Cited Laws
Accordingly, Section 2 of Republic Act No. 7890 expressly repealed said superfluous provision. To reinforce such express repeal, Section 3 of Republic Act No. 7890 introduces an inconsistency clause directed at all other election laws and regulations. This inconsistency clause erases all other references to Section 261(d), not only in the Omnibus Election Code, but in all other election statutes and regulations. The COMELEC makes much of the alleged original intent of the House Bill that became Republic Act No. 7890. However, the intent to decriminalize the enforcement of bloc-voting by officials of religious groups is easily reconcilable with the total repeal of the provision that the legislature actually enacted. The COMELEC itself admitted that "the House Bill as originally worded was approved on First and Second Reading and was only amended [at the bicameral level] to include the provisions of the Revised Penal Code and the blanket repeal of Section 261(d)(1) and (d)(2) because the same was met with objections from various religious denominations and sects." 56 This makes it clear that the Legislature ultimately settled on a blanket repeal of Section 261(d) as the most satisfactory response to the objections of "various religious denominations and sects." 57 At any rate, We again emphasize that resort to statutory construction aids such as legislative history is proper only when the meaning of the statute is not apparent from a plain reading: [I]t is of course fundamental that the determination of the legislative intent is the primary consideration. However, it is equally fundamental that [ ] legislative intent must be determined from the language of the statute itself. This principle must be adhered to even though the court be convinced by extraneous circumstances that the Legislature intended to enact something very different from that which it did enact. An obscurity cannot be created to be cleared up by construction and hidden meanings at variance with the language used cannot be sought out. To attempt to do so is a perilous undertaking, and is quite apt to lead to an amendment of a law by judicial construction. To depart from the meaning expressed by the words is to alter the statute, is to legislate not to interpret. 58 In Regalado v. Yulo, 59 the Court further held, thus: The intent of the Legislature to be ascertained and enforced is the intent expressed in the words of the statute. If legislative intent is not expressed in some appropriate manner, the courts cannot by interpretation speculate as to an intent and supply a meaning not found in the phraseology of the law. In other words, the courts cannot assume some purpose in no way expressed and then construe the statute to accomplish this supposed intention. 60 Here, the legislative history only confirms the plain meaning of Republic Act No. 7890: the legislature intended to abrogate Section 261(d) of the Omnibus Election Code and all references thereto in other statutes and r