Bara Lidasan v. COMELEC [27 SCRA 533 October 25, 1967]

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Bara Lidasan v. COMELEC

27 SCRA 533

October 25, 1967

SUBJECT: LAW ON PUBLIC CORPORATION

Topic:  Limitations on Power of Congress to Create Municipalities; One Subject, One Bill Rule

FACTS: Lidasan, a resident and taxpayer of the detached portion of Parang, Cotabato, and a qualified voter for the 1967 elections assails the constitutionality of RA 4790 and petitioned that Comelec's resolutions implementing the same for electoral purposes be nullified. Under RA 4790, 12 barrios in two municipalities in the province of Cotabato are transferred to the province of Lanao del Sur. This brought about a change in the boundaries of the two provinces.

 

Barrios Togaig and Madalum are within the municipality of Buldon in the Province of Cotabato, and that Bayanga, Langkong, Sarakan, Kat-bo, Digakapan, Magabo, Tabangao, Tiongko, Colodan and Kabamakawan are parts and parcel of another municipality, the municipality of Parang, also in the Province of Cotabato and not of Lanao del Sur.

 

Apprised of this development, the Office of the President, recommended to Comelec that the operation of the statute be suspended until "clarified by correcting legislation." COMELEC, by resolution declared that the statute should be implemented unless declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

 

ISSUE: Whether or not RA 4790, which is entitled "An Act Creating the Municipality of Dianaton in the Province of Lanao del Sur", but which includes barrios located in another province — Cotabato is unconstitutional for embracing more than one subject in the title.

 

RULING: YES. Republic Act 4790 is null and void. The title “An Act Creating the Municipality of Dianaton, in the Province of Lanao del Sur” projects the impression that solely the province of Lanao del Sur is affected by the creation of Dianaton. Not the slightest intimation is there that communities in the adjacent province of Cotabato are incorporated in this new Lanao del Sur town. The phrase “in the Province of Lanao del Sur” makes the title misleading and deceptive. For, the known fact is that the legislation has a two-pronged purpose combined in one statute:

(1) it creates the municipality of Dianaton purportedly from twenty-one barrios in the towns of Butig and Balabagan, both in the province of Lanao del Sur; and

(2) it also dismembers two municipalities (12 Barangays) in Cotabato, a province different from Lanao del Sur.

 

The title did not inform the members of the Congress as to the full impact of the law; it did not apprise the people in the towns of Cotabato that were affected by the law, and the province of Cotabato itself that part of their territory is being taken away from their towns and provinces and added to the adjacent Province of Lanao del Sur. These are the pressures which heavily weigh against the constitutionality of Republic Act 4790.

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