ADMIN LAW ELECTIVE LOCAL OFFICIALS - TERM OF OFFICE
Title: Commission on Elections v. Cruz G.R. No. 186616
Date: November 20, 2009
Ponente: Brion, J.
.CONRADO CRUZ, SANTIAGO P. GO, RENATO F. BORBON,
LEVVINO CHING, CARLOS C. FLORENTINO, RUBEN G.
BALLEGA, LOIDA ALCEDO, MARIO M. CAJUCOM,
EMMANUEL M. CALMA, MANUEL A. RAYOS, WILMA L.
CHUA, EUFEMIO S. ALFONSO, JESUS M. LACANILAO,
BONIFACIO N. ALCAPA, JOSE H. SILVERIO, RODRIGO
DEVELLES, NIDA R. PAUNAN, MARIANO B. ESTUYE,
COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS,
JR.,RAFAEL C. AREVALO, ARTURO T. MANABAT, RICARDO
petitioner
O. LIZARONDO, LETICIA C. MATURAN, RODRIGO A.
ALAYAN, LEONILO N. MIRANDA, DESEDERIO O. MONREAL,
FRANCISCO M. BAHIA, NESTOR R. FORONDA, VICENTE B.
QUE, JR.,AURELIO A. BILUAN, DANILO R. GATCHALIAN,
LOURDES R. DEL MUNDO, EMMA O. CALZADO, FELIMON
DE LEON, TANY V. CATACUTAN, AND CONCEPCION P. JAO,
respondents
FACTS
Synchronized Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) Elections, some of the then incumbent officials of several
barangays of Caloocan City challenge the constitutionality of Section 2 of Republic Act (RA) No. 9164 (entitled "An Act
Providing for Synchronized Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections, amending RA No. 7160, as amended,
otherwise known as the Local Government Code of 1991"): IEAacS
o Sec. 2. Term of Office. — The term of office of all barangay and sangguniang kabataan officials after the effectivity
of this Act shall be three (3) years.
No barangay elective official shall serve for more than three (3) consecutive terms in the same position: Provided,
however, That the term of office shall be reckoned from the 1994 barangay elections. Voluntary renunciation of
office for any length of time shall not be considered as an interruption in the continuity of service for the full term
for which the elective official was elected.
Respondents challenge the constitutionality of the above-highlighted proviso, based on the following arguments:
I. The term limit of Barangay officials should be applied prospectively and not retroactively.
II. Implementation of paragraph 2 Section 2 of RA No. 9164 would be a violation of the equal protection of the law.
III. Barangay officials have always been apolitical.
The 1987 Philippine Constitution extended constitutional recognition to barangays under Article X, Section 1 by
specifying barangays as one of the territorial and political subdivisions of the country, supplemented by Section 8 of
the same Article X, which provides:
o SEC. 8. The term of office of elective local officials, except barangay officials, which shall be determined by law,
shall be three years and no such official shall serve for more than three consecutive terms. Voluntary renunciation
of the office for any length of time shall not be considered as an interruption in the continuity of his service for
the full term for which he was elected.
The Constitutional Commission's deliberations on Section 8 show that the authority of Congress to legislate relates
not only to the fixing of the term of office of barangay officials, but also to the application of the three-term limit.
The respondents argued that the term limit, although present in the previous laws, was not in RA No. 7160 when it
amended all previous barangay election laws. Hence, it was re-introduced for the first time by RA No. 9164 (signed
into law on March 19, 2002) and was applied retroactively when it made the term limitation effective from the 1994
barangay elections.
ISSUE/S
Whether or not the assailed proviso is unconstitutional. NO
RATIO
Our own reading shows that no retroactive application was made because the three-term limit has been there all along
as early as the second barangay law (RA No. 6679) after the 1987 Constitution took effect; it was continued under the
LGC and can still be found in the current law. We find this obvious from a reading of the historical development of the
law.
The first law that provided a term limitation for barangay officials was RA No. 6653 (1988);it imposed a two-
consecutive term limit. After only six months, Congress, under RA No. 6679 (1988), changed the two-term limit by
providing for a three-consecutive term limit. This consistent imposition of the term limit gives no hint of any
equivocation in the congressional intent to provide a term limitation. Thereafter, RA No. 7160 — the LGC — followed,
bringing with it the issue of whether it provided, as originally worded, for a three-term limit for barangay officials.
All these inevitably lead to the conclusion that the challenged proviso has been there all along and does not simply
retroact the application of the three-term limit to the barangay elections of 1994. Congress merely integrated the past
statutory changes into a seamless whole by coming up with the challenged proviso. With this conclusion, the
respondents' constitutional challenge to the proviso — based on retroactivity — must fail.
Appreciation of how the constitutional equality provision applies inevitably leads to the conclusion that no basis exists
in the present case for an equal protection challenge. The law can treat barangay officials differently from other local
elective officials because the Constitution itself provides a significant distinction between these elective officials with
respect to length of term and term limitation. The clear distinction, expressed in the Constitution itself, is that while
the Constitution provides for a three-year term and three-term limit for local elective officials, it left the length of term
and the application of the three-term limit or any form of term limitation for determination by Congress through
legislation. Not only does this disparate treatment recognize substantial distinctions, it recognizes as well that the
Constitution itself allows a non-uniform treatment. No equal protection violation can exist under these conditions.
We dealt with a strikingly similar issue in Montesclaros v. Commission on Elections where we ruled that SK membership
— which was claimed as a property right within the meaning of the Constitution — is a mere statutory right conferred
by law. Montesclaros instructively tells us:
o A public office is not a property right. As the Constitution expressly states, a "Public office is a public trust". No
one has a vested right to any public office, much less a vested right to an expectancy of holding a public office. In
Cornejo v. Gabriel, decided in 1920, the Court already ruled:
o Again, for this petition to come under the due process of law prohibition, it would be necessary to consider an
office a "property". It is, however, well settled ...that a public office is not property within the sense of the
constitutional guaranties of due process of law, but is a public trust or agency. ...The basic idea of the government
...is that of a popular representative government, the officers being mere agents and not rulers of the people, one
where no one man or set of men has a proprietary or contractual right to an office, but where every officer accepts
office pursuant to the provisions of the law and holds the office as a trust for the people he represents.
o Petitioners, who apparently desire to hold public office, should realize from the very start that no one has a
proprietary right to public office. While the law makes an SK officer an ex-officio member of a local government
legislative council, the law does not confer on petitioners a proprietary right or even a proprietary expectancy to
sit in local legislative councils. The constitutional principle of a public office as a public trust precludes any
proprietary claim to public office. Even the State policy directing "equal access to opportunities for public service"
cannot bestow on petitioners a proprietary right to SK membership or a proprietary expectancy to ex-officio public
offices.
o Moreover, while the State policy is to encourage the youth's involvement in public affairs, this policy refers to
those who belong to the class of people defined as the youth. Congress has the power to define who are the youth
qualified to join the SK, which itself is a creation of Congress. Those who do not qualify because they are past the
age group defined as the youth cannot insist on being part of the youth. In government service, once an employee
reaches mandatory retirement age, he cannot invoke any property right to cling to his office. In the same manner,
since petitioners are now past the maximum age for membership in the SK, they cannot invoke any property right
to cling to their SK membership.
RULING
WHEREFORE, premises considered, we GRANT the petition and accordingly AFFIRM the constitutionality of the
challenged proviso under Section 2, paragraph 2 of Republic Act No. 9164. Costs against the respondents.
(SANTOS, 2B 2017-2018)
