Supreme Court (SC) Thursday ruled that the Commission on Elections (Comelec) is barred from approving the alliance of the Nacionalista Party (NP) and the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC).

The ruling may have doomed the chances of the NP-NPC coalition to be proclaimed by the Comelec as the dominant minority party, which will entitle the alliance to get the sixth copy of the election returns (ERs) and a server where results can be monitored instantly as they come in.

In a 29-page decision penned by Associate Justice Arturo D. Brion, the High Court granted the petition of the Liberal Party (LP), which is also vying for the poll body’s nod to become the dominant minority party, along with the Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino (PMP) of former President Joseph Estrada.

Comelec records show that LP would be fielding 5,934 candidates in the May 10 elections with Sen.

Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III as the standard-bearer, while NP is fielding 5,565 and NPC 2,373 with Senator Manuel “Manny” Villar as its presidential candidate and NPC’s Sen. Loren Legarda as his running mate.

The SC ruled that the Comelec committed grave abuse of discretion when it allowed the registration of the purported NP-NPC coalition despite the lapse of the deadline for registration of political parties.

It also sustained LP’s opposition to the accreditation of the NP-NPC coalition as a dominant minority party on the ground that it is not duly registered as a party.

The court ruled that the petition for registration of the NP and NPC as a coalition was time-barred, noting that the deadline for the filing of petitions for registration of political parties was Aug. 17, 2009, as provided for under Comelec Resolution 8646, Section 2(5) of Article IX-C of the Constitution, and Rule 32, Section 1 of the Comelec Rules.

The SC noted that the petition for registration of the NP-NPC coalition was filed only last Feb. 12.

“…The NP-NPC’s petition for registration as a coalition is time-barred. Thus, the (Comelec) en banc was wrong in ordering the out-of-time registration of the NP-NPC coalition,” it pointed out.

The court said that with its failure to follow its own rules on deadlines, the Comelec “acted in excess of its jurisdiction.”

“Given the mandatory nature of the deadline, subject only to a systematic change, the en banc acted in excess of its jurisdiction when it granted the registration of NP-NPC as a coalition beyond the deadline the Comelec itself had set; the authority to register political parties under mandatory terms is only up to the deadline,” the court said.

“Effectively, the mandatory deadline is a jurisdictional matter that should have been satisfied and was not. Where conditions that authorize the exercise of a general power are wanting, fatal excess of jurisdiction results,” it added.

The court ruled that the Comelec “gravely abused its discretion when it disregarded its own deadline when it disregarded its own deadline in ruling on the registration of the NP-NPC as a coalition.”

“In so ruling, we emphasize that the matter of party registration raises critical election concerns that should be handled with discretion commensurate with the importance of elections to our democratic system.

“The Comelec should be at its most strict in implementing and complying with the standards and procedures the Constitution and our laws impose,” the court said.

Since the elections are just a few days away, the SC found it necessary to declare the decision “immediately executory.”

It was recalled that last April 12, the Comelec granted the application for registration of the NP-NPC coalition but deferred the question of its dominant minority status to a future resolution.

On April 19, the LP, represented by its president Sen. Mar Roxas and secretary-general Cavite Rep. Joseph Emilio Abaya, questioned the Comelec decision before the High Court through a petition for certiorari with prayer for issuance of a temporary restraining order (TRO).

Thus, on April 20, the SC issued a TRO against the Comelec’s accreditation of the NP-NPC coalition and ordered the poll body to observe the status quo before it issued its April 12 decision.

The benefits of recognition as dominant party includes on-line real time electronic transmission of election results from the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) through the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines; immediate access to official election results; the per diems from the government that watchers of accredited parties enjoy; and the representation at the printing, storage and distribution of ballots that the dominant-party status brings.