the same in the book of registered voters upon approval by the [ERB]."83
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As stated in Section 2 thereof, RA 8189 was passed in order
"to systematize the present method of registration in order to establish a clean, complete, permanent and updated list of voters."
To complement RA 8189 in light of the advances in modern technology, RA 10367, or the assailed Biometrics Law, was signed into law in February 2013. It built on the policy considerations behind RA 8189 as it institutionalized biometrics validation as part of the registration process:
Section 1. Declaration of Policy. - It is the policy of the State to establish a clean, complete, permanent and updated list of voters through the adoption of biometric technology.
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"Biometrics refers to a quantitative analysis that provides a positive identification of an individual such as voice, photograph, fingerprint, signature, iris, and/or such other identifiable features."84
Sections 3 and 10 of RA 10367 respectively require registered and new voters to submit themselves for biometrics validation.
With these considerations in mind, petitioners' claim that biometrics validation imposed under RA 10367, and implemented under COMELEC Resolution Nos. 9721, 9863, and 10013, must perforce fail. To reiterate, this requirement is not a "qualification" to the exercise of the right of suffrage, but a mere aspect of the registration procedure, of which the State has the right to reasonably regulate.
It was institutionalized conformant to the limitations of the 1987 Constitution and is a mere complement to the existing Voter's Registration Act of 1996. Petitioners would do well to be reminded of this Court's pronouncement in AKBAYAN-Youth, wherein it was held that:
[T]he act of registration is an indispensable precondition to the right of suffrage. For registration is part and parcel of the right to vote and an indispensable element in the election process. Thus, contrary to petitioners' argument, registration cannot and should not be denigrated to the lowly stature of a mere statutory requirement. Proceeding from the significance of registration as a necessary requisite to the right to vote, the State undoubtedly, in the exercise of its inherent police power, may then enact laws to safeguard and regulate the act of voter's registration for the ultimate purpose of conducting honest, orderly and peaceful election, to the incidental yet generally important end, that even pre-election activities could be performed by the duly constituted authorities in a realistic and orderly manner - one which is not indifferent, and so far removed from the pressing order of the day and the prevalent circumstances of the times.88
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Thus, unless it is shown that a registration requirement rises to the level of a literacy, property or other substantive requirement as contemplated by the Framers of the Constitution - that is, one which propagates a socio-economic standard which is bereft of any rational basis to a person's ability to intelligently cast his vote and to further the public good - the same cannot be struck down as unconstitutional, as in this case.
RE: Exercise of legislative power; Question of Policy; Political Question Doctrine |
In the exercise of its legislative power, Congress has a wide latitude of discretion to enact laws, such as RA 10367, to combat electoral fraud which, in this case, was through the establishment of an updated voter registry. In making such choices to achieve its desired result, Congress has necessarily sifted through the policy's wisdom, which this Court has no authority to review, much less reverse.113
Whether RA 10367 was wise or unwise, or was the best means in curtailing electoral fraud is a question that does not present a justiciable issue cognizable by the courts. Indeed, the reason behind the legislature's choice of adopting biometrics registration notwithstanding the experience of foreign countries, the difficulties in its implementation, or its concomitant failure to address equally pressing election problems, is essentially a policy question and, hence, beyond the pale of judicial scrutiny.
WHEREFORE, the petition is DISMISSED due to lack of merit. The temporary restraining order issued by this Court on December 1, 2015 is consequently DISSOLVED.
SO ORDERED.
FOOTNOTES
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