SURVEY OF JURISPRUDENCE

Separation of Church and State

Section 5. No law shall be made respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The free exercise and
enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or
preference, shall forever be allowed. No religious test shall be required for the
exercise of civil or political rights.1

Section 6. The separation of Church and State shall be inviolable.2


1. Aglipay vs. Ruiz3:

The petitioner, Mons. Gregorio Aglipay, Supreme Head of the
Philippine Independent Church, seeks the issuance from this court
of a writ of prohibition to prevent the respondent Director of Posts
from issuing and selling postage stamps commemorative of the
Thirty-third International Eucharistic Congress. HELD: Not every
governmental activity which involves the expenditure of public
funds and which has some religious tint is violative of the
constitutional provisions regarding separation of church and state,
freedom of worship and banning the use of public money or
property.

2. School District of Abington Township v. Schempp4


1987 Constitution, Article III, 5.
1987 Constitution, Article II, 6.
3 64 Phil. 201.
4 374 U.S. 203, 10 L Ed. 2d 844.
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2

The fact is that the line which separates the secular from the
sectarian in American life is elusive. The difficulty of defining the
boundary with precision inheres in a paradox central to our
scheme of liberty. While our institutions reflect a firm conviction
that we are a religious people, those institutions, by solemn
constitutional injunction, may not officially involve religion in
such a way as to prefer, discriminate against, or oppress, a
particular sect or religion. Equally, the Constitution enjoins those
involvements of religious with secular institutions which (a) serve
the essentially religious activities of religious institutions; (b)
employ the organs of government for essentially religious
purposes; or (c) use essentially religious means to serve
governmental ends where secular means would suffice. x x x


3. Pastor Dionisio Austria vs. NLRC5:

The case at bar does not concern an ecclesiastical or purely
religious affair as to bar the State from taking cognizance of the
same. While the matter at hand relates to the church and its
religious minister it does not ipso facto give the case a religious
significance. Simply stated, what is involved here is the
relationship of the church as an employer and the minister as an
employee. It is purely secular and has no relation whatsoever with
the practice of faith, worship or doctrines of the church. In this
case, petitioner was not excommunicated or expelled from the
membership of the SDA but was terminated from employment.
Indeed, the matter of terminating an employee, which is purely
secular in nature, is different from the ecclesiastical act of
expelling a member from the religious congregation.

4. Board of Education vs. Allen6:

G.R. No. 124382. 16 August 1999.
392 U.S. 236, 20 L Ed. 2d 1060, 88 Ct 1923 (1968).

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6


New York's Education Law requires local public school
authorities to lend textbooks free of charge to all students in
grades seven to 12, including those in private schools. Appellant
school boards sought a declaration that the statutory requirement
was invalid as violative of the State and Federal Constitutions, an
order barring appellee Commissioner of Education from
removing appellants' members from office for failing to comply
with it, and an order preventing the use of state funds for the
purchase of textbooks to be lent to parochial students. The trial
court held the law unconstitutional under the First and
Fourteenth Amendments and entered summary judgment for
appellants on the pleadings; the Appellate Division reversed and
ordered the complaint dismissed since appellant school boards
had no standing to attack the statute, and the New York Court of
Appeals held that appellants did have standing, but that the
statute did not violate the State or Federal Constitution. The Court
of Appeals said that the law was to benefit all school children,
without regard to the type of school attended, that only textbooks
approved by school authorities could be loaned, and therefore the
statute was "completely neutral with respect to religion." HELD:
The statute does not violate the Establishment or the Free Exercise
Clause of the First Amendment. (1) The express purpose of the
statute was the furtherance of educational opportunities for the
young, and the law merely makes available to all children the
benefits of a general program to lend school books free of charge,
and the financial benefit is to parents and children, not to schools.
(2) There is no evidence that religious books have been loaned,
and it cannot be assumed that school authorities are unable to
distinguish between secular and religious books, or that they will
not honestly discharge their duties to approve only secular books.
(3) Parochial schools, in addition to their sectarian function,
perform the task of secular education, and, on the basis of this
meager record, the Court cannot agree with appellants that all

teaching in a sectarian school is religious, or that the

intertwining of secular and religious training is such that
secular textbooks furnished to students are, in fact, instrumental
in teaching religion. (4) In the absence of specific evidence, and
based solely on judicial notice, it cannot be concluded that the
statute results in unconstitutional state involvement with
religious instruction or violates the Establishment Clause. (5)
Since appellants have not shown that the law coerces them in any
way in the practice of religion, there is no violation of the Free
Exercise Clause.

5. Witters v. Washington Department of Services for the Blind 7

This case involved a Washington statute that provided
funds to visually impaired individuals for use in obtaining
education or job training. Witters was qualified to receive aid
under the statute because he suffered from a progressive eye
condition, but the state denied his petition for funds because
he was studying to be a pastor; the state felt that provision of
funds for such a purpose would impermissibly promote
religion in violation of the Establishment Clause. The Supreme
Court reversed the states decision, concluding that the statute
did nothing to advance religion. First, the statute provided
funds directly to qualified individuals who then used the
money to obtain job training. Nothing in the statute provided
a preference for individuals to pursue religious education.
Second, the record in the case indicated that, on the whole, the
amount ultimately used to obtain religious education would
be minimal. Because the statute provided the money directly
to individuals who ultimately made the decision about how to
spend the funds, there was no state action sponsoring religion.
Thus, the statute did not violate the Establishment Clause.

474 U.S. 481 (1986).


6. Zobrest v. Catalina Foothill School District8

This case involved a deaf students request, pursuant to
the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), that the
local public school district provide a sign-language interpreter
to accompany him to classes at his Roman Catholic high school.
The school district refused the students request on the grounds
that the interpreter would act as a government-provided
conduit for religious indoctrination. The Court held that the
Establishment Clause did not prevent the school district from
providing disabled students enrolled at sectarian schools with
sign-language interpreters. The interpretation service, the Court
observed, was provided pursuant to a government program
that offered benefits to any child qualified as disabled under
the IDEA, without regard to the nature of the school he or she
attended. The Court found that it would be unacceptable to
deny a generally available benefit to a disabled student only
because that student attended a sectarian school. In addition,
because parents are free to select the school of their choice, a
government-paid interpreter would only be present in a
sectarian school as a result of a parents decision. The Court
found that there was nothing about the program that
incentivized parents to send their children to sectarian schools.
Finally, the Court distinguished Zobrest from cases such as
School District of Grand Rapids v. Ball, in which government aid
was provided directly to sectarian schools. In those cases, the
challenged programs gave direct grants of government aid that
relieved sectarian schools of costs they otherwise would have
borne in educating their students. Under the IDEA program,
the primary beneficiary was the student.


509 U.S. 1 (1993).

7.

Agostoni v. Felton9:

This suit was brought by a New York parochial school
board, and some of its student's parents, as a challenge to a
District Court ruling upholding the twelve-year-old decision
set out in Aguilar v. Felton (473 US 402). The decision in
Aguilar prohibited public school teachers from teaching in
parochial schools as a violation of the Establishment Clause.
On appeal from the Second Circuit's affirmance of a District
Court's denial of the parent's challenge, the Supreme Court
granted certiorari. HELD: New York Citys Title 1 program
does not run afoul of any of three primary criteria we
currently use to evaluate whether government aid has the
effect of advancing religion: it does not result in governmental
indoctrination; define its recipients by reference to religion; or
create an excessive entanglement. We therefore hold that a
federally funded program providing supplemental, remedial
instruction to disadvantaged children on a neutral basis is not
invalid under the Establishment Clause when such instruction
is given on the premises of sectarian schools by government
employees pursuant to a program containing safeguards such
as those present here. The same considerations that justify this
holding require us to conclude that this carefully constrained
program also cannot reasonably be viewed as an endorsement
of religion.

8.

Pea v. National Labor and Relations Commission10:

It is the prerogative of the school to set high standards of
efficiency for its teachers since quality education is a mandate
of the Constitution. As long as the standards fixed are

9
521 U.S. 203, 138 L Ed 2s 391, 117 S Ct 1997 (1997).
10 G.R. No. 100629, 5 July 1996, 258 SCRA 65.

reasonable and not arbitrary, courts are not at liberty to set

them aside. Schools cannot be required to adopt standards
which barely satisfy criteria set for government recognition.


Section 1. The State shall protect and promote the right
of all citizens to quality education at all levels, and shall take
appropriate steps to make such education accessible to all.
Section 2. The State shall:
(1) Establish, maintain, and support a complete,
adequate, and integrated system of education relevant to the
needs of the people and society;11

11 1987 Constitution, Article XIV.