MANILA – Retired Supreme Court (SC) associate justice Dante Tiñga on Monday filed a petition asking the high court to nullify a Taguig City ordinance that increased from eight to 12 the number of elected councilors in the city’s two districts.
Tiñga said since Taguig presently has two council districts. the challenged order would increase the total number of councilors to 24, which is unconstitutional.
The petition said the increase “requires a law and the power to do such exclusively pertains to Congress and there is no law delegating the power to increase the number of city councilor seats to the city council.”
“In the absence of such law, the assailed ordinance is thus unconstitutional,” Tinga said.
Named respondents in the suit were the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for promulgating a resolution that seeks to implement the city ordinance and both chambers of Congress, for ratifying the city ordinance through a concurrent resolution.
“The concurrent resolution does not have the force and effect of a law for these reasons: it did not undergo the prescribed three readings for a measure to become law under the constitution; it did not bear the required signature of the president also under the constitution,” Tiñga said.
On Sept. 16, the Taguig City Council passed Ordinance No. 144 to transfer the voting rights of 10 Embo (Enlisted Men’s Barrio) barangays from Makati City to the two districts of Taguig and Pateros, and increased the number of councilors to 12 per district.
On September 24, the Senate passed Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 23 with the same provisions as the city ordinance.
The following day, the Comelec passed Resolution No. 11069 upholding the city ordinance, while the House of Representatives concurred with the Senate resolution. (PNA)