G.R. No. 231643 & G.R. No. 231657, January 15, 2019
CHRISTIAN C. HALILI, Petitioner, vs. COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS, PYRA LUCAS, and CRISOSTOMO GARBO, Respondents. / MARINO P. MORALES, Petitioner, vs. PYRA LUCAS and the COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS, Respondents.

FACTS

Petitioner Marino Morales was elected Mayor of the Municipality of Mabalacat for terms 2007-2010 and 2010-2013. During his second term, R.A. 10164 converted the municipality into a component city via a 2012 plebiscite. Morales was then elected as the first city mayor in the 2013 elections. For the 2016 elections, Morales filed a COC for city mayor. Respondent Pyra Lucas filed a petition for cancellation/disqualification, alleging Morales violated the three-term limit by seeking a fourth consecutive term, arguing the city conversion did not interrupt his service.
The COMELEC First Division granted Lucas’s petition, cancelling Morales’s COC and declaring his votes stray. It ordered the proclamation of the qualified candidate with the next highest votes. The COMELEC En Banc affirmed. Respondent-intervenor Crisostomo Garbo, who garnered the second-highest votes, was ordered proclaimed. Petitioner-intervenor Christian Halili, the elected Vice-Mayor, argued he should succeed pursuant to rules on permanent vacancy. Morales and Halili filed separate petitions before the Supreme Court.

ISSUE

Whether Morales was disqualified under the three-term limit rule, considering the conversion of the Municipality of Mabalacat into Mabalacat City during his second term.

RULING

Yes, Morales was disqualified. The three-term limit rule prohibits an official from being elected for the same position for more than three consecutive terms. The legal logic hinges on the principle of continuity of the same local government unit. The Court ruled that the conversion of a municipality into a city does not constitute an interruption of the official’s consecutive service. The territorial jurisdiction and the electorate remain substantially identical. Morales’s service as municipal mayor and his subsequent service as city mayor pertained to the same local government unit in a successive and unbroken manner. Therefore, his 2013-2016 term as city mayor counted as his third consecutive term, making his 2016 candidacy for a fourth term a violation of the constitutional limit.
Consequently, his COC was correctly cancelled for containing a material misrepresentation regarding his eligibility. As for succession, the Court ruled that the cancellation of Morales’s COC prior to the election, albeit the resolution came after his proclamation, resulted in his not being a candidate at all. Thus, the votes for him were stray. The rule on succession under the Local Government Code applies only when a permanent vacancy occurs in an office occupied by a duly elected official. Here, no such vacancy existed because Morales was never a validly elected candidate. The qualified candidate who obtained the highest number of votes, Crisostomo Garbo, was therefore entitled to proclamation.