The Supreme Court has declared Citizens’ Battle Against Corruption (CIBAC) Party-List Rep. Emmanuel Joel J. Villanueva ineligible to hold office as a member of the House of Representatives.

The Court said set aside the May 14, 2009 decision and August 6, 2009 decision of the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET), dismissing petitioner Milagros E. Amores’s petition for quo warranto questioning the legality of Villanueva’s assumption of office as party-list representative and her subsequent motion for reconsideration. Villanueva was a member of the 13th Congress.

In a 10-page decision penned by Justice Conchita Carpio Morales, the Court finds that private respondent was not qualified to be a nominee of either the youth sector or the overseas Filipino workers and their families sector in the May, 2007 elections.

Amores alleged, among others, that Villanueva was disqualified to be a nominee of the youth sector of CIBAC since the former was already 31 years old or beyond the age limit of 30 pursuant to sec. 9 of RA 7941 (Party-List System Act) at the time of the filing of his certificates of nomination and acceptance.

She further alleged that Villanueva’s change of affiliation from CIBAC’s youth sector to its overseas Filipino workers and their families sector was not effected at least six months prior to the May 14, 2007 elections so as to be qualified to represent the new sector under sec. 15 of RA 7941.

The records show that Villanueva was already more than the required 30 years of age in May 2007 and that he changed his sectoral affiliation only on March 17, 2007 in violation of RA 7941.

The Court also found the HRET to have committed grave abuse of discretion in considering Amores’s quo warranto petition filed out of time.

The SC said that HRET”s counting of the 10-day reglementary period provided in its Rules from the issuance of NBC Resolution No. 07-60 on July 9, 2007 was erroneous.

The Court noted that it had set aside the said NBC Resolution in BANAT v. COMELEC after revisiting the formula for allocation of additional seats to party-list organizations and that in any case, the records do not disclose the exact date of private respondent’s proclamation. It added that alternatively, since petitioner’s challenge goes into private respondent’s qualifications, it may be filed at anytime during his term.