Bagabuyo v.

COMELEC

Facts:

Republic Act (R.A.) No. 9371.was passed which increased Cagayan de Oro's legislative district from one
to two. For the election of May 2007, Cagayan de Oro's voters would be classified as belonging to either
the first or the second district, depending on their place of residence. The constituents of each district
would elect their own representative to Congress as well as eight members of the Sangguniang
Panglungsod.

Petitioner Rogelio Bagabuyo filed the present petition against the COMELEC. In asking for the
nullification of R.A. No. 9371 and Resolution No. 7837 on constitutional grounds, the petitioner argued
that the COMELEC cannot implement R.A. No. 9371 without providing for the rules, regulations and
guidelines for the conduct of a plebiscite which is indispensable for the division or conversion of a local
government unit.

Issues:

1) Does R.A. No. 9371 merely provide for the legislative reapportionment of Cagayan de Oro City, or
does it involve the division and conversion of a local government unit?

2) Does R.A. No. 9371 violate the equality of representation doctrine?

Ruling:

1. The law merely provides for a legislative reapportionment

Legislative apportionment is defined by Black's Law Dictionary as the determination of the number of
representatives which a State, county or other subdivision may send to a legislative body.17It is the
allocation of seats in a legislative body in proportion to the population; the drawing of voting district
lines so as to equalize population and voting power among the districts.18 Reapportionment, on the
other hand, is the realignment or change in legislative districts brought about by changes in population
and mandated by the constitutional requirement of equality of representation.19

Article VI (entitled Legislative Department) of the 1987 Constitution lays down the rules on legislative
apportionment under its Section 5 which provides:

Sec. 5(1). (1) The House of Representatives shall be composed of not more than two hundred fifty
members unless otherwise fixed by law, who shall be elected from legislative districts apportioned
among the provinces, cities, and the Metropolitan Manila area in accordance with the number of their
respective inhabitants, and on the basis of a uniform and progressive ratio, and those who, as provided
by law, shall be elected through a party-list system of registered national, regional and sectoral parties
or organizations.
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(3) Each legislative district shall comprise, as far as practicable, contiguous, compact, and adjacent
territory. Each city with a population of at least two hundred fifty thousand, or each province, shall have
at least one representative.

(4) Within three years following the return of every census, the Congress shall make a reapportionment
of legislative districts based on the standards provided in this section.

Separately from the legislative districts that legal apportionment or reapportionment speaks of, are the
local government units (historically and generically referred to as "municipal corporations") that the
Constitution itself classified into provinces, cities, municipalities and barangays.20 In its strict and proper
sense, a municipality has been defined as "a body politic and corporate constituted by the incorporation
of the inhabitants of a city or town for the purpose of local government thereof."21 The creation,
division, merger, abolition or alteration of boundary of local government units, i.e., of provinces, cities,
municipalities, and barangays, are covered by the Article on Local Government (Article X). Section 10 of
this Article provides:

No province, city, municipality, or barangay may be created, divided, merged, abolished, or its
boundary substantially altered, except in accordance with the criteria established in the local
government code and subject to approval by a majority of the votes cast in a plebiscite in the
political unit directly affected.

The concern of Art. VI, Sec. 5 is equality of representation while that of Art. X Sec. 10 is the
commencement, the termination, and the modification of local government units' corporate existence
and territorial coverage. A pronounced distinction between Article VI, Section 5 and, Article X, Section
10 is on the requirement of a plebiscite.

The legislative district that Article VI, Section 5 speaks of may, in a sense, be called a political unit
because it is the basis for the election of a member of the House of Representatives and members of the
local legislative body. It is not, however, a political subdivision through which functions of government
are carried out. It can more appropriately be described as a representative unit that may or may not
encompass the whole of a city or a province, but unlike the latter, it is not a corporate unit. Not being a
corporate unit, a district does not act for and in behalf of the people comprising the district; it merely
delineates the areas occupied by the people who will choose a representative in their national affairs.
Unlike a province, which has a governor; a city or a municipality, which has a mayor; and a barangay,
which has a punong barangay, a district does not have its own chief executive. The role of the
congressman that it elects is to ensure that the voice of the people of the district is heard in Congress,
not to oversee the affairs of the legislative district. Not being a corporate unit also signifies that it has no
legal personality that must be created or dissolved and has no capacity to act. Hence, there is no need
for any plebiscite in the creation, dissolution or any other similar action on a legislative district.

The local government units, on the other hand, are political and corporate units. They are the territorial
and political subdivisions of the state.35 They possess legal personality on the authority of the
Constitution and by action of the Legislature. The Constitution defines them as entities that Congress
can, by law, create, divide, abolish, merge; or whose boundaries can be altered based on standards
again established by both the Constitution and the Legislature.36 A local government unit's corporate
existence begins upon the election and qualification of its chief executive and a majority of the members
of its Sanggunian.37

These considerations clearly show the distinctions between a legislative apportionment or

Under these wordings, no division of Cagayan de Oro City as a political and corporate entity takes place
or is mandated. Cagayan de Oro City politically remains a single unit and its administration is not divided
along territorial lines. Its territory remains completely whole and intact; there is only the addition of
another legislative district and the delineation of the city into two districts for purposes of
representation in the House of Representatives. Thus, Article X, Section 10 of the Constitution does not
come into play and no plebiscite is necessary to validly apportion Cagayan de Oro City into two districts.

Admittedly, the legislative reapportionment carries effects beyond the creation of another
congressional district in the city by providing, as reflected in COMELEC Resolution No. 7837, for
additional Sangguniang Panglunsod seats to be voted for along the lines of the congressional
apportionment made. The effect on the Sangguniang Panglunsod, however, is not directly traceable to
R.A. No. 9371 but to another law - R.A. No. 6636.

However, neither does this law have the effect of dividing the City of Cagayan de Oro into two political
and corporate units and territories. Rather than divide the city either territorially or as a corporate
entity, the effect is merely to enhance voter representation by giving each city voter more and greater
say, both in Congress and in the Sangguniang Panglunsod.

2. No.

The petitioner argues that the distribution of the legislative districts is unequal. District 1 has only
93,719 registered voters while District 2 has 127,071. District 1 is composed mostly of
rural barangays while District 2 is composed mostly of urban barangays.43 Thus, R.A. No. 9371 violates
the principle of equality of representation.

A clarification must be made. The law clearly provides that the basis for districting shall be the number
of the inhabitants of a city or a province, not the number of registered voters therein.

The Constitution, however, does not require mathematical exactitude or rigid equality as a standard in
gauging equality of representation. Its requirements are satisfied despite some numerical disparity if the
units are contiguous, compact and adjacent as far as practicable.
The petitioner's contention that there is a resulting inequality in the division of Cagayan de Oro City into
two districts because the barangays in the first district are mostly rural barangays while the second
district is mostly urban, is largely unsubstantiated. But even if backed up by proper proof, we cannot
question the division on the basis of the difference in the barangays' levels of development or
developmental focus as these are not part of the constitutional standards for legislative apportionment
or reapportionment. What the components of the two districts of Cagayan de Oro would be is a matter
for the lawmakers to determine as a matter of policy. In the absence of any grave abuse of discretion or
violation of the established legal parameters, this Court cannot intrude into the wisdom of these
policies.47