Lonzanida v.

Commission on Elections[7]
presented the question of whether the disqualification on
the basis of the three-term limit applies if the election of
the public official (to be strictly accurate, the
proclamation as winner of the public official) for his
supposedly third term had been declared invalid in a
final and executory judgment. We ruled that the two
requisites for the application of the disqualification (viz.,
1. that the official concerned has been elected for three
consecutive terms in the same local government post;
and 2. that he has fully served three consecutive terms)
were not present. In so ruling, we said:

The clear intent of the framers of the

constitution to bar any attempt to circumvent the
three-term limit by a voluntary renunciation of
office and at the same time respect the people’s
choice and grant their elected official full service of
a term is evident in this provision. Voluntary
renunciation of a term does not cancel the
renounced term in the computation of the three term
limit; conversely, involuntary severance from
office for any length of time short of the full term
provided by law amounts to an interruption of
continuity of service. The petitioner vacated his
post a few months before the next mayoral
elections, not by voluntary renunciation but in
compliance with the legal process of writ of
execution issued by the COMELEC to that
effect. Such involuntary severance from office is an
interruption of continuity of service and thus, the
petitioner did not fully serve the 1995-1998 mayoral
 term. [Emphasis supplied]

Our intended meaning under this ruling is clear: it is

severance from office, or to be exact, loss of title, that
renders the three-term limit rule inapplicable.

Ong v. Alegre[8] and Rivera v. COMELEC,[9]

like Lonzanida, also involved the issue of whether there
had been a completed term for purposes of the three-
term limit disqualification. These cases, however,
presented an interesting twist, as their final judgments in
the electoral contest came after the term of the contested
office had expired so that the elective officials in these
cases were never effectively unseated.

Despite the ruling that Ong was never entitled to

the office (and thus was never validly elected), the Court
concluded that there was nevertheless an election and
service for a full term in contemplation of the three-term
rule based on the following premises: (1) the final
decision that the third-termer lost the election was
without practical and legal use and value, having been
promulgated after the term of the contested office had
expired; and (2) the official assumed and continuously
exercised the functions of the office from the start to the
end of the term. The Court noted in Ong the absurdity
and the deleterious effect of a contrary view – that the
official (referring to the winner in the election protest)
would, under the three-term rule, be considered to
have served a term by virtue of a veritably meaningless
electoral protest ruling, when another actually served the
term pursuant to a proclamation made in due course
after an election. This factual variation led the Court to
rule differently from Lonzanida.

In the same vein, the Court in Rivera rejected the

theory that the official who finally lost the election
contest was merely a “caretaker of the office” or a mere
“de facto officer.” The Court obeserved that Section 8,
Article X of the Constitution is violated and its purpose
defeated when an official fully served in the same
position for three consecutive terms. Whether as
“caretaker” or “de facto” officer, he exercised the
powers and enjoyed the perquisites of the office that
enabled him “to stay on indefinitely.”

Ong and Rivera are important rulings for purposes

of the three-term limitation because of what they
directly imply. Although the election requisite was not
actually present, the Court still gave full effect to the
three-term limitation because of the constitutional intent
to strictly limit elective officials to service for three
terms. By so ruling, the Court signalled how zealously
it guards the three-term limit rule. Effectively, these
cases teach us to strictly interpret the term limitation
rule in favor of limitation rather than its exception.

Adormeo v. Commission on Elections[10] dealt

with the effect of recall on the three-term limit
disqualification. The case presented the question of
whether the disqualification applies if the official lost in
the regular election for the supposed third term, but was
elected in a recall election covering that term. The
Court upheld the COMELEC’s ruling that the official
was not elected for three (3) consecutive terms. The
Court reasoned out that for nearly two years, the official
was a private citizen; hence, the continuity of his
mayorship was disrupted by his defeat in the election for
the third term.

Socrates v. Commission on Elections[11] also

tackled recall vis-à-vis the three-term limit
disqualification. Edward Hagedorn served three full
terms as mayor. As he was disqualified to run for a
fourth term, he did not participate in the election that
immediately followed his third term. In this election,
the petitioner Victorino Dennis M. Socrates was elected
mayor. Less than 1 ½ years after Mayor Socrates
assumed the functions of the office, recall proceedings
were initiated against him, leading to the call for a recall
election. Hagedorn filed his certificate of candidacy for
mayor in the recall election, but Socrates sought his
disqualification on the ground that he (Hagedorn) had
fully served three terms prior to the recall election and
was therefore disqualified to run because of the three-
term limit rule. We decided in Hagedorn’s favor, ruling
that:
 After three consecutive terms, an elective
local official cannot seek immediate reelection for a
fourth term. The prohibited election refers to the
next regular election for the same office following
the end of the third consecutive term. Any
subsequent election, like a recall election, is no
longer covered by the prohibition for two
reasons. First, a subsequent election like a recall
election is no longer an immediate reelection
after three consecutive terms. Second, the
intervening period constitutes an involuntary
interruption in the continuity of service.

When the framers of the Constitution

debated on the term limit of elective local officials,
the question asked was whether there would be no
further election after three terms, or whether there
would be “no immediate reelection” after three
terms.
x x x x
Clearly, what the Constitution prohibits is an
immediate reelection for a fourth term following
three consecutive terms. The Constitution,
however, does not prohibit a subsequent reelection
for a fourth term as long as the reelection is not
immediately after the end of the third consecutive
term. A recall election mid-way in the term
following the third consecutive term is a subsequent
election but not an immediate reelection after the
third term.

Neither does the Constitution prohibit one

barred from seeking immediate reelection to run in
 any other subsequent election involving the same
term of office. What the Constitution prohibits is a
consecutive fourth term.[12]

Latasa v. Commission on Elections[13] presented

the novel question of whether a municipal mayor who
had fully served for three consecutive terms could run as
city mayor in light of the intervening conversion of the
municipality into a city. During the third term, the
municipality was converted into a city; the cityhood
charter provided that the elective officials of the
municipality shall, in a holdover capacity, continue to
exercise their powers and functions until elections were
held for the new city officials. The Court ruled that the
conversion of the municipality into a city did not
convert the office of the municipal mayor into a local
government post different from the office of the city
mayor – the territorial jurisdiction of the city was the
same as that of the municipality; the inhabitants were
the same group of voters who elected the municipal
mayor for 3 consecutive terms; and they were the same
inhabitants over whom the municipal mayor held power
and authority as their chief executive for nine
years. The Court said:
This Court reiterates that the framers of
the Constitution specifically included an
exception to the people’s freedom to choose those
who will govern them in order to avoid the evil of
a single person accumulating excessive power
 over a particular territorial jurisdiction as a
result of a prolonged stay in the same office. To
allow petitioner Latasa to vie for the position of city
mayor after having served for three consecutive
terms as a municipal mayor would obviously defeat
the very intent of the framers when they wrote this
exception. Should he be allowed another three
consecutive terms as mayor of the City of Digos,
petitioner would then be possibly holding office as
chief executive over the same territorial jurisdiction
and inhabitants for a total of eighteen consecutive
years. This is the very scenario sought to be
avoided by the Constitution, if not abhorred by
it.[14]

Latasa instructively highlights, after a review of

Lonzanida, Adormeo and Socrates, that no three-term
limit violation results if a rest period or break in the
service between terms or tenure in a given elective post
intervened. In Lonzanida, the petitioner was a private
citizen with no title to any elective office for a few
months before the next mayoral elections. Similarly, in
Adormeo and Socrates, the private respondents lived as
private citizens for two years and fifteen months,
respectively. Thus, these cases establish that the law
contemplates a complete break from office during which
the local elective official steps down and ceases to
exercise power or authority over the inhabitants of the
territorial jurisdiction of a particular local government
unit.
 Seemingly differing from these results is the case
of Montebon v. Commission on Elections,[15] where the
highest-ranking municipal councilor succeeded to the
position of vice-mayor by operation of law. The
question posed when he subsequently ran for councilor
was whether his assumption as vice-mayor was an
interruption of his term as councilor that would place
him outside the operation of the three-term limit
rule. We ruled that an interruption had intervened so
that he could again run as councilor. This result
seemingly deviates from the results in the cases
heretofore discussed since the elective official continued
to hold public office and did not become a private
citizen during the interim. The common thread that
identifies Montebon with the rest, however, is that the
elective official vacated the office of councilor and
assumed the higher post of vice-mayor by operation of
law. Thus, for a time he ceased to be councilor – an
interruption that effectively placed him outside the
ambit of the three-term limit rule.