G.R. No.
L-75697 subjected to tax, thereby depriving the Government of
VALENTIN TIO doing business under the name and style
of OMI ENTERPRISES, petitioner,
vs.
VIDEOGRAM REGULATORY BOARD, MINISTER OF
FINANCE, METRO MANILA COMMISSION, CITY MAYOR
and CITY TREASURER OF MANILA, respondents.
Nelson Y. Ng for petitioner.
The City Legal Officer for respondents City Mayor and City
Treasurer.
MELENCIO-HERRERA, J.:
This petition was filed on September 1, 1986 by petitioner on
his own behalf and purportedly on behalf of other videogram
operators adversely affected. It assails the constitutionality of
Presidential Decree No. 1987 entitled "An Act Creating the
Videogram Regulatory Board" with broad powers to regulate
and supervise the videogram industry (hereinafter briefly
referred to as the BOARD). The Decree was promulgated on
October 5, 1985 and took effect on April 10, 1986, fifteen (15)
days after completion of its publication in the Official Gazette.
On November 5, 1985, a month after the promulgation of the
abovementioned decree, Presidential Decree No. 1994
amended the National Internal Revenue Code providing, inter
alia:
SEC. 134. Video Tapes. — There shall be collected on each
processed video-tape cassette, ready for playback, regardless
of length, an annual tax of five pesos; Provided, That locally
manufactured or imported blank video tapes shall be subject to
sales tax.
On October 23, 1986, the Greater Manila Theaters Association,
Integrated Movie Producers, Importers and Distributors
Association of the Philippines, and Philippine Motion Pictures
Producers Association, hereinafter collectively referred to as
the Intervenors, were permitted by the Court to intervene in the
case, over petitioner's opposition, upon the allegations that
intervention was necessary for the complete protection of their
rights and that their "survival and very existence is threatened
by the unregulated proliferation of film piracy." The Intervenors
were thereafter allowed to file their Comment in Intervention.
The rationale behind the enactment of the DECREE, is set out
in its preambular clauses as follows:
1. WHEREAS, the proliferation and unregulated circulation of
videograms including, among others, videotapes, discs,
cassettes or any technical improvement or variation thereof,
have greatly prejudiced the operations of moviehouses and
theaters, and have caused a sharp decline in theatrical
attendance by at least forty percent (40%) and a tremendous
drop in the collection of sales, contractor's specific, amusement
and other taxes, thereby resulting in substantial losses
estimated at P450 Million annually in government revenues;
2. WHEREAS, videogram(s) establishments collectively earn
around P600 Million per annum from rentals, sales and
disposition of videograms, and such earnings have not been
approximately P180 Million in taxes each year;
3. WHEREAS, the unregulated activities of videogram
establishments have also affected the viability of the movie
industry, particularly the more than 1,200 movie houses and
theaters throughout the country, and occasioned industry-wide
displacement and unemployment due to the shutdown of
numerous moviehouses and theaters;
4. "WHEREAS, in order to ensure national economic recovery,
it is imperative for the Government to create an environment
conducive to growth and development of all business
industries, including the movie industry which has an
accumulated investment of about P3 Billion;
5. WHEREAS, proper taxation of the activities of videogram
establishments will not only alleviate the dire financial condition
of the movie industry upon which more than 75,000 families and
500,000 workers depend for their livelihood, but also provide
an additional source of revenue for the Government, and at the
same time rationalize the heretofore uncontrolled distribution of
videograms;
6. WHEREAS, the rampant and unregulated showing of
obscene videogram features constitutes a clear and present
danger to the moral and spiritual well-being of the youth, and
impairs the mandate of the Constitution for the State to support
the rearing of the youth for civic efficiency and the development
of moral character and promote their physical, intellectual, and
social well-being;
7. WHEREAS, civic-minded citizens and groups have called for
remedial measures to curb these blatant malpractices which
have flaunted our censorship and copyright laws;
8. WHEREAS, in the face of these grave emergencies
corroding the moral values of the people and betraying the
national economic recovery program, bold emergency
measures must be adopted with dispatch; ... (Numbering of
paragraphs supplied).
Petitioner's attack on the constitutionality of the DECREE rests
on the following grounds:
1. Section 10 thereof, which imposes a tax of 30% on the gross
receipts payable to the local government is a RIDER and the
same is not germane to the subject matter thereof;
2. The tax imposed is harsh, confiscatory, oppressive and/or in
unlawful restraint of trade in violation of the due process clause
of the Constitution;
3. There is no factual nor legal basis for the exercise by the
President of the vast powers conferred upon him by
Amendment No. 6;
4. There is undue delegation of power and authority;
5. The Decree is an ex-post facto law; and
6. There is over regulation of the video industry as if it were a
nuisance, which it is not.
We shall consider the foregoing objections in seriatim.
1. The Constitutional requirement that "every bill shall embrace
only one subject which shall be expressed in the title
thereof" 1 is sufficiently complied with if the title be
comprehensive enough to include the general purpose which a
statute seeks to achieve. It is not necessary that the title
express each and every end that the statute wishes to
accomplish. The requirement is satisfied if all the parts of the
statute are related, and are germane to the subject matter
expressed in the title, or as long as they are not inconsistent
with or foreign to the general subject and title. 2An act having a
single general subject, indicated in the title, may contain any
number of provisions, no matter how diverse they may be, so
long as they are not inconsistent with or foreign to the general
subject, and may be considered in furtherance of such subject
by providing for the method and means of carrying out the
general object." 3 The rule also is that the constitutional
requirement as to the title of a bill should not be so narrowly
construed as to cripple or impede the power of legislation. 4 It
should be given practical rather than technical construction. 5
Tested by the foregoing criteria, petitioner's contention that the
tax provision of the DECREE is a rider is without merit. That
section reads, inter alia:
Section 10. Tax on Sale, Lease or Disposition of Videograms.
— Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, the
province shall collect a tax of thirty percent (30%) of the
purchase price or rental rate, as the case may be, for every
sale, lease or disposition of a videogram containing a
reproduction of any motion picture or audiovisual program. Fifty
percent (50%) of the proceeds of the tax collected shall accrue
to the province, and the other fifty percent (50%) shall acrrue to
the municipality where the tax is collected; PROVIDED, That in
Metropolitan Manila, the tax shall be shared equally by the
City/Municipality and the Metropolitan Manila Commission.
xxx xxx xxx
The foregoing provision is allied and germane to, and is
reasonably necessary for the accomplishment of, the general
object of the DECREE, which is the regulation of the video
industry through the Videogram Regulatory Board as
expressed in its title. The tax provision is not inconsistent with,
nor foreign to that general subject and title. As a tool for
regulation 6 it is simply one of the regulatory and control
mechanisms scattered throughout the DECREE. The express
purpose of the DECREE to include taxation of the video
industry in order to regulate and rationalize the heretofore
uncontrolled distribution of videograms is evident from
Preambles 2 and 5, supra. Those preambles explain the
motives of the lawmaker in presenting the measure. The title of
the DECREE, which is the creation of the Videogram
Regulatory Board, is comprehensive enough to include the
purposes expressed in its Preamble and reasonably covers all
its provisions. It is unnecessary to express all those objectives
in the title or that the latter be an index to the body of the
DECREE. 7
2. Petitioner also submits that the thirty percent (30%) tax
imposed is harsh and oppressive, confiscatory, and in restraint
of trade. However, it is beyond serious question that a tax does
not cease to be valid merely because it regulates, discourages,
or even definitely deters the activities taxed. 8 The power to
impose taxes is one so unlimited in force and so searching in
extent, that the courts scarcely venture to declare that it is
subject to any restrictions whatever, except such as rest in the
discretion of the authority which exercises it. 9 In imposing a
tax, the legislature acts upon its constituents. This is, in general,
a sufficient security against erroneous and oppressive
taxation. 10
The tax imposed by the DECREE is not only a regulatory but
also a revenue measure prompted by the realization that
earnings of videogram establishments of around P600 million
per annum have not been subjected to tax, thereby depriving
the Government of an additional source of revenue. It is an end-
user tax, imposed on retailers for every videogram they make
available for public viewing. It is similar to the 30% amusement
tax imposed or borne by the movie industry which the theater-
owners pay to the government, but which is passed on to the
entire cost of the admission ticket, thus shifting the tax burden
on the buying or the viewing public. It is a tax that is imposed
uniformly on all videogram operators.
The levy of the 30% tax is for a public purpose. It was imposed
primarily to answer the need for regulating the video industry,
particularly because of the rampant film piracy, the flagrant
violation of intellectual property rights, and the proliferation of
pornographic video tapes. And while it was also an objective of
the DECREE to protect the movie industry, the tax remains a
valid imposition.
The public purpose of a tax may legally exist even if the motive
which impelled the legislature to impose the tax was to favor
one industry over another. 11
It is inherent in the power to tax that a state be free to select the
subjects of taxation, and it has been repeatedly held that
"inequities which result from a singling out of one particular
class for taxation or exemption infringe no constitutional
limitation". 12 Taxation has been made the implement of the
state's police power.13
At bottom, the rate of tax is a matter better addressed to the
taxing legislature.
3. Petitioner argues that there was no legal nor factual basis for
the promulgation of the DECREE by the former President under
Amendment No. 6 of the 1973 Constitution providing that
"whenever in the judgment of the President ... , there exists a
grave emergency or a threat or imminence thereof, or
whenever the interim Batasang Pambansa or the regular
National Assembly fails or is unable to act adequately on any
matter for any reason that in his judgment requires immediate
action, he may, in order to meet the exigency, issue the
necessary decrees, orders, or letters of instructions, which shall
form part of the law of the land."
In refutation, the Intervenors and the Solicitor General's Office
aver that the 8th "whereas" clause sufficiently summarizes the
justification in that grave emergencies corroding the moral
values of the people and betraying the national economic
recovery program necessitated bold emergency measures to
be adopted with dispatch. Whatever the reasons "in the
judgment" of the then President, considering that the issue of
the validity of the exercise of legislative power under the said
Amendment still pends resolution in several other cases, we
reserve resolution of the question raised at the proper time.
4. Neither can it be successfully argued that the DECREE
contains an undue delegation of legislative power. The grant in
Section 11 of the DECREE of authority to the BOARD to "solicit
the direct assistance of other agencies and units of the
government and deputize, for a fixed and limited period, the
heads or personnel of such agencies and units to perform
enforcement functions for the Board" is not a delegation of the
power to legislate but merely a conferment of authority or
discretion as to its execution, enforcement, and
implementation. "The true distinction is between the delegation
of power to make the law, which necessarily involves a
discretion as to what it shall be, and conferring authority or
discretion as to its execution to be exercised under and in
pursuance of the law. The first cannot be done; to the latter, no
valid objection can be made." 14 Besides, in the very language
of the decree, the authority of the BOARD to solicit such
assistance is for a "fixed and limited period" with the deputized
agencies concerned being "subject to the direction and control
of the BOARD." That the grant of such authority might be the
source of graft and corruption would not stigmatize the
DECREE as unconstitutional. Should the eventuality occur, the
aggrieved parties will not be without adequate remedy in law.
5. The DECREE is not violative of the ex post facto principle.
An ex post facto law is, among other categories, one which
"alters the legal rules of evidence, and authorizes conviction
upon less or different testimony than the law required at the
time of the commission of the offense." It is petitioner's position
that Section 15 of the DECREE in providing that:
All videogram establishments in the Philippines are hereby
given a period of forty-five (45) days after the effectivity of this
Decree within which to register with and secure a permit from
the BOARD to engage in the videogram business and to
register with the BOARD all their inventories of videograms,
including videotapes, discs, cassettes or other technical
improvements or variations thereof, before they could be sold,
leased, or otherwise disposed of. Thereafter any videogram
found in the possession of any person engaged in the
videogram business without the required proof of registration
by the BOARD, shall be prima facie evidence of violation of the
Decree, whether the possession of such videogram be for
private showing and/or public exhibition.
raises immediately a prima facie evidence of violation of the
DECREE when the required proof of registration of any
videogram cannot be presented and thus partakes of the nature
of an ex post facto law.
The argument is untenable. As this Court held in the recent
case of Vallarta vs. Court of Appeals, et al. 15
... it is now well settled that "there is no constitutional objection
to the passage of a law providing that the presumption of
innocence may be overcome by a contrary presumption
founded upon the experience of human conduct, and enacting
what evidence shall be sufficient to overcome such
presumption of innocence" (People vs. Mingoa 92 Phil. 856
[1953] at 858-59, citing 1 COOLEY, A TREATISE ON THE
CONSTITUTIONAL LIMITATIONS, 639-641). And the
"legislature may enact that when certain facts have been
proved that they shall be prima facie evidence of the existence
of the guilt of the accused and shift the burden of proof provided
there be a rational connection between the facts proved and
the ultimate facts presumed so that the inference of the one
from proof of the others is not unreasonable and arbitrary
because of lack of connection between the two in common
experience". 16
Applied to the challenged provision, there is no question that
there is a rational connection between the fact proved, which is
non-registration, and the ultimate fact presumed which is
violation of the DECREE, besides the fact that the prima
facie presumption of violation of the DECREE attaches only
after a forty-five-day period counted from its effectivity and is,
therefore, neither retrospective in character.
6. We do not share petitioner's fears that the video industry is
being over-regulated and being eased out of existence as if it
were a nuisance. Being a relatively new industry, the need for
its regulation was apparent. While the underlying objective of
the DECREE is to protect the moribund movie industry, there is
no question that public welfare is at bottom of its enactment,
considering "the unfair competition posed by rampant film
piracy; the erosion of the moral fiber of the viewing public
brought about by the availability of unclassified and unreviewed
video tapes containing pornographic films and films with
brutally violent sequences; and losses in government revenues
due to the drop in theatrical attendance, not to mention the fact
that the activities of video establishments are virtually untaxed
since mere payment of Mayor's permit and municipal license
fees are required to engage in business. 17
The enactment of the Decree since April 10, 1986 has not
brought about the "demise" of the video industry. On the
contrary, video establishments are seen to have proliferated in
many places notwithstanding the 30% tax imposed.
In the last analysis, what petitioner basically questions is the
necessity, wisdom and expediency of the DECREE. These
considerations, however, are primarily and exclusively a matter
of legislative concern.
Only congressional power or competence, not the wisdom of
the action taken, may be the basis for declaring a statute
invalid. This is as it ought to be. The principle of separation of
powers has in the main wisely allocated the respective authority
of each department and confined its jurisdiction to such a
sphere. There would then be intrusion not allowable under the
Constitution if on a matter left to the discretion of a coordinate
branch, the judiciary would substitute its own. If there be
adherence to the rule of law, as there ought to be, the last
offender should be courts of justice, to which rightly litigants
submit their controversy precisely to maintain unimpaired the
supremacy of legal norms and prescriptions. The attack on the
validity of the challenged provision likewise insofar as there
may be objections, even if valid and cogent on its wisdom
cannot be sustained. 18
In fine, petitioner has not overcome the presumption of validity
which attaches to a challenged statute. We find no clear
violation of the Constitution which would justify us in
pronouncing Presidential Decree No. 1987 as unconstitutional
and void.
WHEREFORE, the instant Petition is hereby dismissed.
G.R. No. 17122 February 27, 1922
THE UNITED STATES, plaintiff-appellee,
vs.
ANG TANG HO, defendant-appellant.
Williams & Ferrier for appellant.
Acting Attorney-General Tuason for appellee.
JOHNS, J.:
At its special session of 1919, the Philippine Legislature passed
Act No. 2868, entitled "An Act penalizing the monopoly and
holding of, and speculation in, palay, rice, and corn under
extraordinary circumstances, regulating the distribution and
sale thereof, and authorizing the Governor-General, with the
consent of the Council of State, to issue the necessary rules
and regulations therefor, and making an appropriation for this
purpose," the material provisions of which are as follows:
Section 1. The Governor-General is hereby authorized,
whenever, for any cause, conditions arise resulting in an
extraordinary rise in the price of palay, rice or corn, to issue and
promulgate, with the consent of the Council of State, temporary
rules and emergency measures for carrying out the purpose of
this Act, to wit:
(a) To prevent the monopoly and hoarding of, and speculation
in, palay, rice or corn.
(b) To establish and maintain a government control of the
distribution or sale of the commodities referred to or have such
distribution or sale made by the Government itself.
(c) To fix, from time to time the quantities of palay rice, or corn
that a company or individual may acquire, and the maximum
sale price that the industrial or merchant may demand.
(d) . . .
SEC. 2. It shall be unlawful to destroy, limit, prevent or in any
other manner obstruct the production or milling of palay, rice or
corn for the purpose of raising the prices thereof; to corner or
hoard said products as defined in section three of this Act; . . .
Section 3 defines what shall constitute a monopoly or hoarding
of palay, rice or corn within the meaning of this Act, but does
not specify the price of rice or define any basic for fixing the
price.
SEC. 4. The violations of any of the provisions of this Act or of
the regulations, orders and decrees promulgated in accordance
therewith shall be punished by a fine of not more than five
thousands pesos, or by imprisonment for not more than two
years, or both, in the discretion of the court: Provided, That in
the case of companies or corporations the manager or
administrator shall be criminally liable.
SEC. 7. At any time that the Governor-General, with the
consent of the Council of State, shall consider that the public
interest requires the application of the provisions of this Act, he
shall so declare by proclamation, and any provisions of other
laws inconsistent herewith shall from then on be temporarily
suspended.
Upon the cessation of the reasons for which such proclamation
was issued, the Governor-General, with the consent of the
Council of State, shall declare the application of this Act to have
likewise terminated, and all laws temporarily suspended by
virtue of the same shall again take effect, but such termination
shall not prevent the prosecution of any proceedings or cause
begun prior to such termination, nor the filing of any
proceedings for an offense committed during the period
covered by the Governor-General's proclamation.
August 1, 1919, the Governor-General issued a proclamation
fixing the price at which rice should be sold.
August 8, 1919, a complaint was filed against the defendant,
Ang Tang Ho, charging him with the sale of rice at an excessive
price as follows:
The undersigned accuses Ang Tang Ho of a violation of
Executive Order No. 53 of the Governor-General of the
Philippines, dated the 1st of August, 1919, in relation with the
provisions of sections 1, 2 and 4 of Act No. 2868, committed as
follows:
That on or about the 6th day of August, 1919, in the city of
Manila, Philippine Islands, the said Ang Tang Ho, voluntarily,
illegally and criminally sold to Pedro Trinidad, one ganta of rice
at the price of eighty centavos (P.80), which is a price greater
than that fixed by Executive Order No. 53 of the Governor-
General of the Philippines, dated the 1st of August, 1919, under
the authority of section 1 of Act No. 2868. Contrary to law.
Upon this charge, he was tried, found guilty and sentenced to
five months' imprisonment and to pay a fine of P500, from which
he appealed to this court, claiming that the lower court erred in
finding Executive Order No. 53 of 1919, to be of any force and
effect, in finding the accused guilty of the offense charged, and
in imposing the sentence.
The official records show that the Act was to take effect on its
approval; that it was approved July 30, 1919; that the Governor-
General issued his proclamation on the 1st of August, 1919;
and that the law was first published on the 13th of August, 1919;
and that the proclamation itself was first published on the 20th
of August, 1919.
The question here involves an analysis and construction of Act
No. 2868, in so far as it authorizes the Governor-General to fix
the price at which rice should be sold. It will be noted that
section 1 authorizes the Governor-General, with the consent of
the Council of State, for any cause resulting in an extraordinary
rise in the price of palay, rice or corn, to issue and promulgate
temporary rules and emergency measures for carrying out the
purposes of the Act. By its very terms, the promulgation of
temporary rules and emergency measures is left to the
discretion of the Governor-General. The Legislature does not
undertake to specify or define under what conditions or for what
reasons the Governor-General shall issue the proclamation,
but says that it may be issued "for any cause," and leaves the
question as to what is "any cause" to the discretion of the
Governor-General. The Act also says: "For any cause,
conditions arise resulting in an extraordinary rise in the price of
palay, rice or corn." The Legislature does not specify or define
what is "an extraordinary rise." That is also left to the discretion
of the Governor-General. The Act also says that the Governor-
General, "with the consent of the Council of State," is
authorized to issue and promulgate "temporary rules and
emergency measures for carrying out the purposes of this Act."
It does not specify or define what is a temporary rule or an
emergency measure, or how long such temporary rules or
emergency measures shall remain in force and effect, or when
they shall take effect. That is to say, the Legislature itself has
not in any manner specified or defined any basis for the order,
but has left it to the sole judgement and discretion of the
Governor-General to say what is or what is not "a cause," and
what is or what is not "an extraordinary rise in the price of rice,"
and as to what is a temporary rule or an emergency measure
for the carrying out the purposes of the Act. Under this state of
facts, if the law is valid and the Governor-General issues a
proclamation fixing the minimum price at which rice should be
sold, any dealer who, with or without notice, sells rice at a
higher price, is a criminal. There may not have been any cause,
and the price may not have been extraordinary, and there may
not have been an emergency, but, if the Governor-General
found the existence of such facts and issued a proclamation,
and rice is sold at any higher price, the seller commits a crime.
By the organic law of the Philippine Islands and the Constitution
of the United States all powers are vested in the Legislative,
Executive and Judiciary. It is the duty of the Legislature to make
the law; of the Executive to execute the law; and of the Judiciary
to construe the law. The Legislature has no authority to execute
or construe the law, the Executive has no authority to make or
construe the law, and the Judiciary has no power to make or
execute the law. Subject to the Constitution only, the power of
each branch is supreme within its own jurisdiction, and it is for
the Judiciary only to say when any Act of the Legislature is or
is not constitutional. Assuming, without deciding, that the
Legislature itself has the power to fix the price at which rice is
to be sold, can it delegate that power to another, and, if so, was
that power legally delegated by Act No. 2868? In other words,
does the Act delegate legislative power to the Governor-
General? By the Organic Law, all Legislative power is vested in
the Legislature, and the power conferred upon the Legislature
to make laws cannot be delegated to the Governor-General, or
any one else. The Legislature cannot delegate the legislative
power to enact any law. If Act no 2868 is a law unto itself and
within itself, and it does nothing more than to authorize the
Governor-General to make rules and regulations to carry the
law into effect, then the Legislature itself created the law. There
is no delegation of power and it is valid. On the other hand, if
the Act within itself does not define crime, and is not a law, and
some legislative act remains to be done to make it a law or a
crime, the doing of which is vested in the Governor-General,
then the Act is a delegation of legislative power, is
unconstitutional and void.
The Supreme Court of the United States in what is known as
the Granger Cases (94 U.S., 183-187; 24 L. ed., 94), first laid
down the rule:
Railroad companies are engaged in a public employment
affecting the public interest and, under the decision in
Munn vs. Ill., ante, 77, are subject to legislative control as to
their rates of fare and freight unless protected by their charters.
The Illinois statute of Mar. 23, 1874, to establish reasonable
maximum rates of charges for the transportation of freights and
passengers on the different railroads of the State is not void as
being repugnant to the Constitution of the United States or to
that of the State.
It was there for the first time held in substance that a railroad
was a public utility, and that, being a public utility, the State had
power to establish reasonable maximum freight and passenger
rates. This was followed by the State of Minnesota in enacting
a similar law, providing for, and empowering, a railroad
commission to hear and determine what was a just and
reasonable rate. The constitutionality of this law was attacked
and upheld by the Supreme Court of Minnesota in a learned
and exhaustive opinion by Justice Mitchell, in the case of
State vs. Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul ry. Co. (38 Minn.,
281), in which the court held:
Regulations of railway tariffs — Conclusiveness of
commission's tariffs. — Under Laws 1887, c. 10, sec. 8, the
determination of the railroad and warehouse commission as to
what are equal and reasonable fares and rates for the
transportation of persons and property by a railway company is
conclusive, and, in proceedings by mandamus to compel
compliance with the tariff of rates recommended and published
by them, no issue can be raised or inquiry had on that question.
Same — constitution — Delegation of power to commission. —
The authority thus given to the commission to determine, in the
exercise of their discretion and judgement, what are equal and
reasonable rates, is not a delegation of legislative power.
It will be noted that the law creating the railroad commission
expressly provides —
That all charges by any common carrier for the transportation
of passengers and property shall be equal and reasonable.
With that as a basis for the law, power is then given to the
railroad commission to investigate all the facts, to hear and
determine what is a just and reasonable rate. Even then that
law does not make the violation of the order of the commission
a crime. The only remedy is a civil proceeding. It was there held
—
That the legislative itself has the power to regulate railroad
charges is now too well settled to require either argument or
citation of authority.
The difference between the power to say what the law shall be,
and the power to adopt rules and regulations, or to investigate
and determine the facts, in order to carry into effect a law
already passed, is apparent. The true distinction is between the
delegation of power to make the law, which necessarily
involves a discretion as to what it shall be, and the conferring
an authority or discretion to be exercised under and in
pursuance of the law.
The legislature enacts that all freights rates and passenger
fares should be just and reasonable. It had the undoubted
power to fix these rates at whatever it deemed equal and
reasonable.
They have not delegated to the commission any authority or
discretion as to what the law shall be, — which would not be
allowable, — but have merely conferred upon it an authority
and discretion, to be exercised in the execution of the law, and
under and in pursuance of it, which is entirely permissible. The
legislature itself has passed upon the expediency of the law,
and what is shall be. The commission is intrusted with no
authority or discretion upon these questions. It can neither
make nor unmake a single provision of law. It is merely charged
with the administration of the law, and with no other power.
The delegation of legislative power was before the Supreme
Court of Wisconsin in Dowling vs. Lancoshire Ins. Co. (92 Wis.,
63). The opinion says:
"The true distinction is between the delegation of power to
make the law, which necessarily involves a discretion as to
what it shall be, and conferring authority or discretion as to its
execution, to be exercised under and in pursuance of the law.
The first cannot be done; to the latter no valid objection can be
made."
The act, in our judgment, wholly fails to provide definitely and
clearly what the standard policy should contain, so that it could
be put in use as a uniform policy required to take the place of
all others, without the determination of the insurance
commissioner in respect to maters involving the exercise of a
legislative discretion that could not be delegated, and without
which the act could not possibly be put in use as an act in
confirmity to which all fire insurance policies were required to
be issued.
The result of all the cases on this subject is that a law must be
complete, in all its terms and provisions, when it leaves the
legislative branch of the government, and nothing must be left
to the judgement of the electors or other appointee or delegate
of the legislature, so that, in form and substance, it is a law in
all its details in presenti, but which may be left to take effect in
futuro, if necessary, upon the ascertainment of any prescribed
fact or event.
The delegation of legislative power was before the Supreme
Court in United States vs. Grimaud (220 U.S., 506; 55 L. ed.,
563), where it was held that the rules and regulations of the
Secretary of Agriculture as to a trespass on government land in
a forest reserve were valid constitutional. The Act there
provided that the Secretary of Agriculture ". . . may make such
rules and regulations and establish such service as will insure
the object of such reservations; namely, to regulate their
occupancy and use, and to preserve the forests thereon from
destruction; and any violation of the provisions of this act or
such rules and regulations shall be punished, . . ."
The brief of the United States Solicitor-General says:
In refusing permits to use a forest reservation for stock grazing,
except upon stated terms or in stated ways, the Secretary of
Agriculture merely assert and enforces the proprietary right of
the United States over land which it owns. The regulation of the
Secretary, therefore, is not an exercise of legislative, or even of
administrative, power; but is an ordinary and legitimate refusal
of the landowner's authorized agent to allow person having no
right in the land to use it as they will. The right of proprietary
control is altogether different from governmental authority.
The opinion says:
From the beginning of the government, various acts have been
passed conferring upon executive officers power to make rules
and regulations, — not for the government of their departments,
but for administering the laws which did govern. None of these
statutes could confer legislative power. But when Congress had
legislated power. But when Congress had legislated and
indicated its will, it could give to those who were to act under
such general provisions "power to fill up the details" by the
establishment of administrative rules and regulations, the
violation of which could be punished by fine or imprisonment
fixed by Congress, or by penalties fixed by Congress, or
measured by the injury done.
That "Congress cannot delegate legislative power is a principle
universally recognized as vital to the integrity and maintenance
of the system of government ordained by the Constitution."
If, after the passage of the act and the promulgation of the rule,
the defendants drove and grazed their sheep upon the reserve,
in violation of the regulations, they were making an unlawful
use of the government's property. In doing so they thereby
made themselves liable to the penalty imposed by Congress.
The subjects as to which the Secretary can regulate are
defined. The lands are set apart as a forest reserve. He is
required to make provisions to protect them from depredations
and from harmful uses. He is authorized 'to regulate the
occupancy and use and to preserve the forests from
destruction.' A violation of reasonable rules regulating the use
and occupancy of the property is made a crime, not by the
Secretary, but by Congress."
The above are leading cases in the United States on the
question of delegating legislative power. It will be noted that in
the "Granger Cases," it was held that a railroad company was
a public corporation, and that a railroad was a public utility, and
that, for such reasons, the legislature had the power to fix and
determine just and reasonable rates for freight and passengers.
The Minnesota case held that, so long as the rates were just
and reasonable, the legislature could delegate the power to
ascertain the facts and determine from the facts what were just
and reasonable rates,. and that in vesting the commission with
such power was not a delegation of legislative power.
The Wisconsin case was a civil action founded upon a
"Wisconsin standard policy of fire insurance," and the court held
that "the act, . . . wholly fails to provide definitely and clearly
what the standard policy should contain, so that it could be put
in use as a uniform policy required to take the place of all
others, without the determination of the insurance
commissioner in respect to matters involving the exercise of a
legislative discretion that could not be delegated."
The case of the United States Supreme Court, supra dealt with
rules and regulations which were promulgated by the Secretary
of Agriculture for Government land in the forest reserve.
These decisions hold that the legislative only can enact a law,
and that it cannot delegate it legislative authority.
The line of cleavage between what is and what is not a
delegation of legislative power is pointed out and clearly
defined. As the Supreme Court of Wisconsin says:
That no part of the legislative power can be delegated by the
legislature to any other department of the government,
executive or judicial, is a fundamental principle in constitutional
law, essential to the integrity and maintenance of the system of
government established by the constitution.
Where an act is clothed with all the forms of law, and is
complete in and of itself, it may be provided that it shall become
operative only upon some certain act or event, or, in like
manner, that its operation shall be suspended.
The legislature cannot delegate its power to make a law, but it
can make a law to delegate a power to determine some fact or
state of things upon which the law makes, or intends to make,
its own action to depend.
The Village of Little Chute enacted an ordinance which
provides:
All saloons in said village shall be closed at 11 o'clock P.M.
each day and remain closed until 5 o'clock on the following
morning, unless by special permission of the president.
Construing it in 136 Wis., 526; 128 A. S. R., 1100,1 the Supreme
Court of that State says:
We regard the ordinance as void for two reasons; First,
because it attempts to confer arbitrary power upon an executive
officer, and allows him, in executing the ordinance, to make
unjust and groundless discriminations among persons similarly
situated; second, because the power to regulate saloons is a
law-making power vested in the village board, which cannot be
delegated. A legislative body cannot delegate to a mere
administrative officer power to make a law, but it can make a
law with provisions that it shall go into effect or be suspended
in its operations upon the ascertainment of a fact or state of
facts by an administrative officer or board. In the present case
the ordinance by its terms gives power to the president to
decide arbitrary, and in the exercise of his own discretion, when
a saloon shall close. This is an attempt to vest legislative
discretion in him, and cannot be sustained.
The legal principle involved there is squarely in point here.
It must be conceded that, after the passage of act No. 2868,
and before any rules and regulations were promulgated by the
Governor-General, a dealer in rice could sell it at any price,
even at a peso per "ganta," and that he would not commit a
crime, because there would be no law fixing the price of rice,
and the sale of it at any price would not be a crime. That is to
say, in the absence of a proclamation, it was not a crime to sell
rice at any price. Hence, it must follow that, if the defendant
committed a crime, it was because the Governor-General
issued the proclamation. There was no act of the Legislature
making it a crime to sell rice at any price, and without the
proclamation, the sale of it at any price was to a crime.
The Executive order2 provides:
(5) The maximum selling price of palay, rice or corn is hereby
fixed, for the time being as follows:
In Manila —
Palay at P6.75 per sack of 57½ kilos, or 29 centavos per ganta.
Rice at P15 per sack of 57½ kilos, or 63 centavos per ganta.
Corn at P8 per sack of 57½ kilos, or 34 centavos per ganta.
In the provinces producing palay, rice and corn, the maximum
price shall be the Manila price less the cost of transportation
from the source of supply and necessary handling expenses to
the place of sale, to be determined by the provincial treasurers
or their deputies.
In provinces, obtaining their supplies from Manila or other
producing provinces, the maximum price shall be the
authorized price at the place of supply or the Manila price as
the case may be, plus the transportation cost, from the place of
supply and the necessary handling expenses, to the place of
sale, to be determined by the provincial treasurers or their
deputies.
(6) Provincial treasurers and their deputies are hereby directed
to communicate with, and execute all instructions emanating
from the Director of Commerce and Industry, for the most
effective and proper enforcement of the above regulations in
their respective localities.
The law says that the Governor-General may fix "the maximum
sale price that the industrial or merchant may demand." The
law is a general law and not a local or special law.
The proclamation undertakes to fix one price for rice in Manila
and other and different prices in other and different provinces
in the Philippine Islands, and delegates the power to determine
the other and different prices to provincial treasurers and their
deputies. Here, then, you would have a delegation of legislative
power to the Governor-General, and a delegation by him of that
power to provincial treasurers and their deputies, who "are
hereby directed to communicate with, and execute all
instructions emanating from the Director of Commerce and
Industry, for the most effective and proper enforcement of the
above regulations in their respective localities." The issuance
of the proclamation by the Governor-General was the exercise
of the delegation of a delegated power, and was even a sub
delegation of that power.
Assuming that it is valid, Act No. 2868 is a general law and does
not authorize the Governor-General to fix one price of rice in
Manila and another price in Iloilo. It only purports to authorize
him to fix the price of rice in the Philippine Islands under a law,
which is General and uniform, and not local or special. Under
the terms of the law, the price of rice fixed in the proclamation
must be the same all over the Islands. There cannot be one
price at Manila and another at Iloilo. Again, it is a mater of
common knowledge, and of which this court will take judicial
notice, that there are many kinds of rice with different and
corresponding market values, and that there is a wide range in
the price, which varies with the grade and quality. Act No. 2868
makes no distinction in price for the grade or quality of the rice,
and the proclamation, upon which the defendant was tried and
convicted, fixes the selling price of rice in Manila "at P15 per
sack of 57½ kilos, or 63 centavos per ganta," and is uniform as
to all grades of rice, and says nothing about grade or quality.
Again, it will be noted that the law is confined to palay, rice and
corn. They are products of the Philippine Islands. Hemp,
tobacco, coconut, chickens, eggs, and many other things are
also products. Any law which single out palay, rice or corn from
the numerous other products of the Islands is not general or
uniform, but is a local or special law. If such a law is valid, then
by the same principle, the Governor-General could be
authorized by proclamation to fix the price of meat, eggs,
chickens, coconut, hemp, and tobacco, or any other product of
the Islands. In the very nature of things, all of that class of laws
should be general and uniform. Otherwise, there would be an
unjust discrimination of property rights, which, under the law,
must be equal and inform. Act No. 2868 is nothing more than a
floating law, which, in the discretion and by a proclamation of
the Governor-General, makes it a floating crime to sell rice at a
price in excess of the proclamation, without regard to grade or
quality.
When Act No. 2868 is analyzed, it is the violation of the
proclamation of the Governor-General which constitutes the
crime. Without that proclamation, it was no crime to sell rice at
any price. In other words, the Legislature left it to the sole
discretion of the Governor-General to say what was and what
was not "any cause" for enforcing the act, and what was and
what was not "an extraordinary rise in the price of palay, rice or
corn," and under certain undefined conditions to fix the price at
which rice should be sold, without regard to grade or quality,
also to say whether a proclamation should be issued, if so,
when, and whether or not the law should be enforced, how long
it should be enforced, and when the law should be suspended.
The Legislature did not specify or define what was "any cause,"
or what was "an extraordinary rise in the price of rice, palay or
corn," Neither did it specify or define the conditions upon which
the proclamation should be issued. In the absence of the
proclamation no crime was committed. The alleged sale was
made a crime, if at all, because the Governor-General issued
the proclamation. The act or proclamation does not say
anything about the different grades or qualities of rice, and the
defendant is charged with the sale "of one ganta of rice at the
price of eighty centavos (P0.80) which is a price greater than
that fixed by Executive order No. 53."
We are clearly of the opinion and hold that Act No. 2868, in so
far as it undertakes to authorized the Governor-General in his
discretion to issue a proclamation, fixing the price of rice, and
to make the sale of rice in violation of the price of rice, and to
make the sale of rice in violation of the proclamation a crime, is
unconstitutional and void.
It may be urged that there was an extraordinary rise in the price
of rice and profiteering, which worked a severe hardship on the
poorer classes, and that an emergency existed, but the
question here presented is the constitutionality of a particular
portion of a statute, and none of such matters is an argument
for, or against, its constitutionality.
The Constitution is something solid, permanent an substantial.
Its stability protects the life, liberty and property rights of the rich
and the poor alike, and that protection ought not to change with
the wind or any emergency condition. The fundamental
question involved in this case is the right of the people of the
Philippine Islands to be and live under a republican form of
government. We make the broad statement that no state or
nation, living under republican form of government, under the
terms and conditions specified in Act No. 2868, has ever
enacted a law delegating the power to any one, to fix the price
at which rice should be sold. That power can never be
delegated under a republican form of government.
In the fixing of the price at which the defendant should sell his
rice, the law was not dealing with government property. It was
dealing with private property and private rights, which are
sacred under the Constitution. If this law should be sustained,
upon the same principle and for the same reason, the
Legislature could authorize the Governor-General to fix the
price of every product or commodity in the Philippine Islands,
and empower him to make it a crime to sell any product at any
other or different price.
It may be said that this was a war measure, and that for such
reason the provision of the Constitution should be suspended.
But the Stubborn fact remains that at all times the judicial power
was in full force and effect, and that while that power was in
force and effect, such a provision of the Constitution could not
be, and was not, suspended even in times of war. It may be
claimed that during the war, the United States Government
undertook to, and did, fix the price at which wheat and flour
should be bought and sold, and that is true. There, the United
States had declared war, and at the time was at war with other
nations, and it was a war measure, but it is also true that in
doing so, and as a part of the same act, the United States
commandeered all the wheat and flour, and took possession of
it, either actual or constructive, and the government itself
became the owner of the wheat and flour, and fixed the price to
be paid for it. That is not this case. Here the rice sold was the
personal and private property of the defendant, who sold it to
one of his customers. The government had not bought and did
not claim to own the rice, or have any interest in it, and at the
time of the alleged sale, it was the personal, private property of
the defendant. It may be that the law was passed in the interest
of the public, but the members of this court have taken on
solemn oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, and it ought
not to be construed to meet the changing winds or emergency
conditions. Again, we say that no state or nation under a
republican form of government ever enacted a law authorizing
any executive, under the conditions states, to fix the price at
which a price person would sell his own rice, and make the
broad statement that no decision of any court, on principle or
by analogy, will ever be found which sustains the
constitutionality of the particular portion of Act No. 2868 here in
question. By the terms of the Organic Act, subject only to
constitutional limitations, the power to legislate and enact laws
is vested exclusively in the Legislative, which is elected by a
direct vote of the people of the Philippine Islands. As to the
question here involved, the authority of the Governor-General
to fix the maximum price at which palay, rice and corn may be
sold in the manner power in violation of the organic law.
This opinion is confined to the particular question here involved,
which is the right of the Governor-General, upon the terms and
conditions stated in the Act, to fix the price of rice and make it
a crime to sell it at a higher price, and which holds that portions
of the Act unconstitutional. It does not decide or undertake to
construe the constitutionality of any of the remaining portions
of the Act.
The judgment of the lower court is reversed, and the defendant
discharged. So ordered.
Araullo, C.J., Johnson, Street and Ostrand, JJ., concur.
Romualdez, J., concurs in the result.
G.R. No. 74457 March 20, 1987
RESTITUTO YNOT, petitioner,
vs.
INTERMEDIATE APPELLATE COURT, THE STATION
COMMANDER, INTEGRATED NATIONAL POLICE,
BAROTAC NUEVO, ILOILO and THE REGIONAL
DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY, REGION IV,
ILOILO CITY, respondents.
Ramon A. Gonzales for petitioner.
CRUZ, J.:
The essence of due process is distilled in the immortal cry of
Themistocles to Alcibiades "Strike — but hear me first!" It is this
cry that the petitioner in effect repeats here as he challenges
the constitutionality of Executive Order No. 626-A.
The said executive order reads in full as follows:
WHEREAS, the President has given orders prohibiting the
interprovincial movement of carabaos and the slaughtering of
carabaos not complying with the requirements of Executive
Order No. 626 particularly with respect to age;
WHEREAS, it has been observed that despite such orders the
violators still manage to circumvent the prohibition against
inter-provincial movement of carabaos by transporting carabeef
instead; and
WHEREAS, in order to achieve the purposes and objectives of
Executive Order No. 626 and the prohibition against
interprovincial movement of carabaos, it is necessary to
strengthen the said Executive Order and provide for the
disposition of the carabaos and carabeef subject of the
violation;
NOW, THEREFORE, I, FERDINAND E. MARCOS, President
of the Philippines, by virtue of the powers vested in me by the
Constitution, do hereby promulgate the following:
SECTION 1. Executive Order No. 626 is hereby amended such
that henceforth, no carabao regardless of age, sex, physical
condition or purpose and no carabeef shall be transported from
one province to another. The carabao or carabeef transported
in violation of this Executive Order as amended shall be subject
to confiscation and forfeiture by the government, to be
distributed to charitable institutions and other similar institutions
as the Chairman of the National Meat Inspection Commission
may ay see fit, in the case of carabeef, and to deserving
farmers through dispersal as the Director of Animal Industry
may see fit, in the case of carabaos.
SECTION 2. This Executive Order shall take effect
immediately.
Done in the City of Manila, this 25th day of October, in the year
of Our Lord, nineteen hundred and eighty.
(SGD.) FERDINAND E. MARCOS
President
Republic of the Philippines
The petitioner had transported six carabaos in a pump boat
from Masbate to Iloilo on January 13, 1984, when they were
confiscated by the police station commander of Barotac Nuevo,
Iloilo, for violation of the above measure. 1 The petitioner sued
for recovery, and the Regional Trial Court of Iloilo City issued a
writ of replevin upon his filing of a supersedeas bond of
P12,000.00. After considering the merits of the case, the court
sustained the confiscation of the carabaos and, since they
could no longer be produced, ordered the confiscation of the
bond. The court also declined to rule on the constitutionality of
the executive order, as raise by the petitioner, for lack of
authority and also for its presumed validity. 2
The petitioner appealed the decision to the Intermediate
Appellate Court,* 3 which upheld the trial court, ** and he has
now come before us in this petition for review on certiorari.
The thrust of his petition is that the executive order is
unconstitutional insofar as it authorizes outright confiscation of
the carabao or carabeef being transported across provincial
boundaries. His claim is that the penalty is invalid because it is
imposed without according the owner a right to be heard before
a competent and impartial court as guaranteed by due process.
He complains that the measure should not have been
presumed, and so sustained, as constitutional. There is also a
challenge to the improper exercise of the legislative power by
the former President under Amendment No. 6 of the 1973
Constitution. 4
While also involving the same executive order, the case
of Pesigan v. Angeles 5 is not applicable here. The question
raised there was the necessity of the previous publication of the
measure in the Official Gazette before it could be considered
enforceable. We imposed the requirement then on the basis of
due process of law. In doing so, however, this Court did not, as
contended by the Solicitor General, impliedly affirm the
constitutionality of Executive Order No. 626-A. That is an
entirely different matter.
This Court has declared that while lower courts should observe
a becoming modesty in examining constitutional questions,
they are nonetheless not prevented from resolving the same
whenever warranted, subject only to review by the highest
tribunal. 6 We have jurisdiction under the Constitution to
"review, revise, reverse, modify or affirm on appeal
or certiorari, as the law or rules of court may provide," final
judgments and orders of lower courts in, among others, all
cases involving the constitutionality of certain measures. 7 This
simply means that the resolution of such cases may be made
in the first instance by these lower courts.
And while it is true that laws are presumed to be constitutional,
that presumption is not by any means conclusive and in fact
may be rebutted. Indeed, if there be a clear showing of their
invalidity, and of the need to declare them so, then "will be the
time to make the hammer fall, and heavily," 8 to recall Justice
Laurel's trenchant warning. Stated otherwise, courts should not
follow the path of least resistance by simply presuming the
constitutionality of a law when it is questioned. On the contrary,
they should probe the issue more deeply, to relieve the
abscess, paraphrasing another distinguished jurist, 9 and so
heal the wound or excise the affliction.
Judicial power authorizes this; and when the exercise is
demanded, there should be no shirking of the task for fear of
retaliation, or loss of favor, or popular censure, or any other
similar inhibition unworthy of the bench, especially this Court.
The challenged measure is denominated an executive order
but it is really presidential decree, promulgating a new rule
instead of merely implementing an existing law. It was issued
by President Marcos not for the purpose of taking care that the
laws were faithfully executed but in the exercise of his
legislative authority under Amendment No. 6. It was provided
thereunder that whenever in his judgment there existed a grave
emergency or a threat or imminence thereof or whenever the
legislature failed or was unable to act adequately on any matter
that in his judgment required immediate action, he could, in
order to meet the exigency, issue decrees, orders or letters of
instruction that were to have the force and effect of law. As
there is no showing of any exigency to justify the exercise of
that extraordinary power then, the petitioner has reason,
indeed, to question the validity of the executive order.
Nevertheless, since the determination of the grounds was
supposed to have been made by the President "in his
judgment, " a phrase that will lead to protracted discussion not
really necessary at this time, we reserve resolution of this
matter until a more appropriate occasion. For the nonce, we
confine ourselves to the more fundamental question of due
process.
It is part of the art of constitution-making that the provisions of
the charter be cast in precise and unmistakable language to
avoid controversies that might arise on their correct
interpretation. That is the Ideal. In the case of the due process
clause, however, this rule was deliberately not followed and the
wording was purposely kept ambiguous. In fact, a proposal to
delineate it more clearly was submitted in the Constitutional
Convention of 1934, but it was rejected by Delegate Jose P.
Laurel, Chairman of the Committee on the Bill of Rights, who
forcefully argued against it. He was sustained by the body. 10
The due process clause was kept intentionally vague so it
would remain also conveniently resilient. This was felt
necessary because due process is not, like some provisions of
the fundamental law, an "iron rule" laying down an implacable
and immutable command for all seasons and all persons.
Flexibility must be the best virtue of the guaranty. The very
elasticity of the due process clause was meant to make it adapt
easily to every situation, enlarging or constricting its protection
as the changing times and circumstances may require.
Aware of this, the courts have also hesitated to adopt their own
specific description of due process lest they confine themselves
in a legal straitjacket that will deprive them of the elbow room
they may need to vary the meaning of the clause whenever
indicated. Instead, they have preferred to leave the import of
the protection open-ended, as it were, to be "gradually
ascertained by the process of inclusion and exclusion in the
course of the decision of cases as they arise." 11 Thus, Justice
Felix Frankfurter of the U.S. Supreme Court, for example,
would go no farther than to define due process — and in so
doing sums it all up — as nothing more and nothing less than
"the embodiment of the sporting Idea of fair play." 12
When the barons of England extracted from their sovereign
liege the reluctant promise that that Crown would thenceforth
not proceed against the life liberty or property of any of its
subjects except by the lawful judgment of his peers or the law
of the land, they thereby won for themselves and their progeny
that splendid guaranty of fairness that is now the hallmark of
the free society. The solemn vow that King John made at
Runnymede in 1215 has since then resounded through the
ages, as a ringing reminder to all rulers, benevolent or base,
that every person, when confronted by the stern visage of the
law, is entitled to have his say in a fair and open hearing of his
cause.
The closed mind has no place in the open society. It is part of
the sporting Idea of fair play to hear "the other side" before an
opinion is formed or a decision is made by those who sit in
judgment. Obviously, one side is only one-half of the question;
the other half must also be considered if an impartial verdict is
to be reached based on an informed appreciation of the issues
in contention. It is indispensable that the two sides complement
each other, as unto the bow the arrow, in leading to the correct
ruling after examination of the problem not from one or the other
perspective only but in its totality. A judgment based on less
that this full appraisal, on the pretext that a hearing is
unnecessary or useless, is tainted with the vice of bias or
intolerance or ignorance, or worst of all, in repressive regimes,
the insolence of power.
The minimum requirements of due process are notice and
hearing 13 which, generally speaking, may not be dispensed
with because they are intended as a safeguard against official
arbitrariness. It is a gratifying commentary on our judicial
system that the jurisprudence of this country is rich with
applications of this guaranty as proof of our fealty to the rule of
law and the ancient rudiments of fair play. We have consistently
declared that every person, faced by the awesome power of the
State, is entitled to "the law of the land," which Daniel Webster
described almost two hundred years ago in the famous
Dartmouth College Case, 14 as "the law which hears before it
condemns, which proceeds upon inquiry and renders judgment
only after trial." It has to be so if the rights of every person are
to be secured beyond the reach of officials who, out of mistaken
zeal or plain arrogance, would degrade the due process clause
into a worn and empty catchword.
This is not to say that notice and hearing are imperative in every
case for, to be sure, there are a number of admitted exceptions.
The conclusive presumption, for example, bars the admission
of contrary evidence as long as such presumption is based on
human experience or there is a rational connection between the
fact proved and the fact ultimately presumed
therefrom. 15 There are instances when the need for
expeditions action will justify omission of these requisites, as in
the summary abatement of a nuisance per se, like a mad dog
on the loose, which may be killed on sight because of the
immediate danger it poses to the safety and lives of the people.
Pornographic materials, contaminated meat and narcotic drugs
are inherently pernicious and may be summarily destroyed.
The passport of a person sought for a criminal offense may be
cancelled without hearing, to compel his return to the country
he has fled. 16 Filthy restaurants may be summarily padlocked
in the interest of the public health and bawdy houses to protect
the public morals. 17 In such instances, previous judicial
hearing may be omitted without violation of due process in view
of the nature of the property involved or the urgency of the need
to protect the general welfare from a clear and present danger.
The protection of the general welfare is the particular function
of the police power which both restraints and is restrained by
due process. The police power is simply defined as the power
inherent in the State to regulate liberty and property for the
promotion of the general welfare. 18 By reason of its function,
it extends to all the great public needs and is described as the
most pervasive, the least limitable and the most demanding of
the three inherent powers of the State, far outpacing taxation
and eminent domain. The individual, as a member of society, is
hemmed in by the police power, which affects him even before
he is born and follows him still after he is dead — from the
womb to beyond the tomb — in practically everything he does
or owns. Its reach is virtually limitless. It is a ubiquitous and
often unwelcome intrusion. Even so, as long as the activity or
the property has some relevance to the public welfare, its
regulation under the police power is not only proper but
necessary. And the justification is found in the venerable Latin
maxims, Salus populi est suprema lex and Sic utere tuo ut
alienum non laedas, which call for the subordination of
individual interests to the benefit of the greater number.
It is this power that is now invoked by the government to justify
Executive Order No. 626-A, amending the basic rule in
Executive Order No. 626, prohibiting the slaughter of carabaos
except under certain conditions. The original measure was
issued for the reason, as expressed in one of its Whereases,
that "present conditions demand that the carabaos and the
buffaloes be conserved for the benefit of the small farmers who
rely on them for energy needs." We affirm at the outset the need
for such a measure. In the face of the worsening energy crisis
and the increased dependence of our farms on these traditional
beasts of burden, the government would have been remiss,
indeed, if it had not taken steps to protect and preserve them.
A similar prohibition was challenged in United States v.
Toribio, 19 where a law regulating the registration, branding
and slaughter of large cattle was claimed to be a deprivation of
property without due process of law. The defendant had been
convicted thereunder for having slaughtered his own carabao
without the required permit, and he appealed to the Supreme
Court. The conviction was affirmed. The law was sustained as
a valid police measure to prevent the indiscriminate killing of
carabaos, which were then badly needed by farmers. An
epidemic had stricken many of these animals and the reduction
of their number had resulted in an acute decline in agricultural
output, which in turn had caused an incipient famine.
Furthermore, because of the scarcity of the animals and the
consequent increase in their price, cattle-rustling had spread
alarmingly, necessitating more effective measures for the
registration and branding of these animals. The Court held that
the questioned statute was a valid exercise of the police power
and declared in part as follows:
To justify the State in thus interposing its authority in behalf of
the public, it must appear, first, that the interests of the public
generally, as distinguished from those of a particular class,
require such interference; and second, that the means are
reasonably necessary for the accomplishment of the purpose,
and not unduly oppressive upon individuals. ...
From what has been said, we think it is clear that the enactment
of the provisions of the statute under consideration was
required by "the interests of the public generally, as
distinguished from those of a particular class" and that the
prohibition of the slaughter of carabaos for human
consumption, so long as these animals are fit for agricultural
work or draft purposes was a "reasonably necessary" limitation
on private ownership, to protect the community from the loss of
the services of such animals by their slaughter by improvident
owners, tempted either by greed of momentary gain, or by a
desire to enjoy the luxury of animal food, even when by so
doing the productive power of the community may be
measurably and dangerously affected.
In the light of the tests mentioned above, we hold with the
Toribio Case that the carabao, as the poor man's tractor, so to
speak, has a direct relevance to the public welfare and so is a
lawful subject of Executive Order No. 626. The method chosen
in the basic measure is also reasonably necessary for the
purpose sought to be achieved and not unduly oppressive upon
individuals, again following the above-cited doctrine. There is
no doubt that by banning the slaughter of these animals except
where they are at least seven years old if male and eleven
years old if female upon issuance of the necessary permit, the
executive order will be conserving those still fit for farm work or
breeding and preventing their improvident depletion.
But while conceding that the amendatory measure has the
same lawful subject as the original executive order, we cannot
say with equal certainty that it complies with the second
requirement, viz., that there be a lawful method. We note that
to strengthen the original measure, Executive Order No. 626-A
imposes an absolute ban not on the slaughter of the carabaos
but on their movement, providing that "no carabao regardless
of age, sex, physical condition or purpose (sic) and no carabeef
shall be transported from one province to another." The object
of the prohibition escapes us. The reasonable connection
between the means employed and the purpose sought to be
achieved by the questioned measure is missing
We do not see how the prohibition of the inter-provincial
transport of carabaos can prevent their indiscriminate
slaughter, considering that they can be killed anywhere, with no
less difficulty in one province than in another. Obviously,
retaining the carabaos in one province will not prevent their
slaughter there, any more than moving them to another
province will make it easier to kill them there. As for the
carabeef, the prohibition is made to apply to it as otherwise, so
says executive order, it could be easily circumvented by simply
killing the animal. Perhaps so. However, if the movement of the
live animals for the purpose of preventing their slaughter cannot
be prohibited, it should follow that there is no reason either to
prohibit their transfer as, not to be flippant dead meat.
Even if a reasonable relation between the means and the end
were to be assumed, we would still have to reckon with the
sanction that the measure applies for violation of the
prohibition. The penalty is outright confiscation of the carabao
or carabeef being transported, to be meted out by the executive
authorities, usually the police only. In the Toribio Case, the
statute was sustained because the penalty prescribed was fine
and imprisonment, to be imposed by the court after trial and
conviction of the accused. Under the challenged measure,
significantly, no such trial is prescribed, and the property being
transported is immediately impounded by the police and
declared, by the measure itself, as forfeited to the government.
In the instant case, the carabaos were arbitrarily confiscated by
the police station commander, were returned to the petitioner
only after he had filed a complaint for recovery and given
a supersedeas bond of P12,000.00, which was ordered
confiscated upon his failure to produce the carabaos when
ordered by the trial court. The executive order defined the
prohibition, convicted the petitioner and immediately imposed
punishment, which was carried out forthright. The measure
struck at once and pounced upon the petitioner without giving
him a chance to be heard, thus denying him the centuries-old
guaranty of elementary fair play.
It has already been remarked that there are occasions when
notice and hearing may be validly dispensed with
notwithstanding the usual requirement for these minimum
guarantees of due process. It is also conceded that summary
action may be validly taken in administrative proceedings as
procedural due process is not necessarily judicial only. 20 In the
exceptional cases accepted, however. there is a justification for
the omission of the right to a previous hearing, to wit,
the immediacy of the problem sought to be corrected and
the urgency of the need to correct it.
In the case before us, there was no such pressure of time or
action calling for the petitioner's peremptory treatment. The
properties involved were not even inimical per se as to require
their instant destruction. There certainly was no reason why the
offense prohibited by the executive order should not have been
proved first in a court of justice, with the accused being
accorded all the rights safeguarded to him under the
Constitution. Considering that, as we held in Pesigan v.
Angeles, 21 Executive Order No. 626-A is penal in nature, the
violation thereof should have been pronounced not by the
police only but by a court of justice, which alone would have
had the authority to impose the prescribed penalty, and only
after trial and conviction of the accused.
We also mark, on top of all this, the questionable manner of the
disposition of the confiscated property as prescribed in the
questioned executive order. It is there authorized that the
seized property shall "be distributed to charitable institutions
and other similar institutions as the Chairman of the National
Meat Inspection Commission may see fit, in the case of
carabeef, and to deserving farmers through dispersal as the
Director of Animal Industry may see fit, in the case of
carabaos." (Emphasis supplied.) The phrase "may see fit" is an
extremely generous and dangerous condition, if condition it is.
It is laden with perilous opportunities for partiality and abuse,
and even corruption. One searches in vain for the usual
standard and the reasonable guidelines, or better still, the
limitations that the said officers must observe when they make
their distribution. There is none. Their options are apparently
boundless. Who shall be the fortunate beneficiaries of their
generosity and by what criteria shall they be chosen? Only the
officers named can supply the answer, they and they alone may
choose the grantee as they see fit, and in their own exclusive
discretion. Definitely, there is here a "roving commission," a
wide and sweeping authority that is not "canalized within banks
that keep it from overflowing," in short, a clearly profligate and
therefore invalid delegation of legislative powers.
To sum up then, we find that the challenged measure is an
invalid exercise of the police power because the method
employed to conserve the carabaos is not reasonably
necessary to the purpose of the law and, worse, is unduly
oppressive. Due process is violated because the owner of the
property confiscated is denied the right to be heard in his
defense and is immediately condemned and punished. The
conferment on the administrative authorities of the power to
adjudge the guilt of the supposed offender is a clear
encroachment on judicial functions and militates against the
doctrine of separation of powers. There is, finally, also an
invalid delegation of legislative powers to the officers
mentioned therein who are granted unlimited discretion in the
distribution of the properties arbitrarily taken. For these
reasons, we hereby declare Executive Order No. 626-A
unconstitutional.
We agree with the respondent court, however, that the police
station commander who confiscated the petitioner's carabaos
is not liable in damages for enforcing the executive order in
accordance with its mandate. The law was at that time
presumptively valid, and it was his obligation, as a member of
the police, to enforce it. It would have been impertinent of him,
being a mere subordinate of the President, to declare the
executive order unconstitutional and, on his own responsibility
alone, refuse to execute it. Even the trial court, in fact, and the
Court of Appeals itself did not feel they had the competence,
for all their superior authority, to question the order we now
annul.
The Court notes that if the petitioner had not seen fit to assert
and protect his rights as he saw them, this case would never
have reached us and the taking of his property under the
challenged measure would have become
a faitaccompli despite its invalidity. We commend him for his
spirit. Without the present challenge, the matter would have
ended in that pump boat in Masbate and another violation of
the Constitution, for all its obviousness, would have been
perpetrated, allowed without protest, and soon forgotten in the
limbo of relinquished rights.
The strength of democracy lies not in the rights it guarantees
but in the courage of the people to invoke them whenever they
are ignored or violated. Rights are but weapons on the wall if,
like expensive tapestry, all they do is embellish and impress.
Rights, as weapons, must be a promise of protection. They
become truly meaningful, and fulfill the role assigned to them in
the free society, if they are kept bright and sharp with use by
those who are not afraid to assert them.
WHEREFORE, Executive Order No. 626-A is hereby declared
unconstitutional. Except as affirmed above, the decision of the
Court of Appeals is reversed. The supersedeas bond is
cancelled and the amount thereof is ordered restored to the
petitioner. No costs.
SO ORDERED.
G.R. No. 88211 September 15, 1989
FERDINAND E. MARCOS, IMELDA R. MARCOS,
FERDINAND R. MARCOS, JR., IRENE M. ARANETA, IMEE
MANOTOC, TOMAS MANOTOC, GREGORIO ARANETA,
PACIFICO E. MARCOS, NICANOR YÑIGUEZ and
PHILIPPINE CONSTITUTION ASSOCIATION
(PHILCONSA), represented by its President, CONRADO F.
ESTRELLA, petitioners,
vs.
HONORABLE RAUL MANGLAPUS, CATALINO
MACARAIG, SEDFREY ORDOÑEZ, MIRIAM DEFENSOR
SANTIAGO, FIDEL RAMOS, RENATO DE VILLA, in their
capacity as Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Executive
Secretary, Secretary of Justice, Immigration
Commissioner, Secretary of National Defense and Chief
of Staff, respectively, respondents.
CORTES, J.:
Before the Court is a contreversy of grave national importance.
While ostensibly only legal issues are involved, the Court's
decision in this case would undeniably have a profound effect
on the political, economic and other aspects of national life.
We recall that in February 1986, Ferdinand E. Marcos was
deposed from the presidency via the non-violent "people
power" revolution and forced into exile. In his stead, Corazon
C. Aquino was declared President of the Republic under a
revolutionary government. Her ascension to and consilidation
of power have not been unchallenged. The failed Manila Hotel
coup in 1986 led by political leaders of Mr. Marcos, the takeover
of television station Channel 7 by rebel troops led by Col.
Canlas with the support of "Marcos loyalists" and the
unseccessful plot of the Marcos spouses to surreptitiously
return from Hawii with mercenaries aboard an aircraft chartered
by a Lebanese arms dealer [Manila Bulletin, January 30, 1987]
awakened the nation to the capacity of the Marcoses to stir
trouble even from afar and to the fanaticism and blind loyalty of
their followers in the country. The ratification of the 1987
Constitution enshrined the victory of "people power" and also
clearly reinforced the constitutional moorings of Mrs. Aquino's
presidency. This did not, however, stop bloody challenges to
the government. On August 28, 1987, Col. Gregorio Honasan,
one of the major players in the February Revolution, led a failed
coup that left scores of people, both combatants and civilians,
dead. There were several other armed sorties of lesser
significance, but the message they conveyed was the same —
a split in the ranks of the military establishment that thraetened
civilian supremacy over military and brought to the fore the
realization that civilian government could be at the mercy of a
fractious military.
But the armed threats to the Government were not only found
in misguided elements and among rabid followers of Mr.
Marcos. There are also the communist insurgency and the
seccessionist movement in Mindanao which gained ground
during the rule of Mr. Marcos, to the extent that the communists
have set up a parallel government of their own on the areas
they effectively control while the separatist are virtually free to
move about in armed bands. There has been no let up on this
groups' determination to wrest power from the govermnent. Not
only through resort to arms but also to through the use of
propaganda have they been successful in dreating chaos and
destabilizing the country.
Nor are the woes of the Republic purely political. The
accumulated foreign debt and the plunder of the nation
attributed to Mr. Marcos and his cronies left the economy
devastated. The efforts at economic recovery, three years after
Mrs. Aquino assumed office, have yet to show concrete results
in alleviating the poverty of the masses, while the recovery of
the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses has remained elusive.
Now, Mr. Marcos, in his deathbed, has signified his wish to
return to the Philipppines to die. But Mrs. Aquino, considering
the dire consequences to the nation of his return at a time when
the stability of government is threatened from various directions
and the economy is just beginning to rise and move forward,
has stood firmly on the decision to bar the return of Mr. Marcos
and his family.
The Petition
This case is unique. It should not create a precedent, for the
case of a dictator forced out of office and into exile after causing
twenty years of political, economic and social havoc in the
country and who within the short space of three years seeks to
return, is in a class by itself.
This petition for mandamus and prohibition asks the Courts to
order the respondents to issue travel documents to Mr. Marcos
and the immediate members of his family and to enjoin the
implementation of the President's decision to bar their return to
the Philippines.
The Issue
Th issue is basically one of power: whether or not, in the
exercise of the powers granted by the Constitution, the
President may prohibit the Marcoses from returning to the
Philippines.
According to the petitioners, the resolution of the case would
depend on the resolution of the following issues:
1. Does the President have the power to bar the return of former
President Marcos and family to the Philippines?
a. Is this a political question?
2. Assuming that the President has the power to bar former
President Marcos and his family from returning to the
Philippines, in the interest of "national security, public safety or
public health
a. Has the President made a finding that the return of former
President Marcos and his family to the Philippines is a clear and
present danger to national security, public safety or public
health?
b. Assuming that she has made that finding
(1) Have the requirements of due process been complied with
in making such finding?
(2) Has there been prior notice to petitioners?
(3) Has there been a hearing?
(4) Assuming that notice and hearing may be dispensed with,
has the President's decision, including the grounds upon which
it was based, been made known to petitioners so that they may
controvert the same?
c. Is the President's determination that the return of former
President Marcos and his family to the Philippines is a clear and
present danger to national security, public safety, or public
health a political question?
d. Assuming that the Court may inquire as to whether the return
of former President Marcos and his family is a clear and present
danger to national security, public safety, or public health, have
respondents established such fact?
3. Have the respondents, therefore, in implementing the
President's decision to bar the return of former President
Marcos and his family, acted and would be acting without
jurisdiction, or in excess of jurisdiction, or with grave abuse of
discretion, in performing any act which would effectively bar the
return of former President Marcos and his family to the
Philippines? [Memorandum for Petitioners, pp. 5-7; Rollo, pp.
234-236.1
The case for petitioners is founded on the assertion that the
right of the Marcoses to return to the Philippines is guaranteed
under the following provisions of the Bill of Rights, to wit:
Section 1. No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or
property without due process of law, nor shall any person be
denied the equal protection of the laws.
xxx xxx xxx
Section 6. The liberty of abode and of changing the same within
the limits prescribed by law shall not be impaired except upon
lawful order of the court. Neither shall the right to travel be
impaired except in the interest of national security, public
safety, or public health, as may be provided by law.
The petitioners contend that the President is without power to
impair the liberty of abode of the Marcoses because only a
court may do so "within the limits prescribed by law." Nor may
the President impair their right to travel because no law has
authorized her to do so. They advance the view that before the
right to travel may be impaired by any authority or agency of
the government, there must be legislation to that effect.
The petitioners further assert that under international law, the
right of Mr. Marcos and his family to return to the Philippines is
guaranteed.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides:
Article 13. (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement
and residence within the borders of each state.
(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his
own, and to return to his country.
Likewise, the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights, which had been ratified by the Philippines, provides:
Article 12
1) Everyone lawfully within the territory of a State shall, within
that territory, have the right to liberty of movement and freedom
to choose his residence.
2) Everyone shall be free to leave any country, including his
own.
3) The above-mentioned rights shall not be subject to any
restrictions except those which are provided by law, are
necessary to protect national security, public order (order
public), public health or morals or the rights and freedoms of
others, and are consistent with the other rights recognized in
the present Covenant.
4) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his
own country.
On the other hand, the respondents' principal argument is that
the issue in this case involves a political question which is non-
justiciable. According to the Solicitor General:
As petitioners couch it, the question involved is simply whether
or not petitioners Ferdinand E. Marcos and his family have the
right to travel and liberty of abode. Petitioners invoke these
constitutional rights in vacuo without reference to attendant
circumstances.
Respondents submit that in its proper formulation, the issue is
whether or not petitioners Ferdinand E. Marcos and family have
the right to return to the Philippines and reside here at this time
in the face of the determination by the President that such
return and residence will endanger national security and public
safety.
It may be conceded that as formulated by petitioners, the
question is not a political question as it involves merely a
determination of what the law provides on the matter and
application thereof to petitioners Ferdinand E. Marcos and
family. But when the question is whether the two rights claimed
by petitioners Ferdinand E. Marcos and family impinge on or
collide with the more primordial and transcendental right of the
State to security and safety of its nationals, the question
becomes political and this Honorable Court can not consider it.
There are thus gradations to the question, to wit:
Do petitioners Ferdinand E. Marcos and family have the right
to return to the Philippines and reestablish their residence
here? This is clearly a justiciable question which this Honorable
Court can decide.
Do petitioners Ferdinand E. Marcos and family have their right
to return to the Philippines and reestablish their residence here
even if their return and residence here will endanger national
security and public safety? this is still a justiciable question
which this Honorable Court can decide.
Is there danger to national security and public safety if
petitioners Ferdinand E. Marcos and family shall return to the
Philippines and establish their residence here? This is now a
political question which this Honorable Court can not decide for
it falls within the exclusive authority and competence of the
President of the Philippines. [Memorandum for Respondents,
pp. 9-11; Rollo, pp. 297-299.]
Respondents argue for the primacy of the right of the State to
national security over individual rights. In support thereof, they
cite Article II of the Constitution, to wit:
Section 4. The prime duty of the Government is to serve and
protect the people. The Government may call upon the people
to defend the State and, in the fulfillment thereof, all citizens
may be required, under conditions provided by law, to render
personal, military, or civil service.
Section 5. The maintenance of peace and order, the protection
of life, liberty, and property, and the promotion of the general
welfare are essential for the enjoyment by all the people of the
blessings of democracy.
Respondents also point out that the decision to ban Mr. Marcos
and family from returning to the Philippines for reasons of
national security and public safety has international
precedents. Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic,
Anastacio Somoza Jr. of Nicaragua, Jorge Ubico of Guatemala,
Fulgencio batista of Cuba, King Farouk of Egypt, Maximiliano
Hernandez Martinez of El Salvador, and Marcos Perez
Jimenez of Venezuela were among the deposed dictators
whose return to their homelands was prevented by their
governments. [See Statement of Foreign Affairs Secretary Raul
S. Manglapus, quoted in Memorandum for Respondents, pp.
26-32; Rollo, pp. 314-319.]
The parties are in agreement that the underlying issue is one
of the scope of presidential power and its limits. We, however,
view this issue in a different light. Although we give due weight
to the parties' formulation of the issues, we are not bound by its
narrow confines in arriving at a solution to the controversy.
At the outset, we must state that it would not do to view the
case within the confines of the right to travel and the import of
the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court in the leading cases
of Kent v. Dulles [357 U.S. 116, 78 SCt 1113, 2 L Ed. 2d 1204]
and Haig v. Agee [453 U.S. 280, 101 SCt 2766, 69 L Ed. 2d
640) which affirmed the right to travel and recognized
exceptions to the exercise thereof, respectively.
It must be emphasized that the individual right involved
is not the right to travel from the Philippines to other countries
or within the Philippines. These are what the right to travel
would normally connote. Essentially, the right involved is the
right to return to one's country, a totally distinct right under
international law, independent from although related to the right
to travel. Thus, the Universal Declaration of Humans Rights and
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights treat the
right to freedom of movement and abode within the territory of
a state, the right to leave a country, and the right to enter one's
country as separate and distinct rights. The Declaration speaks
of the "right to freedom of movement and residence within the
borders of each state" [Art. 13(l)] separately from the "right to
leave any country, including his own, and to return to his
country." [Art. 13(2).] On the other hand, the Covenant
guarantees the "right to liberty of movement and freedom to
choose his residence" [Art. 12(l)] and the right to "be free to
leave any country, including his own." [Art. 12(2)] which rights
may be restricted by such laws as "are necessary to protect
national security, public order, public health or morals or enter
qqqs own country" of which one cannot be "arbitrarily
deprived." [Art. 12(4).] It would therefore be inappropriate to
construe the limitations to the right to return to one's country in
the same context as those pertaining to the liberty of abode and
the right to travel.
The right to return to one's country is not among the rights
specifically guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, which treats only of
the liberty of abode and the right to travel, but it is our well-
considered view that the right to return may be considered, as
a generally accepted principle of international law and, under
our Constitution, is part of the law of the land [Art. II, Sec. 2 of
the Constitution.] However, it is distinct and separate from the
right to travel and enjoys a different protection under the
International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, i.e., against
being "arbitrarily deprived" thereof [Art. 12 (4).]
Thus, the rulings in the cases Kent and Haig which refer to the
issuance of passports for the purpose of effectively exercising
the right to travel are not determinative of this case and are only
tangentially material insofar as they relate to a conflict between
executive action and the exercise of a protected right. The issue
before the Court is novel and without precedent in Philippine,
and even in American jurisprudence.
Consequently, resolution by the Court of the well-debated issue
of whether or not there can be limitations on the right to travel
in the absence of legislation to that effect is rendered
unnecessary. An appropriate case for its resolution will have to
be awaited.
Having clarified the substance of the legal issue, we find now a
need to explain the methodology for its resolution. Our
resolution of the issue will involve a two-tiered approach. We
shall first resolve whether or not the President has the power
under the Constitution, to bar the Marcoses from returning to
the Philippines. Then, we shall determine, pursuant to the
express power of the Court under the Constitution in Article VIII,
Section 1, whether or not the President acted arbitrarily or with
grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of
jurisdiction when she determined that the return of the
Marcose's to the Philippines poses a serious threat to national
interest and welfare and decided to bar their return.
Executive Power
The 1987 Constitution has fully restored the separation of
powers of the three great branches of government. To recall
the words of Justice Laurel in Angara v. Electoral
Commission [63 Phil. 139 (1936)], "the Constitution has
blocked but with deft strokes and in bold lines, allotment of
power to the executive, the legislative and the judicial
departments of the government." [At 157.1 Thus, the 1987
Constitution explicitly provides that "[the legislative power shall
be vested in the Congress of the Philippines" Art VI, Sec. 11,
"[t]he executive power shall bevested in the President of the
Philippines" [Art. VII, Sec. 11, and "[te judicial power shall be
vested in one Supreme Court and in such lower courts as may
be established by law" [Art. VIII, Sec. 1.] These provisions not
only establish a separation of powers by actual division [Angara
v. Electoral Commission, supra] but also confer plenary
legislative, executive and judicial powers subject only to
limitations provided in the Constitution. For as the Supreme
Court in Ocampo v. Cabangis [15 Phil. 626 (1910)] pointed out
"a grant of the legislative power means a grant of all legislative
power; and a grant of the judicial power means a grant of all the
judicial power which may be exercised under the government."
[At 631-632.1 If this can be said of the legislative power which
is exercised by two chambers with a combined membership of
more than two hundred members and of the judicial power
which is vested in a hierarchy of courts, it can equally be said
of the executive power which is vested in one official the
President.
As stated above, the Constitution provides that "[t]he executive
power shall be vested in the President of the Philippines." [Art.
VII, Sec. 1]. However, it does not define what is meant by
executive power" although in the same article it touches on the
exercise of certain powers by the President, i.e., the power of
control over all executive departments, bureaus and offices, the
power to execute the laws, the appointing power, the powers
under the commander-in-chief clause, the power to grant
reprieves, commutations and pardons, the power to grant
amnesty with the concurrence of Congress, the power to
contract or guarantee foreign loans, the power to enter into
treaties or international agreements, the power to submit the
budget to Congress, and the power to address Congress [Art.
VII, Sec. 14-23].
The inevitable question then arises: by enumerating certain
powers of the President did the framers of the Constitution
intend that the President shall exercise those specific powers
and no other? Are these se enumerated powers the breadth
and scope of "executive power"? Petitioners advance the view
that the President's powers are limited to those specifically
enumerated in the 1987 Constitution. Thus, they assert: "The
President has enumerated powers, and what is not enumerated
is impliedly denied to her. Inclusion unius est exclusio
alterius[Memorandum for Petitioners, p. 4- Rollo p. 233.1 This
argument brings to mind the institution of the U.S. Presidency
after which ours is legally patterned.**
Corwin, in his monumental volume on the President of the
United States grappled with the same problem. He said:
Article II is the most loosely drawn chapter of the Constitution.
To those who think that a constitution ought to settle everything
beforehand it should be a nightmare; by the same token, to
those who think that constitution makers ought to leave
considerable leeway for the future play of political forces, it
should be a vision realized.
We encounter this characteristic of Article 11 in its opening
words: "The executive power shall be vested in a President of
the United States of America." . . .. [The President: Office and
Powers, 17871957, pp. 3-4.]
Reviewing how the powers of the U.S. President were
exercised by the different persons who held the office from
Washington to the early 1900's, and the swing from the
presidency by commission to Lincoln's dictatorship, he
concluded that "what the presidency is at any particular
moment depends in important measure on who is President."
[At 30.]
This view is shared by Schlesinger who wrote in The Imperial
Presidency:
For the American Presidency was a peculiarly personal
institution. it remained of course, an agency of government
subject to unvarying demands and duties no remained, of cas
President. But, more than most agencies of government, it
changed shape, intensity and ethos according to the man in
charge. Each President's distinctive temperament and
character, his values, standards, style, his habits, expectations,
Idiosyncrasies, compulsions, phobias recast the WhiteHouse
and pervaded the entire government. The executive branch,
said Clark Clifford, was a chameleon, taking its color from the
character and personality of the President. The thrust of the
office, its impact on the constitutional order, therefore altered
from President to President. Above all, the way each President
understood it as his personal obligation to inform and involve
the Congress, to earn and hold the confidence of the electorate
and to render an accounting to the nation and posterity
determined whether he strengthened or weakened the
constitutional order. [At 212- 213.]
We do not say that the presidency is what Mrs. Aquino says it
is or what she does but, rather, that the consideration of
tradition and the development of presidential power under the
different constitutions are essential for a complete
understanding of the extent of and limitations to the President's
powers under the 1987 Constitution. The 1935 Constitution
created a strong President with explicitly broader powers than
the U.S. President. The 1973 Constitution attempted to modify
the system of government into the parliamentary type, with the
President as a mere figurehead, but through numerous
amendments, the President became even more powerful, to
the point that he was also the de facto Legislature. The 1987
Constitution, however, brought back the presidential system of
government and restored the separation of legislative,
executive and judicial powers by their actual distribution among
three distinct branches of government with provision for checks
and balances.
It would not be accurate, however, to state that "executive
power" is the power to enforce the laws, for the President is
head of state as well as head of government and whatever
powers inhere in such positions pertain to the office unless the
Constitution itself withholds it. Furthermore, the Constitution
itself provides that the execution of the laws is only one of the
powers of the President. It also grants the President other
powers that do not involve the execution of any provision of
law, e.g., his power over the country's foreign relations.
On these premises, we hold the view that although the 1987
Constitution imposes limitations on the exercise
of specific powers of the President, it maintains intact what is
traditionally considered as within the scope of "executive
power." Corollarily, the powers of the President cannot be said
to be limited only to the specific powers enumerated in the
Constitution. In other words, executive power is more than the
sum of specific powers so enumerated,
It has been advanced that whatever power inherent in the
government that is neither legislative nor judicial has to be
executive. Thus, in the landmark decision of Springer v.
Government of the Philippine Islands, 277 U.S. 189 (1928), on
the issue of who between the Governor-General of the
Philippines and the Legislature may vote the shares of stock
held by the Government to elect directors in the National Coal
Company and the Philippine National Bank, the U.S. Supreme
Court, in upholding the power of the Governor-General to do
so, said:
...Here the members of the legislature who constitute a majority
of the "board" and "committee" respectively, are not charged
with the performance of any legislative functions or with the
doing of anything which is in aid of performance of any such
functions by the legislature. Putting aside for the moment the
question whether the duties devolved upon these members are
vested by the Organic Act in the Governor-General, it is clear
that they are not legislative in character, and still more clear that
they are not judicial. The fact that they do not fall within the
authority of either of these two constitutes logical ground for
concluding that they do fall within that of the remaining one
among which the powers of government are divided ....[At 202-
203; Emphasis supplied.]
We are not unmindful of Justice Holmes' strong dissent. But in
his enduring words of dissent we find reinforcement for the view
that it would indeed be a folly to construe the powers of a
branch of government to embrace only what are specifically
mentioned in the Constitution:
The great ordinances of the Constitution do not establish and
divide fields of black and white. Even the more specific of them
are found to terminate in a penumbra shading gradually from
one extreme to the other. ....
xxx xxx xxx
It does not seem to need argument to show that however we
may disguise it by veiling words we do not and cannot carry out
the distinction between legislative and executive action with
mathematical precision and divide the branches into watertight
compartments, were it ever so desirable to do so, which I am
far from believing that it is, or that the Constitution requires. [At
210- 211.]
The Power Involved
The Constitution declares among the guiding principles that
"[t]he prime duty of theGovernment is to serve and protect the
people" and that "[t]he maintenance of peace and order,the
protection of life, liberty, and property, and the promotion of the
general welfare are essential for the enjoyment by all the
people of the blessings of democracy." [Art. II, Secs. 4 and 5.]
Admittedly, service and protection of the people, the
maintenance of peace and order, the protection of life, liberty
and property, and the promotion of the general welfare are
essentially ideals to guide governmental action. But such does
not mean that they are empty words. Thus, in the exercise of
presidential functions, in drawing a plan of government, and in
directing implementing action for these plans, or from another
point of view, in making any decision as President of the
Republic, the President has to consider these principles,
among other things, and adhere to them.
Faced with the problem of whether or not the time is right to
allow the Marcoses to return to the Philippines, the President
is, under the Constitution, constrained to consider these basic
principles in arriving at a decision. More than that, having sworn
to defend and uphold the Constitution, the President has the
obligation under the Constitution to protect the people, promote
their welfare and advance the national interest. It must be borne
in mind that the Constitution, aside from being an allocation of
power is also a social contract whereby the people have
surrendered their sovereign powers to the State for the
common good. Hence, lest the officers of the Government
exercising the powers delegated by the people forget and the
servants of the people become rulers, the Constitution reminds
everyone that "[s]overeignty resides in the people and all
government authority emanates from them." [Art. II, Sec. 1.]
The resolution of the problem is made difficult because the
persons who seek to return to the country are the deposed
dictator and his family at whose door the travails of the country
are laid and from whom billions of dollars believed to be ill-
gotten wealth are sought to be recovered. The constitutional
guarantees they invoke are neither absolute nor inflexible. For
the exercise of even the preferred freedoms of speech and
ofexpression, although couched in absolute terms, admits of
limits and must be adjusted to the requirements of equally
important public interests [Zaldivar v. Sandiganbayan, G.R.
Nos. 79690-707, October 7, 1981.]
To the President, the problem is one of balancing the general
welfare and the common good against the exercise of rights of
certain individuals. The power involved is the President's
residual power to protect the general welfare of the people. It is
founded on the duty of the President, as steward of the people.
To paraphrase Theodore Roosevelt, it is not only the power of
the President but also his duty to do anything not forbidden by
the Constitution or the laws that the needs of the nation demand
[See Corwin, supra, at 153]. It is a power borne by the
President's duty to preserve and defend the Constitution. It also
may be viewed as a power implicit in the President's duty to
take care that the laws are faithfully executed [see Hyman, The
American President, where the author advances the view that
an allowance of discretionary power is unavoidable in any
government and is best lodged in the President].
More particularly, this case calls for the exercise of the
President's powers as protector of the peace. Rossiter The
American Presidency].The power of the President to keep the
peace is not limited merely to exercising the commander-in-
chief powers in times of emergency or to leading the State
against external and internal threats to its existence. The
President is not only clothed with extraordinary powers in times
of emergency, but is also tasked with attending to the day-to-
day problems of maintaining peace and order and ensuring
domestic tranquility in times when no foreign foe appears on
the horizon. Wide discretion, within the bounds of law, in
fulfilling presidential duties in times of peace is not in any way
diminished by the relative want of an emergency specified in
the commander-in-chief provision. For in making the President
commander-in-chief the enumeration of powers that follow
cannot be said to exclude the President's exercising as
Commander-in- Chief powers short of the calling of the armed
forces, or suspending the privilege of the writ of habeas
corpus or declaring martial law, in order to keep the peace, and
maintain public order and security.
That the President has the power under the Constitution to bar
the Marcose's from returning has been recognized by
memembers of the Legislature, and is manifested by the
Resolution proposed in the House of Representatives and
signed by 103 of its members urging the President to allow Mr.
Marcos to return to the Philippines "as a genuine unselfish
gesture for true national reconciliation and as irrevocable proof
of our collective adherence to uncompromising respect for
human rights under the Constitution and our laws." [House
Resolution No. 1342, Rollo, p. 321.1 The Resolution does not
question the President's power to bar the Marcoses from
returning to the Philippines, rather, it appeals to the President's
sense of compassion to allow a man to come home to die in his
country.
What we are saying in effect is that the request or demand of
the Marcoses to be allowed to return to the Philippines cannot
be considered in the light solely of the constitutional provisions
guaranteeing liberty of abode and the right to travel, subject to
certain exceptions, or of case law which clearly never
contemplated situations even remotely similar to the present
one. It must be treated as a matter that is appropriately
addressed to those residual unstated powers of the President
which are implicit in and correlative to the paramount duty
residing in that office to safeguard and protect general welfare.
In that context, such request or demand should submit to the
exercise of a broader discretion on the part of the President to
determine whether it must be granted or denied.
The Extent of Review
Under the Constitution, judicial power includes the duty to
determine whether or not there has been a grave abuse of
discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction on the part
of any branch or instrumentality of the Government." [Art. VIII,
Sec. 1] Given this wording, we cannot agree with the Solicitor
General that the issue constitutes a political question which is
beyond the jurisdiction of the Court to decide.
The present Constitution limits resort to the political question
doctrine and broadens the scope of judicial inquiry into areas
which the Court, under previous constitutions, would have
normally left to the political departments to decide. But
nonetheless there remain issues beyond the Court's jurisdiction
the determination of which is exclusively for the President, for
Congress or for the people themselves through a plebiscite or
referendum. We cannot, for example, question the President's
recognition of a foreign government, no matter how premature
or improvident such action may appear. We cannot set aside a
presidential pardon though it may appear to us that the
beneficiary is totally undeserving of the grant. Nor can we
amend the Constitution under the guise of resolving a dispute
brought before us because the power is reserved to the people.
There is nothing in the case before us that precludes our
determination thereof on the political question doctrine. The
deliberations of the Constitutional Commission cited by
petitioners show that the framers intended to widen the scope
of judicial review but they did not intend courts of justice to
settle all actual controversies before them. When political
questions are involved, the Constitution limits the determination
to whether or not there has been a grave abuse of discretion
amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction on the part of the
official whose action is being questioned. If grave abuse is not
established, the Court will not substitute its judgment for that of
the official concerned and decide a matter which by its nature
or by law is for the latter alone to decide. In this light, it would
appear clear that the second paragraph of Article VIII, Section
1 of the Constitution, defining "judicial power," which
specifically empowers the courts to determine whether or not
there has been a grave abuse of discretion on the part of any
branch or instrumentality of the government, incorporates in the
fundamental law the ruling in Lansang v. Garcia [G.R. No. L-
33964, December 11, 1971, 42 SCRA 4481 that:]
Article VII of the [1935] Constitution vests in the Executive the
power to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus
under specified conditions. Pursuant to the principle of
separation of powers underlying our system of government, the
Executive is supreme within his own sphere. However, the
separation of powers, under the Constitution, is not absolute.
What is more, it goes hand in hand with the system of checks
and balances, under which the Executive is supreme, as
regards the suspension of the privilege, but only if and when he
acts within the sphere alloted to him by the Basic Law, and the
authority to determine whether or not he has so acted is vested
in the Judicial Department, which, in this respect, is, in turn,
constitutionally supreme. In the exercise of such authority, the
function of the Court is merely to check — not to supplant the
Executive, or to ascertain merely whether he has gone beyond
the constitutional limits of his jurisdiction, not to exercise the
power vested in him or to determine the wisdom of his act [At
479-480.]
Accordingly, the question for the Court to determine is whether
or not there exist factual bases for the President to conclude
that it was in the national interest to bar the return of the
Marcoses to the Philippines. If such postulates do exist, it
cannot be said that she has acted, or acts, arbitrarily or that she
has gravely abused her discretion in deciding to bar their return.
We find that from the pleadings filed by the parties, from their
oral arguments, and the facts revealed during the briefing in
chambers by the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the
Philippines and the National Security Adviser, wherein
petitioners and respondents were represented, there exist
factual bases for the President's decision..
The Court cannot close its eyes to present realities and pretend
that the country is not besieged from within by a well-organized
communist insurgency, a separatist movement in Mindanao,
rightist conspiracies to grab power, urban terrorism, the murder
with impunity of military men, police officers and civilian
officials, to mention only a few. The documented history of the
efforts of the Marcose's and their followers to destabilize the
country, as earlier narrated in this ponencia bolsters the
conclusion that the return of the Marcoses at this time would
only exacerbate and intensify the violence directed against the
State and instigate more chaos.
As divergent and discordant forces, the enemies of the State
may be contained. The military establishment has given
assurances that it could handle the threats posed by particular
groups. But it is the catalytic effect of the return of the Marcoses
that may prove to be the proverbial final straw that would break
the camel's back. With these before her, the President cannot
be said to have acted arbitrarily and capriciously and
whimsically in determining that the return of the Marcoses
poses a serious threat to the national interest and welfare and
in prohibiting their return.
It will not do to argue that if the return of the Marcoses to the
Philippines will cause the escalation of violence against the
State, that would be the time for the President to step in and
exercise the commander-in-chief powers granted her by the
Constitution to suppress or stamp out such violence. The State,
acting through the Government, is not precluded from taking
pre- emptive action against threats to its existence if, though
still nascent they are perceived as apt to become serious and
direct. Protection of the people is the essence of the duty of
government. The preservation of the State the fruition of the
people's sovereignty is an obligation in the highest order. The
President, sworn to preserve and defend the Constitution and
to see the faithful execution the laws, cannot shirk from that
responsibility.
We cannot also lose sight of the fact that the country is only
now beginning to recover from the hardships brought about by
the plunder of the economy attributed to the Marcoses and their
close associates and relatives, many of whom are still here in
the Philippines in a position to destabilize the country, while the
Government has barely scratched the surface, so to speak, in
its efforts to recover the enormous wealth stashed away by the
Marcoses in foreign jurisdictions. Then, We cannot ignore the
continually increasing burden imposed on the economy by the
excessive foreign borrowing during the Marcos regime, which
stifles and stagnates development and is one of the root causes
of widespread poverty and all its attendant ills. The resulting
precarious state of our economy is of common knowledge and
is easily within the ambit of judicial notice.
The President has determined that the destabilization caused
by the return of the Marcoses would wipe away the gains
achieved during the past few years and lead to total economic
collapse. Given what is within our individual and common
knowledge of the state of the economy, we cannot argue with
that determination.
WHEREFORE, and it being our well-considered opinion that
the President did not act arbitrarily or with grave abuse of
discretion in determining that the return of former President
Marcos and his family at the present time and under present
circumstances poses a serious threat to national interest and
welfare and in prohibiting their return to the Philippines, the
instant petition is hereby DISMISSED.
SO ORDERED.
G.R. No. 96681 December 2, 1991
HON. ISIDRO CARIÑO, in his capacity as Secretary of the
Department of Education, Culture & Sports, DR. ERLINDA
LOLARGA, in her capacity as Superintendent of City
Schools of Manila, petitioners,
vs.
THE COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS, GRACIANO
BUDOY, JULIETA BABARAN, ELSA IBABAO, HELEN
LUPO, AMPARO GONZALES, LUZ DEL CASTILLO, ELSA
REYES and APOLINARIO ESBER, respondents.
NARVASA, J.:
The issue raised in the special civil action of certiorari and
prohibition at bar, instituted by the Solicitor General, may be
formulated as follows: where the relief sought from the
Commission on Human Rights by a party in a case consists of
the review and reversal or modification of a decision or order
issued by a court of justice or government agency or official
exercising quasi-judicial functions, may the Commission take
cognizance of the case and grant that relief? Stated otherwise,
where a particular subject-matter is placed by law within the
jurisdiction of a court or other government agency or official for
purposes of trial and adjudgment, may the Commission on
Human Rights take cognizance of the same subject-matter for
the same purposes of hearing and adjudication?
The facts narrated in the petition are not denied by the
respondents and are hence taken as substantially correct for
purposes of ruling on the legal questions posed in the present
action. These facts, 1 together with others involved in related
cases recently resolved by this Court 2 or otherwise undisputed
on the record, are hereunder set forth.
1. On September 17, 1990, a Monday and a class day, some
800 public school teachers, among them members of the
Manila Public School Teachers Association (MPSTA) and
Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) undertook what they
described as "mass concerted actions" to "dramatize and
highlight" their plight resulting from the alleged failure of the
public authorities to act upon grievances that had time and
again been brought to the latter's attention. According to them
they had decided to undertake said "mass concerted actions"
after the protest rally staged at the DECS premises on
September 14, 1990 without disrupting classes as a last call for
the government to negotiate the granting of demands had
elicited no response from the Secretary of Education. The
"mass actions" consisted in staying away from their classes,
converging at the Liwasang Bonifacio, gathering in peaceable
assemblies, etc. Through their representatives, the teachers
participating in the mass actions were served with an order of
the Secretary of Education to return to work in 24 hours or face
dismissal, and a memorandum directing the DECS officials
concerned to initiate dismissal proceedings against those who
did not comply and to hire their replacements. Those directives
notwithstanding, the mass actions continued into the week, with
more teachers joining in the days that followed. 3
Among those who took part in the "concerted mass actions" were the eight (8) private
respondents herein, teachers at the Ramon Magsaysay High School, Manila, who had agreed
to support the non-political demands of the MPSTA. 4
2. For failure to heed the return-to-work order, the CHR complainants (private respondents)
were administratively charged on the basis of the principal's report and given five (5) days to
answer the charges. They were also preventively suspended for ninety (90) days "pursuant to
Section 41 of P.D. 807" and temporarily replaced (unmarked CHR Exhibits, Annexes F, G, H).
An investigation committee was consequently formed to hear the charges in accordance with
P.D. 807. 5
3. In the administrative case docketed as Case No. DECS 90-082 in which CHR complainants
Graciano Budoy, Jr., Julieta Babaran, Luz del Castillo, Apolinario Esber were, among others,
named respondents, 6
the latter filed separate answers, opted for a
formal investigation, and also moved "for suspension of the
administrative proceedings pending resolution by . . (the
Supreme) Court of their application for issuance of an injunctive
writ/temporary restraining order." But when their motion for
suspension was denied by Order dated November 8, 1990 of
the Investigating Committee, which later also denied their
motion for reconsideration orally made at the hearing of
November 14, 1990, "the respondents led by their counsel
staged a walkout signifying their intent to boycott the entire
proceedings." 7 The case eventually resulted in a Decision of
Secretary Cariño dated December 17, 1990, rendered after
evaluation of the evidence as well as the answers, affidavits
and documents submitted by the respondents, decreeing
dismissal from the service of Apolinario Esber and the
suspension for nine (9) months of Babaran, Budoy and del
Castillo. 8
4. In the meantime, the "MPSTA filed a petition for certiorari before the Regional Trial Court of
Manila against petitioner (Cariño), which was dismissed (unmarked CHR Exhibit, Annex I).
Later, the MPSTA went to the Supreme Court (on certiorari, in an attempt to nullify said
dismissal, grounded on the) alleged violation of the striking teachers" right to due process and
peaceable assembly docketed as G.R. No. 95445, supra. The ACT also filed a similar petition
before the Supreme Court . . . docketed as G.R. No. 95590." 9 Both petitions in this Court were
filed in behalf of the teacher associations, a few named individuals, and "other teacher-
members so numerous similarly situated" or "other similarly situated public school teachers too
numerous to be impleaded."
5. In the meantime, too, the respondent teachers submitted
sworn statements dated September 27, 1990 to the
Commission on Human Rights to complain that while they were
participating in peaceful mass actions, they suddenly learned
of their replacements as teachers, allegedly without notice and
consequently for reasons completely unknown to them. 10
6. Their complaints — and those of other teachers also "ordered suspended by the . . . (DECS),"
all numbering forty-two (42) — were docketed as "Striking Teachers CHR Case No. 90775." In
connection therewith the Commission scheduled a "dialogue" on October 11, 1990, and sent a
subpoena to Secretary Cariño requiring his attendance therein. 11
On the day of the "dialogue," although it said that it was "not certain whether he (Sec. Cariño)
received the subpoena which was served at his office, . . . (the) Commission, with the Chairman
presiding, and Commissioners Hesiquio R. Mallilin and Narciso C. Monteiro, proceeded to hear
the case;" it heard the complainants' counsel (a) explain that his clients had been "denied due
process and suspended without formal notice, and unjustly, since they did not join the mass
leave," and (b) expatiate on the grievances which were "the cause of the mass leave of MPSTA
teachers, (and) with which causes they (CHR complainants) sympathize." 12 The Commission
thereafter issued an Order 13reciting these facts and making the following disposition:
To be properly apprised of the real facts of the case and be
accordingly guided in its investigation and resolution of the
matter, considering that these forty two teachers are now
suspended and deprived of their wages, which they need very
badly, Secretary Isidro Cariño, of the Department of Education,
Culture and Sports, Dr. Erlinda Lolarga, school superintendent
of Manila and the Principal of Ramon Magsaysay High School,
Manila, are hereby enjoined to appear and enlighten the
Commission en banc on October 19, 1990 at 11:00 A.M. and
to bring with them any and all documents relevant to the
allegations aforestated herein to assist the Commission in this
matter. Otherwise, the Commission will resolve the complaint
on the basis of complainants' evidence.
xxx xxx xxx
7. Through the Office of the Solicitor General, Secretary Cariño
sought and was granted leave to file a motion to dismiss the
case. His motion to dismiss was submitted on November 14,
1990 alleging as grounds therefor, "that the complaint states no
cause of action and that the CHR has no jurisdiction over the
case." 14
8. Pending determination by the Commission of the motion to dismiss, judgments affecting the
"striking teachers" were promulgated in two (2) cases, as aforestated, viz.:
a) The Decision dated December l7, 1990 of Education Secretary Cariño in Case No. DECS law to be another court or quasi-judicial agency in this country,
90-082, decreeing dismissal from the service of Apolinario Esber and the suspension for nine or duplicate much less take over the functions of the latter.
(9) months of Babaran, Budoy and del Castillo; 15 and

The most that may be conceded to the Commission in the way

b) The joint Resolution of this Court dated August 6, 1991 in G.R. Nos. 95445 and 95590
dismissing the petitions "without prejudice to any appeals, if still timely, that the individual
petitioners may take to the Civil Service Commission on the matters complained of," 16
and inter alia "ruling that it was prima facie lawful for petitioner Cariño to issue return-to-work
orders, file administrative charges against recalcitrants, preventively suspend them, and issue
decision on those charges." 17
9. In an Order dated December 28, 1990, respondent Commission denied Sec. Cariño's motion
to dismiss and required him and Superintendent Lolarga "to submit their counter-affidavits
within ten (10) days . . . (after which) the Commission shall proceed to hear and resolve the
case on the merits with or without respondents counter affidavit." 18
It held that the
"striking teachers" "were denied due process of law; . . . they
should not have been replaced without a chance to reply to the
administrative charges;" there had been a violation of their civil
and political rights which the Commission was empowered to
investigate; and while expressing its "utmost respect to the
Supreme Court . . . the facts before . . . (it) are different from
those in the case decided by the Supreme Court" (the reference
being unmistakably to this Court's joint Resolution of August 6,
1991 in G.R. Nos. 95445 and 95590, supra).
It is to invalidate and set aside this Order of December 28, 1990
that the Solicitor General, in behalf of petitioner Cariño, has
commenced the present action of certiorari and prohibition.
of adjudicative power is that it may investigate, i.e., receive
evidence and make findings of fact as regards claimed human
rights violations involving civil and political rights. But fact
finding is not adjudication, and cannot be likened to the judicial
function of a court of justice, or even a quasi-judicial agency or
official. The function of receiving evidence and ascertaining
therefrom the facts of a controversy is not a judicial function,
properly speaking. To be considered such, the faculty of
receiving evidence and making factual conclusions in a
controversy must be accompanied by the authority of applying
the law to those factual conclusions to the end that the
controversy may be decided or determined authoritatively,
finally and definitively, subject to such appeals or modes of
review as may be provided by law. 21 This function, to repeat,
the Commission does not have. 22
The proposition is made clear by the constitutional provisions specifying the powers of the
Commission on Human Rights.
The Commission was created by the 1987 Constitution as an independent office. 23
Upon
its constitution, it succeeded and superseded the Presidential
Committee on Human Rights existing at the time of the
effectivity of the Constitution. 24 Its powers and functions are
the following 25

(1) Investigate, on its own or on complaint by any party, all forms of human rights violations
The Commission on Human Rights has made clear its position
involving civil and political rights;
that it does not feel bound by this Court's joint Resolution in
G.R. Nos. 95445 and 95590, supra. It has also made plain its
intention "to hear and resolve the case (i.e., Striking Teachers (2) Adopt its operational guidelines and rules of procedure, and cite for contempt for violations
thereof in accordance with the Rules of Court;
HRC Case No. 90-775) on the merits." It intends, in other
words, to try and decide or hear and determine, i.e., exercise
jurisdiction over the following general issues: (3) Provide appropriate legal measures for the protection of human rights of all persons within
the Philippines, as well as Filipinos residing abroad, and provide for preventive measures and
legal aid services to the underprivileged whose human rights have been violated or need
1) whether or not the striking teachers were denied due
protection;
process, and just cause exists for the imposition of
administrative disciplinary sanctions on them by their superiors;
(4) Exercise visitorial powers over jails, prisons, or detention facilities;
and

(5) Establish a continuing program of research, education, and information to enhance respect
2) whether or not the grievances which were "the cause of the
for the primacy of human rights;
mass leave of MPSTA teachers, (and) with which causes they
(CHR complainants) sympathize," justify their mass action or
(6) Recommend to the Congress effective measures to promote human rights and to provide
strike.
for compensation to victims of violations of human rights, or their families;

The Commission evidently intends to itself adjudicate, that is to

say, determine with character of finality and definiteness, the (7) Monitor the Philippine Government's compliance with international treaty obligations on
human rights;
same issues which have been passed upon and decided by the
Secretary of Education, Culture & Sports, subject to appeal to
(8) Grant immunity from prosecution to any person whose testimony or whose possession of
the Civil Service Commission, this Court having in fact, as
documents or other evidence is necessary or convenient to determine the truth in any
aforementioned, declared that the teachers affected may take
investigation conducted by it or under its authority;
appeals to the Civil Service Commission on said matters, if still
timely.
(9) Request the assistance of any department, bureau, office, or agency in the performance of
its functions;
The threshold question is whether or not the Commission on
Human Rights has the power under the Constitution to do so;
whether or not, like a court of justice, 19 or even a quasi-judicial (10) Appoint its officers and employees in accordance with law; and

agency, 20 it has jurisdiction or adjudicatory powers over, or the

(11) Perform such other duties and functions as may be provided by law.
power to try and decide, or hear and determine, certain specific
type of cases, like alleged human rights violations involving civil
As should at once be observed, only the first of the enumerated powers and functions bears
or political rights.
any resemblance to adjudication or adjudgment. The Constitution clearly and categorically
grants to the Commission the power to investigate all forms of human rights violations involving
The Court declares the Commission on Human Rights to have
civil and political rights. It can exercise that power on its own initiative or on complaint of any
no such power; and that it was not meant by the fundamental
person. It may exercise that power pursuant to such rules of procedure as it may adopt and, in
cases of violations of said rules, cite for contempt in accordance with the Rules of Court. In the
course of any investigation conducted by it or under its authority, it may grant immunity from
prosecution to any person whose testimony or whose possession of documents or other
evidence is necessary or convenient to determine the truth. It may also request the assistance
of any department, bureau, office, or agency in the performance of its functions, in the conduct
of its investigation or in extending such remedy as may be required by its findings. 26
But it cannot try and decide cases (or hear and determine causes) as courts of justice, or even
quasi-judicial bodies do. To investigate is not to adjudicate or adjudge. Whether in the popular
or the technical sense, these terms have well understood and quite distinct meanings.
"Investigate," commonly understood, means to examine, explore, inquire or delve or probe into,
research on, study. The dictionary definition of "investigate" is "to observe or study closely:
inquire into systematically. "to search or inquire into: . . . to subject to an official probe . . .: to
conduct an official inquiry." 27 The purpose of investigation, of course, is to discover, to find
out, to learn, obtain information. Nowhere included or intimated is the notion of settling, deciding
or resolving a controversy involved in the facts inquired into by application of the law to the
facts established by the inquiry.
The legal meaning of "investigate" is essentially the same: "(t)o
follow up step by step by patient inquiry or observation. To trace
or track; to search into; to examine and inquire into with care
and accuracy; to find out by careful inquisition; examination; the
taking of evidence; a legal inquiry;" 28 "to inquire; to make an
investigation," "investigation" being in turn describe as "(a)n
administrative function, the exercise of which ordinarily does
not require a hearing. 2 Am J2d Adm L Sec. 257; . . . an inquiry,
judicial or otherwise, for the discovery and collection of facts
concerning a certain matter or matters." 29
"Adjudicate," commonly or popularly understood, means to adjudge, arbitrate, judge, decide,
determine, resolve, rule on, settle. The dictionary defines the term as "to settle finally (the rights
and duties of the parties to a court case) on the merits of issues raised: . . . to pass judgment
on: settle judicially: . . . act as judge." 30 And "adjudge" means "to decide or rule upon as a
judge or with judicial or quasi-judicial powers: . . . to award or grant judicially in a case of
controversy . . . ." 31
In the legal sense, "adjudicate" means: "To settle in the exercise of judicial authority. To
determine finally. Synonymous with adjudge in its strictest sense;" and "adjudge" means: "To
pass on judicially, to decide, settle or decree, or to sentence or condemn. . . . Implies a judicial
determination of a fact, and the entry of a judgment." 32
Hence it is that the Commission on Human Rights, having merely the power "to investigate,"
cannot and should not "try and resolve on the merits" (adjudicate) the matters involved in
Striking Teachers HRC Case No. 90-775, as it has announced it means to do; and it cannot do
so even if there be a claim that in the administrative disciplinary proceedings against the
teachers in question, initiated and conducted by the DECS, their human rights, or civil or
political rights had been transgressed. More particularly, the Commission has no power to
"resolve on the merits" the question of (a) whether or not the mass concerted actions engaged
in by the teachers constitute and are prohibited or otherwise restricted by law; (b) whether or
not the act of carrying on and taking part in those actions, and the failure of the teachers to
discontinue those actions, and return to their classes despite the order to this effect by the
Secretary of Education, constitute infractions of relevant rules and regulations warranting
administrative disciplinary sanctions, or are justified by the grievances complained of by them;
and (c) what where the particular acts done by each individual teacher and what sanctions, if
any, may properly be imposed for said acts or omissions.
These are matters undoubtedly and clearly within the original jurisdiction of the Secretary of
Education, being within the scope of the disciplinary powers granted to him under the Civil
Service Law, and also, within the appellate jurisdiction of the Civil Service Commission.
Indeed, the Secretary of Education has, as above narrated, already taken cognizance of the
issues and resolved them, 33
and it appears that appeals have been
seasonably taken by the aggrieved parties to the Civil Service
Commission; and even this Court itself has had occasion to
pass upon said issues. 34
Now, it is quite obvious that whether or not the conclusions reached by the Secretary of
Education in disciplinary cases are correct and are adequately based on substantial evidence;
whether or not the proceedings themselves are void or defective in not having accorded the
respondents due process; and whether or not the Secretary of Education had in truth committed
"human rights violations involving civil and political rights," are matters which may be passed
upon and determined through a motion for reconsideration addressed to the Secretary
Education himself, and in the event of an adverse verdict, may be reviewed by the Civil Service
Commission and eventually the Supreme Court.
The Commission on Human Rights simply has no place in this scheme of things. It has no
business intruding into the jurisdiction and functions of the Education Secretary or the Civil
Service Commission. It has no business going over the same ground traversed by the latter
and making its own judgment on the questions involved. This would accord success to what
may well have been the complaining teachers' strategy to abort, frustrate or negate the
judgment of the Education Secretary in the administrative cases against them which they
anticipated would be adverse to them.
This cannot be done. It will not be permitted to be done.
In any event, the investigation by the Commission on Human Rights would serve no useful
purpose. If its investigation should result in conclusions contrary to those reached by Secretary
Cariño, it would have no power anyway to reverse the Secretary's conclusions. Reversal
thereof can only by done by the Civil Service Commission and lastly by this Court. The only
thing the Commission can do, if it concludes that Secretary Cariño was in error, is to refer the
matter to the appropriate Government agency or tribunal for assistance; that would be the Civil
Service Commission. 35 It cannot arrogate unto itself the appellate jurisdiction of the Civil
Service Commission.
WHEREFORE, the petition is granted; the Order of December
29, 1990 is ANNULLED and SET ASIDE, and the respondent
Commission on Human Rights and the Chairman and Members
thereof are prohibited "to hear and resolve the case (i.e.,
Striking Teachers HRC Case No. 90-775) on the merits."
SO ORDERED.
Melencio-Herrera, Cruz, Feliciano, Bidin, Griño-Aquino,
Medialdea, Regalado, Davide, Jr. and Romero, JJ, concur.
G.R. No. 73140 May 29, 1987
RIZAL EMPIRE INSURANCE GROUP AND/OR SERGIO
CORPUS, petitioners,
vs.
NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION,
TEODORICO L. RUIZ, as Labor Arbiter and ROGELIO R.
CORIA, respondents.
PARAS, J.:
This is a petition for review on certiorari of the March 14, 1985
Decision of Labor Arbiter Teodorico L. Ruiz which held that
herein private respondent Rogelio R. Coria was illegally
dismissed; and of the Resolution of the National Labor
Relations Commission which dismissed petitioner's appeal on
the ground that the same was filed out of time.
In August, 1977, herein private respondent Rogelio R. Coria
was hired by herein petitioner Rizal Empire Insurance Group as
a casual employee with a salary of P10.00 a day. On January
1, 1978, he was made a regular employee, having been
appointed as clerk-typist, with a monthly salary of P300.00.
Being a permanent employee, he was furnished a copy of
petitioner company's "General Information, Office Behavior and
Other Rules and Regulations." In the same year, without
change in his position-designation, he was transferred to the
Claims Department and his salary was increased to P450,00 a
month. In 1980, he was transferred to the Underwriting
Department and his salary was increased to P580.00 a month
plus cost of living allowance, until he was transferred to the Fire
Department as filing clerk. In July, 1983, he was made an
inspector of the Fire Division with a monthly salary of P685.00
plus allowances and other benefits.
On October 15, 1983, private respondent Rogelio R. Coria was
dismissed from work, allegedly, on the grounds of tardiness
and unexcused absences. Accordingly, he filed a complaint
with the Ministry of Labor and Employment (MOLE), and in a
Decision dated March 14, 1985 (Record, pp. 80-87), Labor
Arbiter Teodorico L. Ruiz reinstated him to his position with
back wages. Petitioner filed an appeal with the National labor
Relations Commission (NLRC) but, in a Resolution dated
November 15, 1985 (Ibid, pp. 31-32), the appeal was dismissed
on the ground that the same had been filed out of time. Hence,
the instant petition (Ibid, pp. 2-22).
In compliance with the resolution of the Second Division of this
Court dated April 30, 1986 (Ibid., p. 94), private respondent
filed his Comment on May 23, 1986 (Ibid., pp. 97-101) and
public respondent on July 2, 1986 (Ibid., pp. 120-124).
On June 6, 1986, petitioners filed their Reply to private
respondent's Comment (Ibid, pp. 102-105) and on July 25,
1986, their Reply to public respondent's Comment (Ibid., pp.
126-131).
In a Resolution dated August 18, 1986, the Second Division of
this Court resolved to give due course to the petition and to
require the parties to submit their respective memoranda
(Ibid., P. 132).
The record shows that the employer (petitioner herein) received
a copy of the decision of the Labor Arbiter on April 1, 1985. It
filed a Motion for Extension of Time to File Memorandum of
Appeal on April 11, 1985 and filed the Memorandum of Appeal
on April 22, 1985. Pursuant to the "no extension policy" of the
National Labor Relations Commission, aforesaid motion for
extension of time was denied in its resolution dated November
15, 1985 and the appeal was dismissed for having been filed
out of time (Rollo, pp. 31-32).
Petitioners claim, among other things, that respondent
Commission committed a grave abuse of discretion amounting
to lack of jurisdiction in arbitrarily dismissing petitioners' appeal
on a technicality (Rollo, p. 9). It invokes the Rules of Court
provision on liberal construction of the Rules in the interest of
substantial justice.
It will be noted however, that the foregoing provision refers to
the Rules of Court. On the other hand, the Revised Rules of the
National Labor Relations Commission are clear and explicit and
leave no room for interpretation.
Moreover, it is an elementary rule in administrative law that
administrative regulations and policies enacted by
administrative bodies to interpret the law which they are
entrusted to enforce, have the force of law, and are entitled to
great respect (Espanol v. Philippine Veterans Administration,
137 SCRA 314 [1985]).
Under the above-quoted provisions of the Revised NLRC
Rules, the decision appealed from in this case has become final
and executory and can no longer be subject to appeal.
Even on the merits, the ruling of the Labor Arbiter appears to
be correct; the consistent promotions in rank and salary of the
private respondent indicate he must have been a highly
efficient worker, who should be retained despite occasional
lapses in punctuality and attendance. Perfection cannot after all
be demanded.
WHEREFORE, this petition is DISMISSED.

In compliance with the above mentioned Resolution, petitioners

filed the,.r memorandum on November 10, 1986; while private
respondent filed his Memorandum on October 17, 1986
(Ibid, pp. 139-144), and public respondent on November 16,
1986 (Ibid., pp. 160-166).

Before going however, into the merits of the case, an important

point to consider is whether or not it is still within the jurisdiction
of this Court to review.

Rule VIII of the Revised Rules of the National Labor Relations

Commission on appeal, provides:

SECTION 1. (a) Appeal. — Decision or orders of a labor Arbiter

shall be final and executory unless appealed to the
Commission by any or both of the parties within ten (10)
calendar days from receipt of notice thereof.

xxx xxx xxx

SECTION 6. No extension of period. — No motion or request

for extension of the period within which to perfect an appeal
shall be entertained.