FACTS:

On August 25, 2006, the Lambino Group filed a petition with the COMELEC to hold
plebiscite that will ratify their initiative petition under Section 5(b) and (c)
and Section 7 of RA 6735.

The Lambino Group claims that their petition has the support of 6,327,952
individuals satisfying the requirement that the signatories of the petition
constitute 12% of all registered voters with each legislative district represented
by at least 3% of its registered voters.

The Lambino Group�s initiative petition modifies Sections 1-7 of Article VI and
Sections 1-4 of Article VII of the Constitution and adds Article XVIII entitled
�Transitory Provisions� to it shifting the country�s form of government from
Bicameral-Presidential to Unicameral-Parliamentary.

Days later, the Lambino Group filed an amended petition with the COMELEC. However,
the COMELEC issued its resolution denying due course to the Lambino Groups�s
petition invoking Santiago v. Commission on Elections, which found RA 6735 as
inadequate, in stating that there is no enabling law governing initiative petitions
such as that of the Lambino Group to amend the Constitution.

The Lambino Group is petitioning for the issuance of writs of certiorari and
mandamus to set aside the COMELEC Resolution of August 31, 2006 and to compel the
COMELEC to give due course to their initiative petition. The petitioners and
supporting intervenors hold the view that COMELEC committed grave abuse of
discretion in relying on Santiago.

Opposing intervenors maintain that Santiago is a binding precedent and they also
challenge:

The Lambino Group�s standing to file the petition

The validity of the signature gathering and verification process
The Lambino Group�s compliance with Section 2, Article XVII of the Constitution The
nature of the proposed changes as revisions and not mere amendments.
The Lambino Group�s compliance with RA 6735 limiting initiative petitions to only
one subject.
ISSUES:

1. Whether the Lambino Group�s initiative petition complied with Section 2, Article
XVII of the Constitution � NO.

2. Whether the Court should revisit its ruling on Santiago v. COMELEC which
declared RA 6735 �incomplete, inadequate, or wanting in essential terms and
conditions� to implement the initiative clause proposals to amend the Constitution
� NO

3. Whether the COMELEC committed grave abuse of discretion in denying due course to
the Lambino Group�s petition � NO.

RATIO:

1. The Lambino Group failed to comply with Section 2, Article XVII of the
Constitution.

a. The petition is not directly proposed by the people.

The Lambino Group�s Initiative does comply with the requirement that the amendment
be �directly proposed by the people upon a petition� because the Lambino group
failed to present the full text of the proposed changes to the Constitution to the
signatories and thus it cannot be assumed that the signatories had knowledge of the
full nature and effect of the changes they were supporting. Given that the
Initiative first gathered signatures without showing the full text of the proposed
amendments, it can be seen as a �gigantic fraud on the people.�

While Section 2, Article XVII does not explicitly state that the full text of
proposed amendments to the constitution should be presented to the people before
they sign the petition, as shown on the record of the deliberations of the
Constitutional Commission, it was the intent of the framers that an amendment is
�directly proposed by the people through initiative upon a petition� only if the
people sign on a petition that contains the full text of the proposed amendments.

A signature requirement would be meaningless if the signatories have not first been
informed of the full extent of the proposal he/she is signing, and that the
attachment of the full text proposal would provide the assumption that people would
be informed in their decision whether to sign or not.

Moreover, the signature sheet submitted by the Lambino Group to the Court does not
contain the full text of the proposed changes to the Constitution; instead, the
signature sheet merely asks whether the people approve a shift from a Bicameral-
Presidential to a Unicameral-Parliamentary system of government.

The petitioners alleged that they circulated the draft of their 30 August 2006
amended petition during the signature gathering from February to August 2006,
having the Court believe that they prepared their amended petition almost seven
months earlier in February 2006 and even before they filed their 25 August 2006
petition. While Aumentado gives as evidence ULAP Resolution No. 2006-02, as proof
that the amended petition was circulated six months before the petitions were
filed, ULAP Resolution No. 2006-02 does not authorize petitioner Aumentado to
prepare the petitions, rather, it only states that ULAP �supports the proposals of
the Consultative Commission on Charter Change� which are vastly different from the
proposals of the Lambino Group, thus the ULAP Resolution does not establish that
the Lambino Group circulated the draft of the petition.

There is inconsistency in the story of the Lambino Group as it was first stated
that they circulated both the 25 August 2006 petion and the 30 August 2006 amended
petion; however, Atty. Lambino later changed the story stating that only the
amended petition was circulated.

Even with the assumption that the amended petition was indeed circulated while the
signatures were being gathered it could still be concluded that there would not be
enough copies of the petition for all the signatories to see. As per Atty.
Lambino�s own admission only 100,000 copies could be confirmed to have been printed
as these were printed by Lambino himself. Assuming that each signature sheet, which
had space for 10 signatures, was attached with a copy of the petition, there would
be enough copies for only 1 million people, far from the 6,327,952 signatures
gathered by the Lambino Group.

Having proved that majority of the signatories were not able to see the full text
of the of the proposed changes proposed signing, they could not have known the full
nature and effect of the proposed changes which include three controversial
amendments:

The lifting of term limits on the members of the legislature.

The interim Parliament will continue to function indefinitely until it decides to
call for parliamentary elections thus enabling its members to determine when they
will end their term.
Within 45 days after the proposed changes, the interim Parliament will convene to
propose further amendments to the constitution.
This provision is determined by the Court to be totally unrelated to the stated
objective of the initiative and is considered logrolling.

Logrolling refers to the incorporation of an unrelated subject matter in the same

petition thus creating two propositions within one petition thus putting the people
in a dilemma where since they can only say yes or no to the whole petition they
cannot agree to one proposition without also agreeing to the other.

Logrolling confuses and even deceives the people.

While Atty. Lambino states that this provision is not necessary and should thus be
ignored, the Court does not agree since this provision could effectively invalidate
the whole exercise of the people�s initiative as through this provision the interim
Parliament could, in theory, propose amendments not agreed upon by the signatories
of the initial petition.

b. People�s initiative can only be done for constitutional amendments and not
revisions.

Based on the deliberations of the Constitutional Commission, the framers

intentionally made a distinction between amendments and revisions. It was the
intent, as is written, that only Congress or a constitutional convention can
propose revisions while a people�s initiative is limited only to the proposal of
amendments.
A revision implies a change that alters a basic principle in the constitution while
amendment refers to a change that adds, reduces, or deletes, without altering the
basic principle of the constitution. A change in a single word could already be
considered a revision as long as it overhauls the structure of government and the
ideological basis of the Constitution.

There are two tests to determine whether a change is an amendment or a revision:

Quantitative test � examines the number of provisions, not the degree of change, in
order to test how extensive the proposed changes are.
Qualitative test � based on qualitative effects, asks whether the proposed changes
create far reaching changes in the nature of the basic governmental plan thus
amounting to a revision.
The prosed changes by the Lambino Group significantly alter the basic plan of
government as it would effectively alter the separation of powers through the
abolition of the Office of the President and merging of the legislative and
executive, and alter the system of checks and balances within the legislature
through the abolition of one chamber of Congress.

Under both quantitative and qualitative tests, the Lambino Group�s proposed changes
constitute a revision and not simply an amendment as it �radically alters the
framework of government set forth in the Constitution.

The Court states that since the proposed changes constitute a revision and would
require far-reaching amendments in not just the specified articles and provisions
but also in several others, a deliberative body with recorded proceedings would be
the best vehicle to undertake them, as was intended by the framers and is stated in
the constitution, and not a people�s initiative.

2. There is no need to revisit the Court�s ruling in Santiago since an affirmation

or reversal of the said ruling would not change the outcome of this petition.

Even if it is assumed RA 6735 is valid, contrary to the ruling in Santiago, the

outcome of the Lambino Group�s petition would not change since before referring to
RA 6735 a petition must first comply with Section 2, Article XVII, and as was
previously established, it does not.

The Lambino Group�s petition also does not comply with RA 6735. Indeed, It violates
Section 5(b) of RA 6735 requiring that the signatories, consistitng of 12% of the
total number of registered voters, sign the petition since it has already been
established that the 6 million signatories only signed a signature sheet and not
the petition itself.

It also violates Section 10(a) of RA 6735, which states that no more than 1 subject
can be embraced by a petition, through its provision which mandates the interim
Parliament to propose further amendments which as determined earlier is unrelated
to the subject of a shift from presidential to parliamentary form of government.

3. The COMELEC did not commit a grave of abuse of discretion in dismissing the
Lambino Group�s Initiative petition.

Since the COMELEC merely followed the Court�s ruling in Santiago, the Commission
did not gravely abuse its discretion.

DISSENTING OPINION:

Puno, J.

The doctrine of stare decisis does not bar the examination of Santiago on the
following grounds:

In the Santiago ruling, the court ruled RA 6735 as insufficient but if did not
strike it down as unconstitutional, by doing so the Court �usurped the exclusive
right of legislators to determine how far laws implementing constitutional mandates
should be crafted,� defying the principle that courts cannot dictate on Congress
the style on writing laws and in doing so rendered an intolerable ruling.
The ruling in Santiago involves the sovereignty of the people.
The ruling should not impede the will of the 6.3 million signatories.
RA 6735 is sufficient to implement the people�s initiative.

The intent of the legislators in enacting RA 6735 was the implementation of the
right of the people to propose amendments to the Constitution through direct
action.
The court has the duty to give effect to the intent.
Only implementing details were omitted from RA 6735 and not fundamental principles.
The implementing details of a law can be delegated to the COMELEC.
The proposed changes are amendments and can be undertaken through people�s
initiative
Using the same quantitative test it could be argued that since only 2 out of the 18
articles of the 1987 constitution will be changed and thus the big bulk of the 1987
Constitution would remain unaffected.

Based on the work of Garner, who says that a good constitution is composed of the
constitution of liberty, constitution of government, and constitution of
sovereignty, the proposed changes only affect the constitution of government and
even then the changes do not change the fundamental nature of our state as a
democratic and republican state.
According to Dean Vicente G. Sincon, revision refers to a consideration of the
entire constitution while amendment refers only to particular provisions to be
added to or altered in a constitution. This traditional distinction guided our
people when they effected changes in the 1935 and 1975 Constitutions.
The court should let the voice of the people be heard.

The petition for people�s initiative is but the first step towards the amendment of
the constitution. The petition, if approved, does not constitute already the
amendment of the constitution. It will still require debate and deliberation of the
people, as well as ratification by majority of the people. Every step of the way it
is the people who should decide, the court should not prohibit them from doing so.