SANGGUNIAN NG MGA MAG-AARAL NG MGA PAARALANG LOYOLA NG ATENEO DE MANILA

STUDENT JUDICIAL COURT

BETWEEN JULIA DARYL S. LENARZ First Petitioner KJERRIMYR R. ANDRES Second Petitioner ATENEO DEBATE SOCIETY Third Petitioner AND COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS Respondent

Court: Pepito C.M., Gaite, Pineda, Segismundo, Sta. Isabel, and Villaruel MM. Counsel: Paulina Blanca Robles for Third Petitioner

Issued: February 26, 2015 Citation: 2015 SJC 2

PER CURIAM.

[1] This cause originates from a consolidation of three petitions: the Petition for Review

and Permanent Injunction (“first petition”) (No. 15–03) filed by Julia Daryl S. Lenarz (“First

Petitioner”), the Petition for Review (“second petition”) (No. 15–04) filed by Kjerrimyr R.

Andres (“Second Petitioner”), and the Petition for Injunction (“third petition”) (No. 15–06)

filed by the Ateneo Debate Society (“Third Petitioner”). All three petitions were filed on

February 24, 2015. The Commission on Elections (“Commission”) filed its reply (“first

reply”) (No. 15–05) to the first and second petitions on February 24, 2015. On February 25,

2015, the Third Petitioner filed a revised version of their petition, stating certain errors were

made in the computation of data they presented in the original one. On the same day, the

Commission filed its reply to the third petition (“second reply”) (No. 15–07).

[2] The issue before the Court is the extension of the voting period for the Sanggunian

general elections. Voting took place on February 17, 18, 20, and 23, 2015. On February 23

the Commission extended the voting period until February 24. In summary, all three petitions

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assail that extension. The extension was provided for by Memorandum No. 201527 (“Memo

201527”) issued by the Commission on February 23, 2015. During the same day, the

Commission also issued Memorandum No. 201528 (“Memo 201528”) stating the rationale

for the extension. The Commission states that problems with manpower left some voting

stations unmanned during the original election period causing an adverse effect on voter

turnout.

[3] On February 25, 2015 the Court issued a Temporary Restraining Order and Subpoena

Duces Tecum to the Commission while judgment on the issue of the extension was pending.

The Court ordered the Commission to hold the release of the results of the general elections

and to furnish it with information on the unmanned voting stations.

Summary of the issues

[4] In summary, the First Petitioner argues:

(1) that Memo 201528 failed to substantiate that the unmanned voting stations during

the voting period necessitated an extension in the voting period.

(2) that the extension provided for by Memo 201527 violates the Electoral Code.

(3) that Memo 201527 does not carry the force of law as it was made as a

memorandum rather than as a resolution.

[5] In summary, the Second Petitioner argues:

(1) that the Commission has not been transparent due to the vagueness of Memo

201528 as to the reason why the voting period was extended.

(2) that the Commission may have extended the voting period in response to the

imminent failure to reach the voter quota.

(3) that witnesses have seen members of the Sanggunian and those running for

Sanggunian offices present within the immediate vicinity of the Commission’s

base of operations at the closing of elections on February 23, 2015 at 6:00 p.m.

[6] In summary, the Third Petitioner argues:

(1) that the extension of the voting period violates the Electoral Code.

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(2) that the original voting period was already sufficient time to attain the quota and

that the extension period is unnecessary.

(3) that the extension period is arbitrary and is a grave abuse of discretion that is

beyond the jurisdiction of the Commission.

[7] The Court identifies the following converging points of contention among the three

petitions:

(1) whether the Commission’s action of extending the voting period is constitutional

and within its jurisdiction.

(2) whether the Commission’s rationale of the unmanned voting stations constitute

an acceptable reason to extend the voting period.

[8] The Court also identifies the following separate, distinct issues raised by the

petitioners:

(1) whether the Commission’s action of extending the voting period through a

memorandum instead of a resolution does not make the action carry the force of

law.

(2) whether the Commission’s extension of the voting period was done simply in

response to the apparent imminent failure to reach the voter quota.

(3) whether the sanctity of the ballot has been compromised due to the presence of

non-officers of the Commission within the immediate vicinity of the

Commission’s base of operations after the closing of the elections.

I. RATIONALE OF THE EXTENSION

[9] Both the First and Second Petitioner argue that Memo 201527 violated Art. VIII Sec.

2(b) of the Electoral as it extended the voting period to more than four hours. On the one

hand, the First Petitioner argues that the extension promulgated by Memo 201527 constituted

a period of seven and a half hours, beyond the four hours prescribed by the Electoral Code.

On the other hand, the Third Petitioner cites a certain Art. VIII Sec. 1(b) of the Electoral

Code which it says states: “the ATENEO COMELEC can only extend voting hours for a

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maximum of four (4) hours past the time stated in the resolution.”1 The Court points out that

what is stated by Art. VIII Sec. 1(b) of the Electoral Code, as currently in force, does not

correspond to the quotation provided by the Third Petitioner. Furthermore, nowhere in the

Electoral Code can the provision quoted by the Third Petitioner be found.

[10] Art. VIII Sec. 2 of the Electoral Code states: VIII. Casting of Votes Section 2. Time

(a) The casting of votes shall begin at 9:00 AM and end at 5:00 PM. Voters can vote only during this period. However, the Ateneo COMELEC has the option to extend the period for voting if the need arises. (b) The Ateneo COMELEC can only extend voting hours for a maximum of four (4) hours past the time stated. (c) Election period for voters under the JTA program shall start at 9:00 am of the first day of the Election Period and shall end at 5:00 pm of the last day of the said period (official AISIS date and time).

The Commission states that as paragraph (b) uses the term “hours,” “hours” would pertain to

allowable hours per day whereas “period” would mean the entire voting period allowable.

The Commission argues that since paragraph (b) does not state “voting period” but rather

“voting hours,” then it is within its power to extend the voting period as provided for by

Memo 201527.

[11] Basing from what the First Petitioner and the Commission argue, the Court finds two

main competing interpretations of this particular provision. By stating that the seven and a

half hour extension violated the Electoral Code, the First Petitioner appears to argue that

paragraphs (a) and (b) mean that casting of votes would begin at 9:00 a.m. of the first day of

and end at 5:00 p.m. of the last day of the voting period and that any extensions beyond that

particular point in time, 5:00 p.m., may not exceed four hours, regardless of which day it is

placed under. The Commission, on the other hand, sees the 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. limit as

applying to the number of hours within any particular day in the voting period which would

make the four hour extension limit as also applicable to any and all days within the voting

period.

[12] The Court, for its part, finds the provision as relatively straightforward. The Court

first points out that paragraph (a) and (b) are under a section titled “Time” which, in its view, 1 Third petition (No. 15–06)

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points to the intent of this provision as being concerned with “time.” The Court reads the

particular provision in the context of its plain, everyday meaning which would mean that this

provision covers not the issue of the duration of voting in terms of days but simply the

duration of voting within a particular day. The Court finds that Art. VIII Sec. 2(a) provides

the time where voting can take place for days within the voting period. Furthermore, the

Court finds that paragraph (b) provides that on any particular day in the voting period, the

Commission can extend for a maximum of four hours should the need arise. Therefore the

Court finds that this particular provision in the Electoral Code covers not the duration of the

voting period in terms of days, but rather the duration in terms of hours within a particular

day. The Court thus agrees with the Commission on this particular issue.

[13] The Court recognizes the fact that such an interpretation of Art. VIII Sec. 2 of the

Electoral Code would lead to the deduction that the Electoral Code does not provide

restrictions on the Commission as to the duration of the voting period in terms of days. The

Court points out Art. XV Sec. 3(a) of the Constitution which provides that officers of the

Sanggunian, with the exception of Freshman Officers, “shall be elected by the student body

not earlier than sixty days and not later than thirty days before the end of the school year.”2

The Court finds this as the only provision that expressly restricts the Commission with

respect to the voting period. However, the Court also recognizes the fact that this will lead to

the rather absurd possibility that the Commission can theoretically conduct the voting period

for a length of thirty-one days. It is the opinion of this Court that while such provision of the

Constitution does provide a relatively broad discretion to the Commission, such discretion

should be exercised by the Commission with due diligence and not to the point that such

discretion is abused.

II. ON THE ISSUE OF THE EXTENSION OF THE VOTING PERIOD ITSELF

[14] The Court now considers the petitioners’ arguments on the Commission’s rationale

for extending the voting period. The First Petitioner argues “that the justification presented

by the Commission is not enough to necessitate an extension of the elections.”3 He argues

that the Commission “failed to show how the problems in manpower the Commission had 2 Art. XV Sec. 3(a) of the Constitution. 3 First petition (No. 15–03).

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translated to its need to extend the election”4 He argues that the rationale of unattended

voting stations is not enough reason for the extension and that the original four-day voting

period already provided sufficient time for the student body to vote. Furthermore, the First

Petitioner questions the timing of the extension. He argues that the Commission should have

been aware of the problems of manpower in the voting stations at least during the second or

third day of the election. The Petitioner posits that the timing of the extension, made after the

closing of the voting stations, may be simply an attempt to reach the voter quota.

[15] The Second Petitioner similarly argues that the Commission failed to substantiate its

rationale for the extension of the voting period, pointing out that apparent brevity of the

Commission’s reasoning. The Second Petitioner also questions the timing of the extension,

stating that it might have been done simply in response to the need to reach the voter quota.

[16] The Third Petitioner first states that based on observational research, the average time

it takes to vote is 1.76 minutes. With the Commission allotting seven and a half hours of

voting per day, for four days, and with six voting stations each with three voting booths, the

Commission had a total of 540 hours or 32,400 minutes to accommodate students. The Third

Petitioner then argues that, theoretically, this allows for a maximum of 18,340 students to

vote and only 0.71 days to accommodate the quota of 3,255 votes. The Third Petitioner

further argues that the Commission’s rationale of unmanned voting stations still cannot

substantiate the need to extend the voting period as the original voting period of four days

was already enough time to accommodate the required quota of 3,255 votes.

[17] The Court sees this data presented by the Third Petitioner, in particular the 540-hour

figure, as representing the maximum capacity of the Commission’s operations in handling the

casting of the votes. The Court of course recognizes the multiplicity of factors that could

affect this theoretical, highly optimistic scenario. For the Commission to actually have the

capacity to supervise the elections for a complete 540 hours, it should be operating on a

continuous, uninterrupted basis from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. for every election day, for every

voting station, and for every voting booth in each station. While this data implies that the

Commission could certainly accommodate the student body in a much shorter amount of time

compared to even the original voting period, the Court does not see this as representing 4 First petition (No. 15–03).

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anything near what happens in the actual operations of the Commission. Again, the Court

points out the factors that potentially affects the Commission’s operations (i.e. software erros,

emergency situations, etc.). Beyond the discrete act of operating the computer terminal to

actually cast a vote, there are several other additional but required procedures such as the

identification of the student-voter through his or her ID, the retrieval of the polling officer of

the password for the computer terminal, and the queue itself where students may need to wait

before they are accommodated by a voting booth. All of these add considerable variation on

each voting station’s potential efficiency. Furthermore, the information the Court has

gathered from submissions of the Commission shows that the Commission’s operations

during the elections were far from the scenario the Third Petitioner posits.

[18] On February 25, 2015 the Commission submitted the sign-up record for poll officers

and the attendance sheet for poll officers. The sign-up record represented the number of

hours that the Commission can expect voting stations would be supervised. With voting

stations requiring two poll officers to operate (with the exception of one based on the sign-up

record), the Court counted the number of time slots where no one signed up; these are the

time slots when the voting station can be expected to be unmanned and thus unavailable. The

following table presents the computation. Column 1 shows the dates for the original voting

period while Column 2 shows the number of hours, based on the sign-up record, that the

Commission can expect voting stations to be unmanned on a particular day.

Column

1 Column

2

Row 1 Election Date

No. of Hours

Row 2 Feb. 17 32.0 Row 3 Feb. 18 20.0 Row 4 Feb. 20 20.0 Row 5 Feb. 23 17.0 Row 6 TOTAL 89.0

[19] On the other hand, the attendance report the Commission submitted represented the

actual number of hours voting stations were unmanned. The report was in the form of eight

handwritten sheets consisting of the poll officers’ names, the duration of their shifts, and their

signatures. The Commission has noted that the primary purpose of the attendance record was

to track volunteer hours and thus not all sheets were labeled with the location of the voting

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station, with the exception of one sheet that was identified as being the record for the voting

station at the Rizal Library. That particular sheet is represented in the following table as

Station 2. In lieu of the other voting stations, the Court has simply identified them by

numbers. While the Court finds the report suffering from defects in form and structure that

hampers the ability to clearly and promptly interpret it, the Court nonetheless finds even from

a conservative analysis of the report that there were a considerable number of hours where

voting stations were unmanned. The figures in the table below represent the number of hours

where no attendance record could be found. The cells filled in with “x” represent the number

of hours that the Court already discounted from the computation due to the inability to fully

substantiate the lack of attendance records for them. Column 8, Rows 2 to 5 represent the

total number of hours voting stations were unmanned for a particular day in the original

voting period. Columns 2 to 7, Row 6 represent the total number of hours a particular voting

station was unmanned for the entire duration of the original voting period.

Column

1 Column

2 Column

3 Column

4 Column

5 Column

6 Column

7 Column

8

Row 1 Election Date

Station 1

Station 2

Station 3

Station 4

Station 5

Station 6 TOTAL

Row 2 Feb. 17 6.0 x 3.5 6.5 4.5 x 20.5 Row 3 Feb. 18 4.5 x 3.0 2.5 4.0 x 14.0 Row 4 Feb. 20 1.5 4.0 3.5 4.5 2.5 x 16.0 Row 5 Feb. 23 3.0 4.0 0.5 6.5 0.5 x 14.5 Row 6 TOTAL 15.0 8.0 10.5 20.0 11.5 x 65.0 (Station 2 represents the voting station at the Rizal Library)

[20] From the preceding table, it can be seen that there was at least a total of 65 hours in

the duration of the original voting period that voting stations were unmanned. A reading of

the figures under Columns 2 to 7, Rows 2 to 5 show that at least nine of those represent four

or more hours (these figures are set in italics). This would mean that in the duration of the

original voting period, there were nine instances were a particular voting station in a

particular day was unmanned for half or more than half of the daily allotted time for voting,

basing from an operation period of 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

[21] While the Court acknowledges that the Commission has been rather unaccountable in

their delay to substantiate their rationale for the extension of the voting period, the Court

nonetheless finds merit in the Commission’s rationale of the problem of unmanned voting

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booths. The Court finds the Commission’s action of extending the voting period as a valid

recourse to what it perceives, and what the Court similarly finds, as the substantial problem

of the unmanned voting stations.

III. ON THE ISSUE OF THE VOTER QUOTA AND THE RIGHT TO ABSTAIN

[22] In connection to the assailing the Commission’s rationale for extending the voting

period, the petitioners argue that the extension is somehow motivated by apparent and

imminent failure to reach the voter quota. First of all, the Court finds this as rather

speculative. As pointed out in para. 21, while the Court does acknowledge that the

Commission may not have been as prompt in pointing out the problem of the unmanned

voting stations, it nonetheless finds the Commission’s extension of the voting period as a

valid recourse to such a problem. Furthermore, while the Court recognizes the right of the

student-voter to abstain from an electoral exercise, it does not find merit in the argument that

an extension of the voting period constitutes an encroachment of the student-voter’s right to

not vote at all. The Court emphasizes that, as enshrined in the Constitution, student-voters

certainly have the right to refrain from voting in any electoral exercise if they see it fit. The

Court does not see the extension of the voting period as constituting a direct harm to this

right, especially if such an extension is due to other reasons that the Court finds meritorious.

IV. ON THE ISSUE OF ISSUING A MEMORANDUM INSTEAD OF RESOLUTION

[23] The First Petitioner argues that the Commission’s action does not carry the force of

law as the action was promulgated through a memorandum instead of a resolution. The First

Petitioner cites Art. XIV Sec. 3 of the Constitution which states that the Commission should

promulgate rules and regulations, instructions, and directives by virtue of a resolution.

[24] The Court agrees with the First Petitioner that the Commission’s action of extending

the voting period should have been promulgated by virtue of a resolution and not a

memorandum. The Court agrees that, the two documents differ substantially in meaning and

in purpose. Even if the Court were to consider the possibility of mere semantics between the

use of the word memo instead of resolution, the Court accepts the First Petitioner's argument.

A resolution, in nature, is a course of action directed to promulgating a decision, the context

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of which the decision was made, the justifications for a decision as well as the pertinent legal

provisions. As such, it rules that the memorandum promulgated by the Commission does not

have content adequate enough to be considered a resolution. The issuance of a memorandum

rather than a resolution effectively nullifies the legality of the Commission’s action.

V. ON THE SANCTITY OF THE BALLOT

[25] The Second Petitioner states that “Witnesses have seen other people, including

members of the Sanggunian and those running for Sanggunian offices, in the immediate

vicinity of Comelec base of operations immediately after the closing of elections at 6:00 PM,

February 23, 2015.”5 While the Commission has acknowledged, they have stated that the

concern of the non-officers were about the voter turnout. The Commission assured that the

sanctity of the ballot was not compromised.

[26] The Court finds the Second Petitioner’s statement pointing to “witnesses” that saw

non-officers in the vicinity of the Commission’s base of operations as rather obscure.

Without further substantiation on part of the Second Petitioner as to the specifics of this

particular incident, the Court cannot find merit in this particular argument.

VI. ON THE TEMPORARY RESTRAINING ORDER

[27] The Temporary Restraining Order issued by the Court on February 25, 2015 is hereby

lifted. The Commission may now release the results of the general elections with the

application of this judgment.

VII. SUMMARY OF THE COURT’S JUDGMENT

[28] The Court does not find the Memo 201527 in violation of the Electoral Code or the

Constitution (see para. 13).

[29] The Court finds the Commission’s action of extending the voting period as a valid

recourse to the problem of unmanned voting booths (see para. 21).

5 Second petition (No. 15–04)

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[30] The Court does not find the Commission’s extension of the voting period as harming

the student-voter’s right to absention (see para. 22).

[31] The Court finds a failure of the Commission to qualify their action of extending the

voting period as a “resolution”. The Court hereby declares Memo 201507 null and void. All

votes cast on Feb 24 are hereby invalidated (see para. 24).

[32] The Temporary Restraining Order issued to the Commission on February 25, 2015 is

hereby lifted (see para. 27). The Commission may now release the results of the Sanggunian

general elections excluding the votes cast during the extension period (see paras. 13 and 21).