Lawyer to Comelec: Stop receiving signature sheets, they’ve no value

Atty. Romulo Macalintal. INQUIRER.net file photo

MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) should stop receiving signature sheets allegedly in support of a “people’s initiative” to amend the 1987 Constitution, an election law expert said Monday, calling it a “waste of time and paper.

Atty. Romulo Macalintal, in a statement, said the signature sheets have no evidentiary value.

“It (signature sheets) cannot be the basis of an initiative.  It gives a wrong impression to the people that an initiative to amend the Charter has already been properly or validly initiated,” Macalintal said.

Macalintal cited Section 2, Article 17 of the 1987 Constitution, which provides that “any amendment of its provision by the people through initiative must be “upon a petition.”

Also, in the 2006 case of Lambino vs Comelec, the Supreme Court ruled that the people must first read the petition before they sign it.

However, in this case, Macalintal said the Comelec itself, through Chairman George Erwin Garcia, admitted that no petition had yet been filed.

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“With  Chairman Garcia’s admission that no petition has yet been filed with the poll body…Without a formal petition having been filed, it is premature to submit these signature sheets to the Comelec, and there is likewise no valid reason for the Comelec to receive them.  In other words, the signatures cannot be filed ahead of the petition,” Macalintal said.

Macalintal said the only valid act that Comelec could undertake is to issue a “certification as to the number of registered voters in each legislative district which the petitioner/s shall attach to their petition” to conduct an initiative.