MA. ABEGAIL O.

TIPONES JD4B
POLITICAL LAW SYNTHESIS
(WEEK 3)

The executive power is described as the power to enforce and execute laws. The Constitution provides
that it shall be vested in the President of the Philippines. The president assumes a plenitude of authority
and among these are: 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 As stated in Articles VII, Sec. 14-23 of the Constitution.  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." Corollary, 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. 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
“sovereignty resides in the people and all government authority emanates from them."

The President and the Vice-President shall be elected by direct vote of the people for a term of six years
which shall begin at noon on the thirtieth day of June next following the day of the election and shall
end at noon of the same date, six years thereafter. The President shall not be eligible for any re-election.
No person who has succeeded as President and has served as such for more than four years shall be
qualified for election to the same office at any time. No person may be elected President unless he is a
natural-born citizen of the Philippines, a registered voter, able to read and write, at least forty years of
age on the day of the election, and a resident of the Philippines for at least ten years immediately
preceding such election. There shall be a Vice-President who shall have the same qualifications and term
of office and be elected with, and in the same manner, as the President. He may be removed from office
in the same manner as the President. The Vice-President may be appointed as a Member of the Cabinet.
Such appointment requires no confirmation. No Vice-President shall serve for more than two successive
terms. Voluntary renunciation of the office for any length of time shall not be considered as an
interruption in the continuity of the service for the full term for which he was elected.

Unless otherwise provided by law, the regular election for President and Vice-President shall be held on
the second Monday of May. The returns of every election for President and Vice-President, duly certified
by the board of canvassers of each province or city, shall be transmitted to the Congress, directed to the
President of the Senate. Upon receipt of the certificates of canvass, the President of the Senate shall,
not later than thirty days after the day of the election, open all the certificates in the presence of the
Senate and the House of Representatives in joint public session, and the Congress, upon determination
of the authenticity and due execution thereof in the manner provided by law, canvass the votes. The
person having the highest number of votes shall be proclaimed elected, but in case two or more shall
have an equal and highest number of votes, one of them shall forthwith be chosen by the vote of a
majority of all the Members of both Houses of the Congress, voting separately. The Congress shall
promulgate its rules for the canvassing of the certificates. The Supreme Court, sitting en banc, shall be
the sole judge of all contests relating to the election, returns, and qualifications of the President or Vice-
President, and may promulgate its rules for the purpose.

The President shall have an official residence. The salaries of the President and Vice-President shall be
determined by law and shall not be decreased during their tenure. No increase in said compensation
shall take effect until after the expiration of the term of the incumbent during which such increase was
approved. They shall not receive during their tenure any other emolument from the Government or any
other source. The prohibition against the change of their salary either by reduction or increase during
their term is meant to prevent the legislature from weakening their fortitude by appealing to their
avarice or corrupting their integrity by operating on their necessities. The President, Vice-President, the
Members of the Cabinet, and their deputies or assistants shall not, unless otherwise provided in this
Constitution, hold any other office or employment during their tenure. They shall not, during said
tenure, directly or indirectly, practice any other profession, participate in any business, or be financially
interested in any contract with, or in any franchise, or special privilege granted by the Government or
any subdivision, agency, or instrumentality thereof, including government-owned or controlled
corporations or their subsidiaries. They shall strictly avoid conflict of interest in the conduct of their
office. The spouse and relatives by consanguinity or affinity within the fourth civil degree of the
President shall not, during his tenure, be appointed as Members of the Constitutional Commissions, or
the Office of the Ombudsman, or as Secretaries, Undersecretaries, chairmen or heads of bureaus or
offices, including government-owned or controlled corporations and their subsidiaries. These inhibitions
are in line with the principle a public office is a public trust. Significantly, except only for the Vice
President who may be appointed to the Cabinet, all the officers mentioned in the above provision are
now prohibited from holding any other office or employment in the government during their tenure.

The Executive privilege is the power of the Government to withhold information from the public, the
Courts, and the Congress. It is also the right of the President and high level executive branch officers to
withhold information. It includes the President’s conversations and correspondences to enable the
President and those who assist him to freely explore alternatives in the process of shaping policies and
making decisions privately. The Presidential immunity from suit exists only in concurrence with the
presidential incumbency. The President may not be sued in any civil or criminal case for it will degrade
the dignity of the high office if he can be dragged into court litigations while serving as head of state.

Appointment is the selection by the authority vested with power, of an individual who is to exercise the
functions of a given office. The Constitution vests the appointing power in the President in Section 16
Article VII of the Constitution. The President shall nominate and, with the consent of the Commission on
Appointments, appoint the heads of the executive departments, ambassadors, other public ministers
and consuls, or officers of the armed forces from the rank of colonel or naval captain, and other officers
whose appointments are vested in him in this Constitution. He shall also appoint all other officers of the
Government whose appointments are not otherwise provided for by law, and those whom he may be
authorized by law to appoint. The Congress may, by law, vest the appointment of other officers lower in
rank in the President alone, in the courts, or in the heads of departments, agencies, commissions, or
boards. The President shall have the power to make appointments during the recess of the Congress,
whether voluntary or compulsory, but such appointments shall be effective only until disapproved by
the Commission on Appointments or until the next adjournment of the Congress. Ad-interim
appointments are appointments made by the President during the recess of Congress during which the
Commission on Appointments does not meet. Appointments whether permanent or temporary are
distinguished from designation in that the latter means simply the imposition of additional duties. From
the express power of appointment, the President derives the implied power of removal. However, it is
not correct to say that all officials appointed by him are also removable by him since the Constitution
prescribes certain methods for separation from public office of such officer. For example, Supreme Court
judges, although appointed by the President can only be removed through impeachment

Appointments extended by an Acting President shall remain effective, unless revoked by the elected
President, within ninety days from his assumption or re-assumption of office. This emphasizes the
caretaker capacity of the Acting President but at the same time allows the elected President to ratify his
appointments by mere inaction. Two months immediately before the next presidential elections and up
to the end of his term, a President or Acting President shall not make appointments, except temporary
appointments to executive positions when continued vacancies therein will prejudice public service or
endanger public safety. The obvious purpose of this provision is to prevent the use or abuse of the
appointing power by enlisting political support in exchange for some appointive office in the
government. Midnight appointment is defined as an appointment to political office made during the last
hours of the term of office of the person in whom the right of making such appointment is vested.

Control is defined as the power of an officer to alter modify or nullify or set aside what a subordinate
officer had done in the performance of his duties and to substitute the judgment of the former for that
of the latter. Supervision is the power of an officer to see that subordinate officers perform their duties.
The doctrine of qualified political agency essentially postulates that the heads of the various executive
departments are the alter egos of the President, and, thus, the actions taken by such heads in the
performance of their official duties are deemed the acts of the President unless the President himself
should disapprove such acts. This doctrine is in recognition of the fact that in our presidential form of
government, all executive organizations are adjuncts of a single Chief Executive; that the heads of the
Executive Departments are assistants and agents of the Chief Executive; and that the multiple executive
functions of the President as the Chief Executive are performed through the Executive Departments. The
doctrine has been adopted here out of practical necessity, considering that the President cannot be
expected to personally perform the multifarious functions of the executive office.

Section 18 Article VII of the Constitution bolsters the principle that civilian authority is at all times
supreme over the military. The military power enables the President to command all the Armed forces
of the Philippines, suspend the privilege of habeas corpus and declare martial law. the calling out power
is definitely involved, in view of the directive to the Armed Forces of the Philippines to "suppress all
forms of lawless violence". But there are nuances to the calling out power invoked in PP 1017 which the
majority does not discuss. The directive "to suppress all forms of lawless violence" is addressed not only
to the Armed Forces but to the police as well. The "calling out" of the police does not derive from
Section 17, Article VII, or the commander-in-chief clause, our national police being civilian in character.
Instead, the calling out of the police is sourced from the power of the President as Chief Executive under
Section 1, Article VII, and the power of executive control under Section 18, Article VII. Moreover, while
the permissible scope of military action is limited to acts in furtherance of suppressing lawless violence,
rebellion, invasion, the police can be commanded by the President to execute all laws without
distinction in light of the presidential duty to execute all laws. Still, insofar as Section 17, Article VII is
concerned, wide latitude is accorded to the discretion of the Chief Executive in the exercise of the
"calling out" power due to a recognition that the said power is of limited import, directed only to the
Armed Forces of the Philippines, and incapable of imposing any binding legal effect on the citizens and
other branches of the Philippines. 

The writ of habeas corpus is a writ directed to the person detaining another commanding him to
produce the body of the prisoner at a designated time and place with the day and cause of his caption
and detention to do, to submit to, and receive whatever the court or judge awarding the writ shall
consider in his behalf. It should be stressed that what is permitted to be suspended by the president is
not the writ itself but its privilege. This means that when the court receives an application of the writ,
and it finds the petition in proper form, it will issue the wit as a matter of course. Section 18, Article VII
itself sets the parameters for determining the sufficiency of the factual basis for the declaration of
martial law and/or the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, "namely (1) actual
invasion or rebellion, and (2) public safety requires the exercise of such power."  Without the
concurrence of the two conditions, the President's declaration of martial law and/or suspension of the
privilege of the writ of habeas corpus must be struck down.

The various forms of executive clemency are enumerated under Article VII, Section 19 of the 1987
Constitution. These include reprieves, commutations, pardons, remission of fines and forfeitures and
amnesty. A reprieve “postpones the execution of an offense to a future day certain” while a
commutation is “a remission of a part (or a cutting short) of the punishment; a substitution of a lesser
penalty for the one originally imposed. Remission of fines and forfeitures entails non-collection of
money or property lawfully adjudged but it does not have the effect of returning property already in the
legal possession of the government or a third person. A pardon is an act of grace, proceeding from the
power entrusted with the execution of the laws, which exempts the individual from the punishment for
a crime committed. Amnesty “commonly denotes the general pardon to rebels for their treason and
other high political offenses.”

As head of State, the President is supposed to be the spokesman of the nation on external affairs. In this
capacity, he may deal with foreign states and governments, extend or withhold recognition, maintain
diplomatic relations, enter into treaties and otherwise transact the business of foreign nations.
However, no treaty or international agreement shall be valid and effective unless concurred in by at
least two-thirds of all the Members of the Senate. An executive agreement according to the Supreme
court is a treaty within the meaning of that word in international law and constitutes enforceable
domestic law. Unlike treaty though, an executive agreement does not require legislative concurrence, is
usually less formal and deals with a narrower range of subjects.

The President-elect and the Vice President-elect shall assume office at the beginning of their terms. If
the President-elect fails to qualify, the Vice President-elect shall act as President until the President-
elect shall have qualified. If a President shall not have been chosen, the Vice President-elect shall act as
President until a President shall have been chosen and qualified. If at the beginning of the term of the
President, the President-elect shall have died or shall have become permanently disabled, the Vice
President-elect shall become President. Where no President and Vice-President shall have been chosen
or shall have qualified, or where both shall have died or become permanently disabled, the President of
the Senate or, in case of his inability, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, shall act as President
until a President or a Vice-President shall have been chosen and qualified. The Congress shall, by law,
provide for the manner in which one who is to act as President shall be selected until a President or a
Vice-President shall have qualified, in case of death, permanent disability, or inability of the officials
mentioned in the next preceding paragraph. The cases contemplated in Section 7 are death or
permanent disability of the President-elect, failure to elect the President, as where the canvass of the
Presidential elections has not yet been completed, or where for one reason, or another, the presidential
election has not been held and failure of the President to qualify, that is, to assume office by taking the
oath and entering into the discharge of his duties. In the first case, the Vice president elect shall become
president. In the other two case, the Vice- president elect shall merely act as President until such time as
the President shall have been chosen and qualified.

In case of death, permanent disability, removal from office, or resignation of the President, the Vice-
President shall become the President to serve the unexpired term. In case of death, permanent
disability, removal from office, or resignation of both the President and Vice-President, the President of
the Senate or, in case of his inability, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, shall then act as
President until the President or Vice-President shall have been elected and qualified. The Congress shall,
by law, provide who shall serve as President in case of death, permanent disability, or resignation of the
Acting President. He shall serve until the President or the Vice-President shall have been elected and
qualified, and be subject to the same restrictions of powers and disqualifications as the Acting President.
Section 8 deals with vacancies occurring in the Office of the President during his incumbency and is
limited to four situations such as death, permanent disability, removal and resignation. The occurrence
of which makes the Vice president assume office for the unexpired term.