TORRALBA vs. MUNICIPALITY OF SIBAGAT

Facts:

BP 56, creating the Municipality of Sibagat, Province of Agusan del Sur, is being challenged as violative of Section 3 Article XI of the 1973 Constitution. Petitioners are residents and taxpayers of Butuan City, with petitioner, Clementino Torralba, being a member of the Sangguniang Panglunsod of the same City. Respondent municipal officers are the local public officials of the new Municipality. According to the petitioners, the Local Government Code must first be enacted to determine the criteria for the creation, division, merger, abolition, or substantial alteration of the boundary of any province, city, municipality, or barrio; and that since no Local Government Code had as yet been enacted as of the date BP 56 was passed, that statute could not have possibly complied with any criteria when respondent Municipality was created, hence, it is null and void.

Issue: Whether or not BP 56 is invalid. NO

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 LGC. It contains no requirement that the LGC 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 LGC. 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. The officials of the new Municipality have effectively taken their oaths of office and are performing their functions. A de jure entity has thus been created. It is a long-recognized principle that the power to create a municipal corporation is essentially legislative in nature. In the absence of any constitutional limitations, a legislative body may create any corporation it deems essential for the more efficient administration of government. The creation of the new Municipality of Sibagat was a valid exercise of legislative power then vested by the 1973 Constitution in the Interim Batasang Pambansa. There are significant differences, however, in Tan vs Comelec and in this case: in the Tan case, the LGC already existed at the time that the challenged statute was enacted on 3 December1985; not so in the case at bar. Secondly, BP 885 in the Tan case confined the plebiscite to the "proposed new province" to the exclusion of the voters in the remaining areas, in contravention of the Constitutional mandate and of the LGC that the plebiscite should be held "in the unit or units affected." In contrast, BP 56 specifically provides for a plebiscite "in the area or areas affected." Thirdly, in the Tan case, even the requisite area for the creation of a new province was not complied with in BP Blg. 885. No such issue in the creation of the new municipality has been raised here. And lastly, "indecent haste" attended the enactment of BP Blg. 885 and the holding of the plebiscite thereafter in the Tan case; on the other hand, BP 56 creating the Municipality of Sibagat, was enacted in the normal course of legislation, and the plebiscite was held within the period specified in that law.