Six petitioners from Negros Oriental and Siquijor sought a temporary restraining order (TRO) on the recently enacted law establishing the Negros Island Region (NIR) before the Supreme Court (SC).
Petitioners Rev. Father Hendrix Alar, Lina Eparwa, Wilfredo Magallano, Marcelino Maxino, Jose Imaculado Palmitos, and Grace Sumalpong sought a writ of preliminary injunction and a status quo ante order from the SC on Friday afternoon, August 30, which aims to restore the previous setup of the region before the enactment of the NIR Law.
They claimed that the establishment and revival of NIR was “illegal” due to its lack of public consultations and failure to follow standard legislative processes.
“The matter was also never submitted to the people through a plebiscite as constitutionally required, neither was there any public consultation,” they said in their petition.
The petitioners said there is no NIR in the ordinance appended to the Constitution, considering that Western Visayas and Central Visayas have already been defined in the ordinance, which “has been ratified by the people in a plebiscite.”
“Removing Negros Occidental, Negros Oriental and Siquijor from their respective regions rearranges the regional organizational framework as set up in the ordinance and approved by the people,” the petitioners said.
“The people of Negros Oriental and Siquijor are being compelled to accept a law that materially alters their way of life, unduly burdens their local government units, and forces them to be part of an aggrupation with people they have little historical or cultural affinity with,” they added.
The petitioners said they are left with no other recourse “but to seek urgent relief from the Honorable Court to halt the implementation of this unconstitutional act.”
The revival of NIR will place the people of Negros Oriental and Siquijor at serious advantage, they added.
Republic Act 12000, or the NIR bill, was signed by President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. last June 13, which unifies Negros Occidental, Negros Oriental and Siquijor into one administrative region.
Negros Occidental previously belonged to Western Visayas, while Negros Oriental and Siquijor were under Central Visayas.
The NIR was initially established in 2015 through Executive Order (EO) 183 by former President Benigno Aquino III, but it was abolished by former President Rodrigo Duterte in 2017 through EO 38.
Likely to grant petition
In a radio interview yesterday, political analyst Atty. Jomax Ortiz said the SC is likely to grant the petition, which seeks a TRO on the implementation of NIR.
Ortiz said the petitioners insisted that there was no consultation and the government did not follow the fundamental procedure in passing the NIR bill.
He added that if there is no public discussion conducted before the signing of the bill, the petition may be granted and SC will issue a TRO.
Ortiz said NIR cannot be implemented yet because it has not been included in the 2025 national budget.
NIR’s proposed P3.6 billion budget allocation for three years will be used to build regional offices for government agencies./WDJ