Coleen Grace M.

Servando
Bar Candidate
PHILIPPINE POLITICAL LAW
Adapted from Isagani Cruz
(Reviewer)

Chapter 3
THE CONCEPT OF THE STATE
State
- Community of persons, more or less numerous, permanently occupying a fixed territory, and possessed of an
independent government organized for political ends to which the great body of inhabitants render habitual
obedience.
Nation
- Indicates a relation of birth or origin and implies a common race, usually characterized by community of
language and customs.
- A state is a legal concept, while the nation is only a racial or ethnic concept
- Malcolm: a people bound together by a common attractions and repulsions into a living organism possessed of a
common pulse, a common intelligence and inspiration, and destined apparently to have a common history and a
common fate.

The state must also be distinguished from the government. The government is only an element of the State. The
state is the principal, the government its agent. The state itself is an abstraction; it is the government that
externalizes the state and articulates its will.

ELEMENTS OF A STATE
a. People
b. Territory
c. Government
d. Sovereignty

PEOPLE
- Inhabitants of the state
- They must be numerous enough to be self-sufficing and to defend themselves and small enough to be easily
administered and sustained.

TERRITORY
- The fixed portion of the surface of the earth inhabited by the people of the state.
- Components:
o Terrestrial domain
o Maritime and fluvial domain
o Aerial Domain

ARTICLE I NATIONAL TERRITORY
The national territory comprises the Philippine archipelago, with all the islands and waters embraced therein, and all other territories
over which the Philippines has sovereignty or jurisdiction, consisting of its terrestrial, fluvial and aerial domains, including its territorial
sea, the seabed, the subsoil, the insular shelves, and other submarine areas. The waters around, between, and connecting the islands
of the archipelago, regardless of their breadth and dimensions, form part of the internal waters of the Philippines.

ARCHIPELAGIC DOCTRINE
- Second sentence of the provision
- Connect the outermost points of our archipelago with straight baselines and consider all the waters enclosed
thereby as internal waters
- The entire archipelago is regarded as one integrated unit instead of being fragmented into so many thousand
islands
Coleen Grace M. Servando
Bar Candidate
- Jamaica Convention on the Law of the Sea
o Defines our territorial seas
o Included also are the insular shelves
- The definition in Article I now covers the ff territories:
o Those ceded to the US by virtue of the Treaty of Paris
o Those defined in the treaty concluded between the US and Spain, which were not defined in the Treaty
of Paris, specifically the islands of Cagayan, Sulu and Sibuto
o Those defined in the treaty between the US and Great Britain specifically the Turtle and Mangsee Islands
o The island of Batanes, which was covered under a general statement in the 1935 Constitution
o Those contemplated in the phrase belonging to the Philippines by historic right or legal right

GOVERNMENT
- The agency or instrumentality through which the will of the Sate is formulated, expressed and realized
- No particular form of government is prescribed, provided only that the government is able to represent the
state in its dealings with other state.
- Our Constitution, however, requires our government to be Democratic and Republican.
- Direct State Action

A. Functions
1. Constituent
2. Ministrant
Constituent
- Constitute the very bonds of society and are therefore compulsory
- Among the constituent functions:
o The keeping of order and providing for the protection of persons and property from violence and
robbery
o The fixing of the legal relations between husband and wife and between parents and children
o The regulation of the holding, transmission and interchange of property, and the determination of its
liabilities for debt or for crime
o The determination of contractual rights between individuals
o The definition and punishment of crimes
o The administration of justice in civil cases
o The administration of political duties, privileges and relations of citizens and
o The dealings of the state with foreign powers, the preservation of the State from external danger or
encroachment and the advancement of its international interests

Ministrant
- Those undertaken to advance the general interests of society, such as public works, public charity, and
regulation of trade and industry
- These functions are merely optional

To our SC, the distinction between constituent and ministrant functions is not relevant in our jurisdiction
PVTA vs CIR
Held:
Such distinction has been blurred because of the repudiation of the laissez faire policy in the Constitution

B. Doctrine of Parens Patriae
- One of the important tasks of the government
- Guardian of the rights of the people

GOVT OF THE PHIL. ISLANDS VS MONTE DE PIEDAD
Coleen Grace M. Servando
Bar Candidate
Facts:
Contributions were collected during the Spanish regime for the relief of the victims of an earthquake but part of
the money was never distributed and instead deposited with the defendant bank. In an action for the recovery filed later
by the government, the defendant questioned the competence of the plaintiff, contending that the suit could be
instituted only by the intended beneficiaries themselves or by their heirs.
Held:
The SC rejected this view and upheld the right if the government to file the case for the State as parens patriae
in representation of the legitimate claimants.

CABAAS VS PILAPIL
Held:
The government acting for the State as parens patriae chose the mother of an illegitimate child as against his
uncle to be the trustee of the insurance proceeds left him by his father, who had expressly designated the uncle.

C. De Jure and De Facto Government
De Jure Government
- Has rightful title but no power or control, either because this has been withdrawn from it or because it has not
yet actually entered into the exercise thereof.

De Facto Government
- A government of fact, that is, it actually exercises power or control but without legal title.
- Three Kinds of De Facto Government:
o The government that gets possession and control of, or usurps, by force or by the vote of the majority,
the rightful legal government and maintains itself against the will of the latter.
o That established as an independent government by the inhabitants of a country who rise in insurrection
against the parent state.
o That which is established and maintained by military forces who invade and occupy a territory of the
enemy in the course of war, and which is denominated as a government of paramount force.

LAWYERS LEAGUE FOR A BETTER PHILIPPINES VS CORAZON C. AQUINO
Held:
The people have made the judgment; they have accepted the government of Pres. Corazon C. Aquino which is in
effective control of the entire country so that it is not merely a de facto government but in fact and law a de jure
government. Moreover, the community of nations has recognized the legitimacy of the present government.

D. Government of the Philippines
- Defined as, the corporate governmental entity through which the functions of government are exercised
throughout the Philippines, including, save as the contrary appears from the context, the various arms through
which political authority is made effective in the Philippines, whether pertaining to the autonomous regions, the
provincial, city, municipality or barangay subdivisions or other forms of local government.
- Under the said definition, a Government-owned or controlled corporation engaged in proprietary functions
cannot be considered part of the Government for purposes of exemption from the application of the statute of
limitations.

E. Administration
- Groups of persons in whose hands the reins of government are for the time being
- It runs the government
- Administration is transitional whereas the government is permanent.

SOVEREIGNTY
- The supreme and uncontrollable power inherent in a State by which that State is governed
Coleen Grace M. Servando
Bar Candidate
- 2 Kinds of Sovereignty:
a. Legal Sovereignty the authority which has the power to issue final commands
b. Political Sovereignty the power behind the legal sovereign, or the sum of the influences that operate upon
it.
- May also be:
a. Internal the power of the State to control its domestic affairs
b. External power of the State to direct its relations with other States, is also known as independence.

- Sovereignty is permanent, exclusive, comprehensive, absolute, indivisible, inalienable and imprescriptible.
- It is deemed suspended although acts of sovereignty cannot be exercised by the legitimate authority.
- There being no change of sovereignty during a belligerent occupation, the political laws of the occupied territory
are merely suspended, subject to revival under the jus postliminium upon the end of the occupation. But the
non-political laws are deemed continued unless changed by the belligerent occupant since they are intended to
govern the relations of individuals as among themselves and are not generally affected by changes in regimes or
rulers.
- However, the rule suspending political laws affects only the civilian inhabitants of the occupied territory and is
not intended to bind the enemies in arms.

RUFFY VS CHIEF OF STAFF
Held:
Members of the armed forces continued to be covered by the National Defense Act, the Articles of War and
other laws relating to the armed forces even during the Japanese Occupation.