Q. No. 4 | Political Law | Suggested Answer | Bar 2023

Q. No. 4 | Political Law | Suggested Answer | Bar 2023

Q. No. 4 | Political Law

The Philippine Constitution Association questioned the provision as unconstitutional for encroaching on the clemency power of the President. On the other hand, the Office of the Solicitor General argued that the present case does not present a justiciable controversy. 

Who is correct? Explain your answer[.]”

SUGGESTED ANSWER:

The Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) is correct. The Memorandum of Agreement [The chapter on Transitional Justice of the Agreed Framework between the Kapisanan ng Malayang Pilipinas (KMP) and the Government Negotiating Panel (GNP)] is but a mere proposal on defined consensus points. The parties to the agreement do not have, in short, the equivalent of, or what passes as, a perfected and enforceable contract. 

In the concrete, the Court could have entered the picture if the said agreement had been signed. For then, and only then, can we say there is a consummated executive act to speak of.  For a case to be considered ripe for adjudication, it is a prerequisite that something has been accomplished by either branch of government before a court may step in.

Section 1, Article VIII charges "courts of justice [the duty] to settle actual controversies involving rights which are legally demandable and enforceable." 

As opposed to [justiciable controversy], the so-called “academic issues” or abstract or feigned problems only call for advices on what the law would be upon a hypothetical state of facts.⁸ Were the Court to continue to entertain and resolve on the merits (the ongoing negotiations between the  KMP and the GNP, the most that it can legally do is to render an advisory opinion,⁹ veritably binding no one,¹⁰ but virtually breaching the [rule against advisory opinion] set out, if not implied in Section 1, Article VIII of the 1987 Constitution.

Article VIII, Section 1 of the 1987 Constitution pertinently provides:

“The judicial power shall be vested in one Supreme Court and in such lower courts as may be established by law.

Judicial power includes the duty of the courts of justice to settle actual controversies involving rights which are legally demandable and enforceable, and 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[.]”

Application |

 As things stand, the line dividing the negotiation stage and the execution stage which would have otherwise conferred the character of obligatoriness on the agreement is yet to be crossed. In a very real sense, the agreement is not a document, as the term is juridically understood, but literally a piece of paper which the parties cannot look up to as an independent source of obligation, the binding prestation to do or give and the corollary right to exact compliance. 

Yet, the  Philippine Constitution Association would have the Court nullify and strike down as unconstitutional what, for all intents and purposes, is a non-existent agreement. 

A similar issue had been resolved by the Court in the case of The Province of North Cotabato v. The Government of the Republic of the Philippines Peace Panel on Ancestral Domain, this Court held:

“Like a bill after it passes third reading or even awaiting the approval signature of the President, the unsigned draft MOA-AD cannot plausibly be the subject of judicial review, the exercise of which presupposes that there is before the court an actual case or, in fine, a justiciable controversy ripe for adjudication. A justiciable controversy involves a definite and concrete dispute touching on the legal relations of parties who are pitted against each other due to their demanding and conflicting legal interests.⁶ And a dispute is ripe for adjudication when the act being challenged has had direct adverse effect on the person challenging it and admits of specific relief through a decree that is conclusive in character. As aptly observed in Tan v. Macapagal,⁷ for a case to be considered ripe for adjudication, it is a prerequisite that something had been accomplished by either branch of government before a court may step in. In the concrete, the Court could have entered the picture if the MOA-AD were signed. For then, and only then, can we say there is a consummated executive act to speak of[.]”

RE: The  Philippine Constitution Association is not correct; The doctrine of  “blending powers” in political law |

The Philippine Constitution Association is not correct applying the principle of the “blending powers” which states that the separation of powers among the three branches of government (e.g., Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Departments) does not preclude the “blending of powers” and “checks and balances”

The general rule is separation of powers. The exceptions are the blending of powers and checks and balances. 

The Constitutional entities blend powers when they put their powers together to achieve a  goal. 

Here, In a fresh attempt by the President to seek a just and lasting peace with the Kapisanan ng Malayang Pilipinas (KMP), a Government Negotiating Panel (GNP) was constituted to explore options to end the internal armed conflict in the country.

When the Philippine President blends his power with the Legislative department to achieve peace talks with the KMP, this does not mean that the President’s clemency power has been violated. The separation of power among the three branches of the government does not preclude their blending of powers to achieve national goals, in this case, the peace talk negotiation to address internal conflicts. (G.R. Nos. 183591, 183752, 183893 & 183951 (The Province of North Cotabato v. The Government of the Republic of the Philippines Peace Panel on Ancestral Domain)

Read the full case at

https://lawphil.net/judjuris/juri2008/oct2008/gr_183591pv_2008.html#fnt8

FOOTNOTES:

1 Angara v. Electoral Commission, 63 Phil. 139 (1936).

⁶ Guingona v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 125532. July 10, 1998, citing cases.

⁷ 43 SCRA 77, cited in De Leon, Philippine Constitutional Law, Vol. II, 2004 ed., p. 434.

⁸ Guingona v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 125532. July 10, 1998, citing Cruz, Philippine Political Law, 1955 ed., pp. 241-42; John Hay People's Alterntive Coalition v. Lim, G.R. No. 119775, October 24, 2003.

⁹ Ticzon v. Video Post Manila, Inc. G.R. No. 136342. June 15, 2000, citing Bacolod-Murcia Planters' Association, Inc. v. Bacolod-Murcia Milling Co., Inc., 30 SCRA 67, 68-69, October 31, 1969.

¹⁰ See Bernas, The 1987 Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines: A Commentary, 1996 Ed.