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ARMM ELECTION POSTPONEMENT VOIDS AUTONOMY SAFEGUARDS

Press Statements

 

ARMM ELECTION POSTPONEMENT

VOIDS AUTONOMY SAFEGUARDS

 

          House Bill No. 4146 postponing the elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and allowing President Aquino to appoint officers-in-charge (OICs) violates all the built-in safeguards on autonomy in the ARMM.

           On interpellation by Minority Leader and Albay Representative Edcel C. Lagman, it was categorically admitted by Cavite Representative Elpidio Barzaga, Chairman of the sponsoring Committee on Suffrage and Electoral Reforms, that the Organic Act constituting ARMM, as amended, protects and preserves self-determination and self-governance in ARMM by providing for:

           1. Periodic and regular elections;

           2. Holdover of incumbent ARMM officials until their successors are elected and qualified;

           3. The power of the President over ARMM is limited to general supervision, which is stipulated both in the 1987 Constitution and the Organic Act;

           4. Any amendment to the Organic Act must be approved by an extraordinary majority of two-thirds vote of all members of the House of Representatives and the Senate voting separately; and

           5. An amendment is effective only when approved by a majority of the votes cast in a plebiscite in the ARMM for such purpose.

           House Bill No. 4146 wantonly disregards the foregoing safeguards because:

           1. Periodic elections are set aside and the electoral will of the Muslims in ARMM is put on hold;

           2. The provision on holdover is supplanted by Presidential appointments of OICs who will be beholden to and influenced by the President as the appointing power;

           3. The power of the President to exercise only general supervision over the ARMM has been unconstitutionally enlarged to include the power to control which is inherent in the authority to appoint OICs; and

           4. The requisite two-thirds vote of Congress and mandatory holding of a plebiscite are negated.

           The fact that previous postponements of ARMM elections were legislated without complying with the requisites to make amendments to the Organic Act effective and legal do not justify nor validate present or subsequent violations.

           Settled is the jurisprudence that previous infractions cannot legalize current or future violations because estoppel does lie against the State.