E-08557 Concurring and Dissenting Opinion: Senior Associate Justice Marvic M.V.F. Leonen — Official PDF

Concurring and Dissenting Opinion 4 G.R. No. E-08557 through factual and legal grounds, that its objectives are illegitimate or that the means adopted are arbitrary or unduly oppressive. I thus concur with the majority in that petitioner has not shown Republic Act No. 12326 to violaté™”*: substantive due process.!” This conclusion does not necessarily dispose of the separate question of whether the law infringes the constitutional right of suffrage. It is my view, that the exercise of Congress’s authority to determine the duration of public office must be consistent with the sovereign people’s right to periodically choose their representatives. The absence of a sufficiently established substantive due process violation does not, by itself, establish that the extension of incumbent tenure is consistent with this independent constitutional guarantee. Ii The majority holds that Republic Act No. 12326 does not infringe the right to suffrage because it “does not abolish, suspend, or indefinitely postpone the [barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections].”'® It reasons that the electorate retains a periodic opportunity to choose their representatives because the law fixes the elections on a definite date and provides for their recurrence every five years.!9 I take a different view. Article X, Section 8 of the Constitution expressly authorizes Congress" to determine the term of office of barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan officials. However, this authority does not exist in isolation from other constitutional guarantees. The power to prescribe the duration of said public office must be distinguished from the authority to extend the tenure of incumbent officials and consequently defer the electorate’s opportunity -to vote. With due respect, the majority’s reasoning raises certain risks that warrant closer examination. If every extension of an incumbent’s tenure may be justified automatically as an incident of Congress’s term-setting authority, provided that “such determined period is reasonable and should not be unduly long from the time oftheenactment of the law setting the new term of office””° pursuant to Macalintal v. Senate*! (2025 Macalintal), nothing would prevent Congress from repeatedly extending such tenure through successive term- __ _ 7 See ponencia, p. 18. 8 Id. at 20. 8 Id. 20 Macalinial v. Senate, G.R. Nos. E-02002, E-02010, B-02142, E-02276, November 11, 2025 [Per J. J. Lopez, En Banc] at 30. This pinpoint citation refers to the copy of the Decision uploaded to the Supreme Court website. 21 G.R. Nos. E-02002, E-02010, E-02142, E-02276, November 11, 2025 [Per J. J. Lopez, En Bane).