Tolentino vs.

COMELEC
41 SCRA 702

Facts: The 1971 Constitutional Convention passed Organic Resolution No. 1, “A

Resolution Amending Section One of Article V of the Constitution of the Philippines So
As to Lower the Voting Age to 18.” The validity of this resolution was challenged on the
ground that (1) only Congress can call a plebiscite for the ratification of amendments
and (2) that the amendment could not be presented to the people for ratification
separately from all the other amendments to be drafted and proposed by the
Convention.

Issue: WON Organic Resolution No. 1 is constitutional.

Ruling: The SC said that they are certain no one can deny that in order that a plebiscite
for the ratification of an amendment to the Constitution may be validly held, it must
provide the voter not only sufficient time but ample basis for an intelligent appraisal of
the nature of the amendment per se as well as its relation to the other parts of the
Constitution with which it has to form a harmonious whole. In the context of the present
state of things, where the Convention has hardly started considering the merits of
hundreds, if not thousands, of proposals to amend the existing Constitution, to present
to the people any single proposal or a few of them cannot comply with this requirement.
We are of the opinion that the present Constitution does not contemplate in Section 1 of
Article XV a plebiscite or “election” wherein the people are in the dark as to frame of
reference they can base their judgement on. We reject the rationalization that the
present Constitution is a possible frame of reference, for the simple reason that
intervenors themselves are stating that the sole purpose of the proposed amendment is
to enable the eighteen years old to take part in the election for the ratification of the
Constitution to be drafted by the Convention. In brief, under the proposed plebiscite,
there can be, in the language of Justice Sanchez, speaking for the six members of the
Court in Gonzales, supra, “no proper submission.”