FACTS:
Batas Pambansa 56, enacted February 1980, created the
Municipality of Sibagat, Province of Agusan del Sur. Petitioners assail its
validity for being violative of Section 3, Article XI, 1973 Constitution:
Sec. 3. No province, city, municipality, or barrio may be created,
divided, merged, abolished, or its boundary substantially altered, except in
accordance with the criteria established in the Local Government Code, and
subject to the approval by a majority of the votes cast in a plebiscite in the
unit or units affected.
Petitioners argued that the LGC must first be enacted
to determine the criteria for the creation of any province, city, municipality,
or barrio and since no LGC had yet been enacted as of the date BP 56 was
passed, the latter could not have possibly complied with any criteria when the
Municipality was created.
The Local Government Code came into being only on 10
February 1983 so that when BP 56 was enacted, the code was not yet in
existence.
HELD:
The absence of the Local Government Code at the time
of its enactment did not curtail nor was it intended to cripple legislative
competence to create municipal corporations. Section 3, Article XI of the 1973 Constitution
does not proscribe nor prohibit the modification of territorial and
political subdivisions before the enactment of the Local Government Code. It contains
no requirement that the Local Government Code is a condition sine qua non
for the creation of a municipality, in much the same way that the creation of a
new municipality does not preclude the enactment of a Local Government Code.
What the Constitutional provision means is that once said Code is enacted, the
creation, modification or dissolution of local government units should conform
with the criteria thus laid down. In the interregnum before the enactment of
such Code, the legislative power remains plenary except that the creation of
the new local government unit should be approved by the people concerned in a
plebiscite called for the purpose.
The creation of the new Municipality of Sibagat conformed
to said requisite. A plebiscite was conducted and the people of the unit/units
affected endorsed and approved the creation of the new local government unit. In
fact, the conduct of said plebiscite is not questioned herein. The officials of
the new Municipality have effectively taken their oaths of office and are
performing their functions. A dejure entity has thus been created.
The power to create a municipal corporation is
legislative in nature. In the absence
of any constitutional limitation, a legislative body may create any corporation
it deems essential for the more efficient administration of government. The
creation of the new Municipality was a valid exercise of legislative power
vested by the 1973 Constitution in the Interim Batasang Pambansa. (Torralba vs. Municipality of Sibagat, G.R. No. 59180. Jan. 29, 1987 147 SCRA 390)
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