G.R. No. 192803 , December 10, 2013
Alliance for Rural and Agrarian Reconstruction, Inc. (ARARO) vs. Commission on Elections

FACTS

Petitioner ARARO, a party-list group, participated in the 2010 national elections. It garnered 147,204 votes, ranking 50th. The COMELEC, sitting as the National Board of Canvassers, initially proclaimed 28 party-list organizations as winners for a total of 35 seats, using a specific formula based on the votes cast. ARARO filed an election protest before the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal and, without waiting for its resolution, also filed this Petition for Review on Certiorari before the Supreme Court. ARARO sought to modify the COMELEC’s application of the formula established in the case of BANAT v. COMELEC, specifically regarding the divisor used to compute the percentage of votes garnered by a party-list.
ARARO argued that the divisor should be the total number of votes cast for the party-list system, regardless of whether some votes were cast for groups later disqualified. The COMELEC’s formula, however, subtracted the votes for disqualified parties from the total votes before computing percentages. ARARO also sought to enjoin the COMELEC from proclaiming remaining winners and requested a temporary restraining order. The Court did not issue a TRO, and the COMELEC proceeded with its proclamation of winners using its contested formula.

ISSUE

Whether the COMELEC committed grave abuse of discretion in its application of the BANAT formula for allocating party-list seats, specifically by using a divisor that excludes votes cast for disqualified party-list groups.

RULING

The Supreme Court dismissed the petition as moot and academic because the COMELEC had already proclaimed the winning party-list candidates. However, the Court used the opportunity to provide essential guidance on the proper formula. The Court refined the BANAT formula, ruling that the divisor for computing the percentage of votes garnered by a party-list should be the total number of votes cast for the party-list system, without deducting the votes for disqualified candidates. The legal logic is grounded in the constitutional imperative to avoid disenfranchising voters and to ensure proportional representation. Voters cannot be charged with knowledge of which party-list groups may later be disqualified. Treating votes for such groups as stray would nullify the voters’ will and distort the proportional allocation of seats mandated by the Constitution and Republic Act No. 7941 . Therefore, all validly cast votes must be included in the base for computing the two percent threshold and for the subsequent allocation of additional seats to achieve true proportionality.