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Under Section 7 of Republic Act 10367, registered voters who do not have themselves validated through biometrics - meaning, a process where their digital signature, fingerprint and photograph are obtained for purposes of identification - will be “deactivated” as a voter. This is the Comelec’s “No Bio, No Boto” rule.
Normally, deactivation of a registered voter is done against those persons convicted of a crime punished by more than one year of imprisonment, rebellion, sedition or any offense against national security and those judicially declared insane or incompetent. Failure to vote for two successive regular elections and loss of citizenship are also grounds. These are very serious reasons.
But, for an already registered voter simply not undergoing biometrics, how could deactivation be justified? Requiring validation via biometric is a modern way to enhance cleanliness in election and registered voters can be required to undergo it. But to provide “deactivation” as punishment for non-compliance is as disproportionate as it can get - an overkill, repulsive to what participatory-democracy is all about. Surely, there must be some way other than deactivation or the threat of it to encourage registered voters to “validate” themselves.
Why should the government deprive the people of their power to vote on the basis merely of failure to have themselves photographed and fingerprinted? What kind of government disenfranchises its very own citizens of a substantial right for failure to comply with a mere procedural requirement that does not have any bearing at all on his/her capacity to vote discerningly as a citizen? The Supreme Court said:
"The right to vote has reference to a constitutional guarantee of the utmost significance. It is a right without which the principle of sovereignty residing in the people becomes nugatory. In the traditional terminology, it is a political right enabling every citizen to participate in the process of government to assure that it derives its power from the consent of the governed. What was so eloquently expressed by Justice Laurel comes to mind:
As long as popular government is an end to be achieved and safeguarded, suffrage, whatever may be the modality and form devised, must continue to be the means by which the great reservoir of power must be emptied into the receptacular agencies wrought by the people through their Constitution in the interest of good government and the common weal. Republicanism, in so far as it implies the adoption of a representative type of government, necessarily points to the enfranchised citizen as a particle of popular sovereignty and as the ultimate source of the established authority."(Pungutan vs. Abubakar GR No. 33541 January 20, 1972, Moya v. Del Fierro, 69 Phil. 199, 204)
Section 1 Article 5 of the 1987 Constitution provides that “suffrage may be exercised by all citizens of the Philippines, not otherwise disqualified by law, who are at least eighteen years of age, and who shall have resided in the Philippines for at least one year and in the place wherein they propose to vote, for at least six months immediately preceding the election. No literacy, property, or other substantive requirement shall be imposed on the exercise of suffrage.”
Textually, the Constitution is clear. It says that “suffrage may be exercised by all citizens.” Reference-point is on the citizen - meaning that the option to vote or not to vote belongs principally to the citizenry and is not a privilege granted by the government. There may be grounds for disqualification provided by law, but considering that the right to vote is central to a country’s political life, any disqualification must be grave such as conviction of crimes involving national security or being adjudged as insane.
Biometric-non-compliance cannot, by any stretch of imagination, rise to the level of or be of the same nature as the said serious offenses or situations. It is not even an offense like rebellion or does not connote a condition such as insanity. Highlighting the importance of the right to vote, former US President Franklin Roosevelt once said that the only one who can deprive the voter of his/her right is the voter himself/herself by choosing not to vote. The option is on the citizen. No government can arbitrarily force an option. That is why sovereignty resides in the people. The government is the government of their true choice.
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