## Facts

- A private proponent filed a petition with the election commission seeking to amend the Constitution by people’s initiative to remove term limits for national and local elective officials.
- The proponent asked the commission to (1) set dates for nationwide signature gathering, (2) order publication of the petition and related orders, and (3) direct election registrars to assist in signature stations and verification, invoking an existing commission resolution on initiative and referendum.
- The commission set the matter for hearing and directed publication; several public officials and organizations appeared as oppositors and intervenors.
- Petitioners filed an original action for prohibition and injunction to stop the commission from acting on the petition and from entertaining any constitutional-initiative petition absent an adequate implementing law.
- The challenge also attacked the adequacy of the national initiative-and-referendum statute as an implementing law for constitutional initiative and the validity of the commission’s resolution insofar as it purported to regulate initiatives to amend the Constitution.

## Issues

1. Whether there was a sufficient implementing law for people’s initiative to amend the Constitution under the constitutional provision requiring Congress to provide for implementation.
2. Whether the election commission could validly regulate constitutional initiative through its resolution absent a sufficient implementing statute.
3. Whether the commission could take cognizance of, and proceed on, the petition seeking to lift term limits through people’s initiative.

## Decision

- The court granted the petition for prohibition.
- The court held that the national initiative-and-referendum statute was incomplete and inadequate as an implementing law for people’s initiative to amend the Constitution, though it remained operative for initiatives and referenda on statutes and local measures.
- The court declared the commission’s resolution void insofar as it prescribed rules for initiative on constitutional amendments.
- The court dismissed the proponent’s petition and permanently enjoined the commission from entertaining or acting upon petitions for initiative to amend the Constitution until Congress enacts a sufficient implementing law.

## Legal Principles

- A constitutional provision recognizing initiative to propose amendments, coupled with an express command that Congress provide for implementation, is non-self-executing as to the procedural system required for its exercise.
- An implementing law for constitutional initiative must contain workable, detailed standards and procedures (including petition requirements and verification mechanics); a statute that is skeletal or ambiguous on constitutional initiative is inadequate for that purpose.
- An election commission’s administrative rulemaking authority cannot supply essential legislative terms and conditions that the Constitution assigns to Congress; regulations issued without a sufficient statutory basis are ultra vires to the extent they attempt to implement constitutional initiative.
- Challenges to the existence and sufficiency of an implementing law, and to an agency’s jurisdiction and rulemaking authority, present justiciable legal questions.

## Conclusion

The court stopped the election commission from proceeding on a proposed constitutional amendment by people’s initiative because Congress had not enacted a sufficient implementing statute; the commission could not cure that deficiency through its own regulations, and constitutional-initiative petitions could not be entertained until a complete law was passed.


Santiago v. Comm’n on Elections, 270 S.C.R.A. 106 (Phil. 1997)