MANILA, Philippines - Saying that a deadlock vote does not show the sentiment of the majority of the justices, the Supreme Court (SC) on Monday abandoned its final decision declaring 16 cityhood laws unconstitutional.

Instead, in a 35-page decision penned by Associate Justice Presbitero Velasco, the Court en banc, with a vote of 6-4, granted the second motion for reconsideration filed by several municipalities seeking to declare as valid and constitutional Republic Acts 9389, 9390, 9391, 9392, 9393, 9394, 9398, 9404, 9405, 9407, 9408, 9409, 9434, 9435, 9436 and 9491.

The 16 cityhood laws contained a common provision exempting all the 16 municipalities—Baybay (Leyte); Bogo (Cebu); Catbalogan (Samar); Tandag (Surigao del Sur); Borongan (Eastern Samar); Tayabas (Quezon province); Lamitan (Basilan); Tabuk (Kalinga); Bayugan (Agusan del Sur); Batac (Ilocos Norte); Mati (Davao Oriental); Guihulngan (Negros Oriental); Cabadbaran (Agusan del Norte); Carcar (Cebu); El Salvador (Misamis Oriental); and Naga (Cebu) from the P100-million income requirement for conversion of a municipality into a city and directing the Commission on Elections to conduct a plebiscite to determine whether the voters approved of their conversion into cities.

In setting aside its final ruling on the case issued on April 28, the Court explained that the 6-6 vote does not reflect the majority of the members of the idea contemplated in Section 4 (2), Article VIII of the Constitution, which requires all cases involving constitutionality of a treaty, international agreement shall be heard by the SC en banc and decided with the concurrence of a majority of the members who actually took part in the deliberations of the case.

“And be it remembered that the inconclusive 6-6 tie vote reflected in the April 28, 2009, resolution was the last vote on the issue of whether or not the cityhood laws infringe the Constitution. Accordingly, the motions of the respondent local governments, in light of the 6-6 vote, should be deliberated anew until the required concurrence on the issue of the validity or invalidity of the laws in question is, on the merits, secured,” the Court said.

Contrary to its earlier rulings, the Court now held that the cityhood laws do not violate Section 10, Article X of the Constitution, as well as the equal protection clause under Section 1, Article III of the Constitution.

Section 10 provides that “no province, city, municipality or barangay shall 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.

The League of Cities of the Philippines (LCP), in a petition, opposed the cityhood laws, saying that the “wholesale conversion of municipalities into cities” will greatly reduce the cities’ share in the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA), since more cities will partake of the internal-revenue allotment set aside for all cities under Section 285 of the Local Government Code (LGC).

In its November 18, 2008, the Court granted LCP’s petition to declare unconstitutional the cityhood laws and denied the motion for reconsideration filed by the municipalities in a ruling issued on March 31.

Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, who penned the said decision, held that Section 10, Article X requires that Congress shall prescribe all the criteria for the creation of a city in the LGC and not in any other law, such as the cityhood laws.

Furthermore, the Carpio decision stressed the the cityhood laws failed to adhere to the provisions of Section 450 of the LGC, as amended by RA 9009, which increased the annual income requirement for conversion of a municipality into a city from P20 million to P100 million.

Carpio noted that Congress, in enacting RA 9009, did not provide any exemption from the increased income requirement, not even to the respondent municipalities.

However, in its new ruling, the Court pointed out that the authority to create, divide, merge or abolish boundaries of a city is essentially legislative in nature.

Since Congress has the power to create political units, the SC said it “can surely exercise the lesser authority of requiring a set of criteria and standards” for their creation, which need not to be embodied in the LGC.

“In this case, the amendatory RA 9009 upped the already codified income requirement from P20 million to P100 million. At the end of the day, the passage of amendatory laws is no different from the enactment of laws, i.e, the cityhood laws specifically exempting a particular political subdivision from the criteria earlier mentioned. Congress, in enacting the exempting law/s, effectively decreased the already codified indicators,” the Court said.

The SC further noted that the exemption of the 16 municipalities from the P100-million income requirement is reasonable, since their cityhood bills had been pending even before the passage of RA 9009.

“Because of events they had absolutely nothing to do with, a spoiler in the form of RA 9009 supervened. Now, then, to impose on them the much higher income requirement after what they have gone through would appear to be indeed ‘unfair,’” the Court said.

The Court also stressed that the LCP cannot invoke the supposed violation of the equal-protection clause in seeking to declare unconstitutional the cityhood laws, since “no deprivation of property results by virtue of the enactment of the cityhood laws.”

“Indeed, it is presumptuous on the part of the LCP member-cities to already stake a claim on the IRA, as if it were their property, as the IRA is yet to be allocated. For the same reason, the municipalities that are not covered by the uniform-exemption clause in the cityhood laws cannot validly invoke constitutional protection. For, at this point, the conversion of a municipality into a city will only affect its status as a political unit, but not its property as such,” the SC added.

Concurring with the ruling were Associate Justices Teresita Leonardo de Castro, Martin Villarama Jr., Roberto Abad, Lucas Bersamin and Renato Corona.

Those who dissented were Associate Justices Antonio Carpio, Conchita Carpio Morales, Diosdado Peralta and Arturo Brion.

Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno and Associate Justices Mariano del Castillo and Antonio Eduardo Nachura took no part in the deliberations.

It can be recalled that during the 11th Congress, Congress enacted into law 33 bills converting 33 towns into cities. However, Congress did not act on bills converting 24 other municipalities into cities.

Meanwhile, the 12th Congress enacted into law RA 9009, which took effect on June 30, 2001, which amended Section 450 of the Local Government Code by increasing the annual income requirement for conversion of a town into a city from P20 million to P100 million.

The amendment was made to restrain the “mad rush” of municipalities to convert into cities solely to secure a larger share in the IRA  despite the fact that they are incapable of fiscal independence.

After the effectivity of RA 9009, the House of Representatives and the Senate of the 12th Congress adopted Joint Resolution 29, which exempted from the P100-million income requirement the 24 towns whose cityhood bills were not approved in the 11th Congress.

However, only 16 out of the 24 towns heeded the advice of Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr. to file, through their respective sponsors, individual cityhood bills.