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

Concurring and Dissenting Opinion 5 G.R. No. E-08557 setting legislation, delaying the electorate’s opportunity to choose their representatives.. boi a! Such an interpretation risks weakening the independent constitutional guarantee of suffrage in two respects. wo Serllegs First, it renders the conduct of elections and the exercise of right of suffrage contingent upon legislative discretion. The electorate’s opportunity and ability to remove or replace its representatives becomes dependent on Congress’s repeated determination of when elections may be held. Incumbent officials may consequently remain in office beyond the period for which they were elected, without obtaining a renewed electoral mandate. Rather than operating as an independent limitation on legislative’ authority, the right of suffrage would only be exercised at intervals that Congress may repeatedly alter, provided that each extension satisfies the reasonable. standard, under 2025 Macalintal. Yet, neither the existence of legislative authority nor the reasonableness of a newly prescribed term dispenses with the need to examine whether an extension of an incumbent’s tenure unduly impairs another constitutional guarantee, such as the electorate’s right to vote. Moreover, the reasonableness of each successive extension, viewed in isolation, does not necessarily establish the constitutionality’ of their cumulative effect upon the-electorate’s right of suffrage. While the majority considers a regular election one that is established by the prevailing statute as having a definite date and interval for its conduct,. I respectfully submit that such statutory certainty does not resolve the constitutional concerns arising from repeated postponements. Although each successive enactment may prescribe a definite electoral schedule, the cumulative effect of these enactments may nevertheless unduly defer the electorate’s opportunity to exercise its right of suffrage. us ' ch Second, it risks allowing Congress to circumvent constitutional scrutiny of election postponements merely by characterizing legislation as a term- setting measure. A law expressly postponing an election and extending an incumbent’s tenure have the same consequence: Both delay the electorate’s - exercise of suffrage. Their constitutionality cannot depend solely upon their characterization. What the Constitution prohibits directly cannot be permitted indirectly. v4 The constitutionality of term-setting legislation cannot be determined solely by asking whether Congress possesses the authority to prescribe the