TABUK CITY, Kalinga – Officials of this city hailed the recent ruling of the Supreme Court (SC) swinging the pendulum to the other side of the cityhood case this time in favor of the 16 new cities.
Informing that decision which granted the motion for reconsideration (MR) of the 16 new cities was not yet final and does not preclude the League of Cities of the Philippines (LCP) from filing its own MR, Mayor Ferdinand Tubban had expressed his happiness over the decision even as he said that it was in accordance with Divine Will.
“But the case will still undergo a process. We need to pray more so that in the end, our status as a city will be upheld with finality. We thank God, the justices and the mayors of the other new cities especially Mayor Carmen Cari of Baybay City, Leyte. Even in the aftermath of the second reversal of the decision of the Supreme Court wherein our cityhood were declared unconstitutional anew, she encouraged us not to give up,” Tubban said.
Tubban said that as a three-term congressman of the fifth district of Leyte, Cari was one of the staunchest pushers of the cityhood bills.
For his part, City Legal Officer Edward Kiser has proclaimed the decision as a “triumph of justice and of the affected people.”
“We have really complied with the requirements of the law in the conversion of a municipality into a city,” Kiser said.
Kiser said that what is left to be done after the most recent ruling which reversed for the third time the original decision of the court declaring the cityhood laws of the 16 new cities unconstitutional is for the restoration of the city internal revenue allotment (IRA) of the beleaguered cities.
“In fact, another appurtenant issue is what happens to the IRA of the city which was withheld since June 2009. That’s a legal question which should be addressed in the future,” Kiser said.
Since June 2009, the 16 new cities have been receiving their municipal IRAs.
According to the papers, the SC, in a 7-6 vote with two abstentions, has reversed itself anew as it declared constitutional the laws that converted the 16 towns into cities.
The decision that was handed down by the SC last Tuesday was the fourth ruling issued since 2008 when the issue on the legality of the 16 cityhood laws was challenged by the LCP.
On November 18, 2008, through a vote of 6-5 and in a decision written by Justice Antonio Carpio, the court declared unconstitutional the 16 cityhood laws for violation of Section 6 and 10, Article X of the Constitution that specifies equalities in the creation of new cities. It said the 16 towns did not meet the criteria of a P100 million income to qualify them into cities.
On Dec. 21, 2009, the first decision was reversed with a ruling that the laws converting the 16 municipalities into cities are constitutional. The decision which prevailed through a 6-4 vote was written by Justice Presbitero Velasco Jr.
The 2009 ruling declared that all cityhood laws, enacted after the effectivity of RA 9009 which increased the income requirement for cityhood from P20 million to P100 million in Section 450 of the Local Government Code (LGC), explicitly exempt the 16 municipalities from the said increased income requirement.
The third ruling on the issue was handed down by the SC on Aug. 24, 2010 in a 7-6 vote with two justices inhibiting themselves from the case. The ruling granted the motions for reconsideration filed by the LCP and its member cities as it reinstated the Nov. 18, 2008 decision declaring unconstitutional the 16 cityhood laws.
Also written by Justice Carpio, the third ruling stated that the 16 cityhood laws violate Section 10, Article X of the Constitution which expressly provides that “no city…shall be created… except in accordance with the criteria established in the Local Government Code.” It stressed that while all the criteria for the creation of cities must be embodied exclusively in the Local Government Code, the assailed cityhood laws provided an exemption from the increased income requirement for the creation of cities under Sec. 450 of the LGC.
The 16 new cities appealed the decision but suffered an initial setback when their motion for oral argument was denied by the SC.
Justice Lucas Bersamin was the writer of the new ruling on the issue. Chief Justice Renato Corona and Justices Presbitero Velasco Jr., Teresita Leonardo de Castro, Roberto Abad, Jose Portugal Perez, and Jose Castral Mendoza concurred with the ruling.
The dissenters were Justices Carpio, Conchita Carpio Morales, Arturo Brion, Diosdado Peralta, Martin Villarama Jr., and Maria Lourdes Sereno.
Justices Antonio Eduardo Nachura and Mariano Del Castillo inhibited themselves.**
Informing that decision which granted the motion for reconsideration (MR) of the 16 new cities was not yet final and does not preclude the League of Cities of the Philippines (LCP) from filing its own MR, Mayor Ferdinand Tubban had expressed his happiness over the decision even as he said that it was in accordance with Divine Will.
“But the case will still undergo a process. We need to pray more so that in the end, our status as a city will be upheld with finality. We thank God, the justices and the mayors of the other new cities especially Mayor Carmen Cari of Baybay City, Leyte. Even in the aftermath of the second reversal of the decision of the Supreme Court wherein our cityhood were declared unconstitutional anew, she encouraged us not to give up,” Tubban said.
Tubban said that as a three-term congressman of the fifth district of Leyte, Cari was one of the staunchest pushers of the cityhood bills.
For his part, City Legal Officer Edward Kiser has proclaimed the decision as a “triumph of justice and of the affected people.”
“We have really complied with the requirements of the law in the conversion of a municipality into a city,” Kiser said.
Kiser said that what is left to be done after the most recent ruling which reversed for the third time the original decision of the court declaring the cityhood laws of the 16 new cities unconstitutional is for the restoration of the city internal revenue allotment (IRA) of the beleaguered cities.
“In fact, another appurtenant issue is what happens to the IRA of the city which was withheld since June 2009. That’s a legal question which should be addressed in the future,” Kiser said.
Since June 2009, the 16 new cities have been receiving their municipal IRAs.
According to the papers, the SC, in a 7-6 vote with two abstentions, has reversed itself anew as it declared constitutional the laws that converted the 16 towns into cities.
The decision that was handed down by the SC last Tuesday was the fourth ruling issued since 2008 when the issue on the legality of the 16 cityhood laws was challenged by the LCP.
On November 18, 2008, through a vote of 6-5 and in a decision written by Justice Antonio Carpio, the court declared unconstitutional the 16 cityhood laws for violation of Section 6 and 10, Article X of the Constitution that specifies equalities in the creation of new cities. It said the 16 towns did not meet the criteria of a P100 million income to qualify them into cities.
On Dec. 21, 2009, the first decision was reversed with a ruling that the laws converting the 16 municipalities into cities are constitutional. The decision which prevailed through a 6-4 vote was written by Justice Presbitero Velasco Jr.
The 2009 ruling declared that all cityhood laws, enacted after the effectivity of RA 9009 which increased the income requirement for cityhood from P20 million to P100 million in Section 450 of the Local Government Code (LGC), explicitly exempt the 16 municipalities from the said increased income requirement.
The third ruling on the issue was handed down by the SC on Aug. 24, 2010 in a 7-6 vote with two justices inhibiting themselves from the case. The ruling granted the motions for reconsideration filed by the LCP and its member cities as it reinstated the Nov. 18, 2008 decision declaring unconstitutional the 16 cityhood laws.
Also written by Justice Carpio, the third ruling stated that the 16 cityhood laws violate Section 10, Article X of the Constitution which expressly provides that “no city…shall be created… except in accordance with the criteria established in the Local Government Code.” It stressed that while all the criteria for the creation of cities must be embodied exclusively in the Local Government Code, the assailed cityhood laws provided an exemption from the increased income requirement for the creation of cities under Sec. 450 of the LGC.
The 16 new cities appealed the decision but suffered an initial setback when their motion for oral argument was denied by the SC.
Justice Lucas Bersamin was the writer of the new ruling on the issue. Chief Justice Renato Corona and Justices Presbitero Velasco Jr., Teresita Leonardo de Castro, Roberto Abad, Jose Portugal Perez, and Jose Castral Mendoza concurred with the ruling.
The dissenters were Justices Carpio, Conchita Carpio Morales, Arturo Brion, Diosdado Peralta, Martin Villarama Jr., and Maria Lourdes Sereno.
Justices Antonio Eduardo Nachura and Mariano Del Castillo inhibited themselves.**
