Newly appointed Commission on Elections (COMELEC) Chairman Andres Bautista (left) and commissioner Rowena Guanzon face the media at the COMELEC office in Intramuros, Manila on Monday. Bautista was the chairman of the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) prior to his new assignment. (MNS photo)
MANILA (Mabuhay) – The Supreme Court (SC) junked the petition against Commission on Elections’ (Comelec) “No Bio, No Boto” policy.
SC justices voted unanimously in junking Kabataan Party-list’s petition assailing the constitutionality of the policy.
With this ruling, the temporary restraining order earlier issued by the SC on the policy has been lifted.
In its petition, Kabataan Party-list assailed the constitutionality of the “No Bio, No Boto” policy of the poll body, which is said to deprive more than three million registered voters without biometrics of their right to participate in the upcoming 2016 synchronized national and local elections.
In its 32-page petition, Kabataan Party-list said the Comelec’s move to deactivate the registration of voters without biometrics is unconstitutional, and asked the high court to strike down certain provisions of Republic Act No. 10367 or “An Act Providing for Mandatory Biometrics Voter Registration.”
Petitioners also sought the nullification of Comelec Resolution No. 9721, dated June 26, 2013, Resolution No. 9863, dated April 1, 2014, and Resolution No. 10013, all related to deactivation of voter registration records in the May 9, 2016 National and Local Elections.
Petitioners stressed that the said law and Comelec issuances “impose an unconstitutional, additional substantive requirement imposed on the exercise of suffrage, thus violating Section 1, Article V of the 1987 Constitution.”
But the Comelec argued that the policy is anchored on on Republic Act No. 10367, or the Mandatory Biometrics Registration Law, which aims to clean out the voters’ list.
Comelec chairman Andres Bautista had earlier said that the inclusion of supposedly deactivated voters would mean 1,000 people will have to share one poll machine instead of the more manageable 800. (MNS)