THE SUPREME Court yesterday stopped the Commission on Elections (Comelec) from immediately deactivating the registration of voters without biometric information, effectively suspending the poll body’s much touted “no bio, no boto” policy five months before Election Day.
The high court issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) “effective immediately and continuing until further orders from the court.”
The court issued the TRO in response to a petition filed by the youth party-list group Kabataan which questioned the constitutionality of the Comelec policy.
In its resolution, the high court ordered the Comelec and the Office of the Solicitor General to comment on the certiorari and prohibition plea within 10 days from notice, said court spokesperson Theodore Te in a press briefing.
Whether or not registered voters who failed to submit biometric data at the Comelec may actually vote on the May 2016 elections will depend on the high court’s ruling on the merits of the case.
The Kabataan party-list group brought the case to the high court, saying the policy would disenfranchise more than three million registered voters who lack biometric data at the Comelec.
The commission had said this many, or 5.86 percent of the total 52.239 million registered voters, still had no biometric data. The poll body ended the period for voter registration, including submission of biometric data, on Oct. 31, a year and a half since the enlistment began.
Unconstitutional
In its petition, the youth group said the biometrics requirement was “unconstitutional,” as Article V, Section 1 of the 1987 Constitution provided that “… no literacy, property or other substantive requirement shall be imposed on the exercise of suffrage.”
The group welcomed the issuance of the TRO, saying in a statement it would give “immediate relief” to the three million voters “who stand to illegally lose their right of suffrage… without the benefit of due process due to this patently unconstitutional scheme.”
The youth group has a separate petition questioning the Oct. 31 voter registration deadline. In a plea filed just two days before the deadline, Kabataan said the deadline should be extended to Jan. 8, 2016, as the law provides that registration should stop only 120 days or four months before a regular election, or 90 days or three months before a special election.