Determination of majority votes and quorum in the Sangguniang Bayan

Republic of the Philippines Department of the Interior and Local Government Region 13 (Caraga) “Matino, Mahusay at Maaasahan” 1559 Matimco Bldg., Km. 4 Libertad, Butuan City Email Address: official@caraga.dilg.gov.ph Tel. Nos.: (085) 342-2134, 341-1976, 342-2045 Website: www.caraga.dilg.gov.ph DILG 13 Legal Opinion No. 2016-034 October 28, 2016 EDGAR N. PLAZA Member of the Sangguniang Bayan San Francisco, Surigao del Norte Dear SB Member Plaza: This refers to your request for the presence of our Legal Officer to shed light on the determination of majority votes and quorum in the Sangguniang Bayan. This stemmed from perceived seemingly contradicting opinions of this Office and that of our Central Office. In view of equally important matters to be attended to by our personnel, we deemed it more appropriate and convenient to issue our legal opinion on the matter. At the outset, let us emphasize that the legal opinions are not contradicting each other. In fact, they are parts of a whole, so to speak. In DILG Opinion No. 13 s. 2010 dated 09 February 2010 (Please see attached.) signed by the DILG-Undersecretary for Local Government, Hon. Austere A. Panadero, the terms “quorum”, “simple majority”, and “qualified majority” were discussed, to wit: “For the sanggunian to officially transact business, there should be a quorum. A quorum is defined by Section 53 of the Local Government Code of 1991 as referring to the presence of the majority of all the members of the sanggunian who have been duly elected and qualified. Relative thereto, generally, ordinary measures require for its enactment only the approval of a simple majority of the sanggunian members present, there being a quorum. These pertain to the normal transactions of the sanggunian which are approved by the sanggunian through a vote of simple majority of those present. On the other hand, there are certain measures where the Local Government requires for its approval the vote of majority of all members who were duly elected and qualified. This is what we call approval by the qualified majority of the sanggunian. In this case, the approval is to be voted not just by the majority of those present in session there being a quorum but by the majority of all members of the sanggunian duly elected and qualified regardless of whether all of them were present or not in a particular session, there being a quorum.” (Emphasis supplied) There are specific measures which require simple majority or qualified majority.