Comelec sets December 1 plebiscite on Cabanatuan’s conversion into HUC

CABANATUAN CITY, October 30, 2012–The Commission on Elections has set for December 1 the holding of a plebiscite on the conversion of this city from a component city into a Highly Urbanized City.

          In a resolution issued last week, the Comelec, sitting En Banc, approved the date of the plebiscite to December 1 with only registered voters of the city allowed to participate in the exercise.

    The resolution was signed by Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. and Commissioners Rene Sarmiento, Lucenito Tagle, Armando Velasco, Elias Yusoph and Maria Gracia Cielo Padaca. Commissioner Christian Robert Lim is on official business.

          Copies of the resolution were forwarded to Comelec regional director for Central Luzon Zoilo Perlas Jr., Nueva Ecija provincial election supervisor Panfilo Doctor Jr. and Cabanatuan city election officer Michael Camangeg.

          Earlier, the poll body denied the petition of Nueva Ecija Gov. Aurelio Umali  to allow all qualified voters in the whole province of Nueva Ecija to take part in  a plebiscite that will ratify the proclamation of this city into a HUC.

  In his petition,  Umali  said Novo Ecijanos will be affected once Cabanatuan becomes HUC and thus, it is imperative for them to participate in a plebiscite that would ratify Presidential Proclamation 418 declaring the city as such.

    

    Umali filed a verified motion for reconsideration which was also denied by the poll body.

     

     Velasco has been designated Commissioner-in-charge of the plebiscite.

       

     In fixing the date of the plebiscite, the Comelec approved the recommendations of deputy executive director for operations Bartolome Sinocruz Jr. to use the August 2012 list of voters and adopt the clustering of precincts scheme used in the October 2010 barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections. 

         

          Reacting to the denial of his petition, Umali, a lawyer, said there is already  existing jurisprudence, foremost of which is a July 11,1986 Supreme Court ruling in the case of Tan vs Comelec regarding the creation of a new province of Negros del Norte wherein 2,768.4 square kilometers from the land area of the parent province will be removed to create a new province whose boundaries will be substantially altered.

          

               He mentioned the separate concurring opinion of Chief Justice Claudio Teehankee who stated that to limit the plebiscite to only the areas to be partitioned and seceded from the province is “as absurd and illogical as allowing only the secessionists to vote for the secession that they demanded against the wishes of the majority and to nullify the basic principle of majority rule.”

              

              Another case in point, he said, the October 19,1992 ruling in Padilla Jr. vs Comelec which stated that when the law states that the plebiscite shall be conducted in the political units directly affected, it means that residents of the political entity who would be economically dislocated by the separation of a portion thereof have a right to vote in the said plebiscite.

          

              “Evidently, what is contemplated by the phrase “political units directly affected,” is the plurality of political units which would participate in the plebiscite,” Umali stressed, quoting from the ruling.

          

             Umali said this is not the first time the issue of who should vote in the plebiscite is raised before the Comelec, citing the first case was Antipolo City’s own HUC bid wherein Rizal Gov. Casimiro Ynares III raised the same arguments.

               

              The Law Department of the Comelec, Umali recalled, found basis in the contention of Ynares and officially opined that the conduct of the plebiscite must include the qualified voters of Rizal. (Manny Galvez)