4/9/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly an election case; III) Whether the private respondents are barred from questioning the qualifications of the petitioner; and IV) For purposes of determining the petitioner’s eligibility to run for public office, whether the “sworn renunciation of foreign citizenship” in Section 5(2) of R.A. No. 9225 is a mere pro-forma requirement. The Court’s Ruling I. An appeal may be simultaneously reinstated and definitively resolved by the COMELEC en banc in a resolution disposing of a motion for reconsideration. The power to decide motions for reconsideration in election cases is arrogated unto the COMELEC en banc by Section 3, Article IX-C of the Constitution, viz: Sec. 3. The Commission on Elections may sit en banc or in two divisions, and shall promulgate its rules of procedure in order to expedite disposition of election cases, including pre-proclamation controversies. All such election cases shall be heard and decided in division, provided that motions for reconsideration of decisions shall be decided by the Commission en banc. A complementary provision is present in Section 5(c), Rule 3 of the COMELEC Rules of Procedure, to wit: Any motion to reconsider a decision, resolution, order or ruling of a Division shall be resolved by the Commission en banc except motions on interlocutory orders of the division which shall be resolved by the division which issued the order. Considering that the above cited provisos do not set any limits to the COMELEC en banc’s prerogative in resolving a motion for reconsideration, there is nothing to prevent the body from directly adjudicating the substantive merits of an appeal after ruling for its reinstatement instead of remanding the same to the division that initially dismissed it. We thus see no impropriety much more grave abuse of discretion on the part of the COMELEC en banc when it proceeded to decide the substantive merits of the petitioner’s appeal after ruling for its reinstatement. Further, records show that, in her motion for reconsideration before the COMELEC en banc, the petitioner not only proffered arguments on the issue on docket fees but also on the issue of her eligibility. She even filed a supplemental motion for reconsideration attaching therewith supporting documents[13] to her contention that she is no longer elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/55170 4/18