G.R. No.

L-5279
October 31, 1955
PHILIPPINE ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES,
ETC., petitioner,
vs.
SECRETARY OF EDUCATION and the BOARD OF TEXTBOOKS,
respondents.
Manuel C. Briones, Vicente G. Sinco, Manuel V. Gallego and Enrique
M. Fernando for petitioner.
Office of the Solicitor General Pompeyo Diaz and Assistant Solicitor
General Francisco Carreon for respondents.

proposition of the petitioners they contended that the Constitution

guaranteed the right of a citizen to own and operate a school and
any law requiring previous governmental approval or permit before
such person could exercise the said right On the other hand, the
defendant Legal Representative submitted a memorandum
contending that 1) the matters presented no justiciable controversy
exhibiting unavoidable necessity of deciding the constitutional
question; 2) Petitioners are in estoppels to challenge the validity of
the said act and 3) the Act is constitutionally valid. Thus, the petition
for prohibition was dismissed by the court.

FACTS:

ISSUE:

The Philippine Association of Colleges anda Universities

made a petition that Acts No. 2706 otherwise known as the Act
making the Inspection and Recognition of private schools and
colleges obligatory for the Secretary of Public Instruction and was
amended by Act No. 3075 and Commonwealth Act No. 180 be
declared unconstitutional on the grounds that 1) the act deprives the
owner of the school and colleges as well as teachers and parents of
liberty and property without due process of Law; 2) it will also
deprive the parents of their Natural Rights and duty to rear their
children for civic efficiency and 3) its provisions conferred on the
Secretary of Education unlimited powers and discretion to prescribe
rules and standards constitute towards unlawful delegation of
Legislative powers.
Section 1 of Act No. 2706
It shall be the duty of the Secretary of Public Instruction to maintain
a general standard of efficiency in all private schools and colleges of
the Philippines so that the same shall furnish adequate instruction to
the public, in accordance with the class and grade of instruction
given in them, and for this purpose said Secretary or his duly
authorized representative shall have authority to advise, inspect,
and regulate said schools and colleges in order to determine the
efficiency of instruction given in the same,
The petitioner also complain that securing a permit to the
Secretary of Education before opening a school is not originally
included in the original Act 2706. And in support to the first

Whether or not Act No. 2706 as amended by Act no. 3075 and
Commonwealth Act no. 180 may be declared void and
unconstitutional?
RATIO DECIDENTI:
The Petitioner suffered no wrong under the terms of law and
needs no relief in the form they seek to obtain. Moreover, there is no
justiciable controversy presented before the court. It is an
established principle that to entitle a private individual immediately
in danger of sustaining a direct injury and it is not sufficient that he
has merely invoke the judicial power to determined the validity of
executive and legislative action he must show that he has sustained
common interest to all members of the public. Furthermore, the
power of the courts to declare a law unconstitutional arises only
when the interest of litigant require the use of judicial authority for
their protection against actual interference. As such, Judicial Power is
limited to the decision of actual cases and controversies and the
authority to pass on the validity of statutes is incidental to the
decisions of such cases where conflicting claims under the
constitution and under the legislative act assailed as contrary to the
constitution but it is legitimate only in the last resort and it must be
necessary to determined a real and vital controversy between
litigants. Thus, actions like this are brought for a positive purpose to
obtain actual positive relief and the court does not sit to adjudicate a
mere academic question to satisfy scholarly interest therein. The
court however, finds the defendant position to be sufficiently

sustained and state that the petitioner remedy is to challenge the

regulation not to invalidate the law because it needs no argument to
show that abuse by officials entrusted with the execution of the
statute does not per se demonstrate the unconstitutionality of such
statute. On this phase of the litigation the court conclude that there
has been no undue delegation of legislative power even if the
petitioners appended a list of circulars and memoranda issued by
the Department of Education they fail to indicate which of such
official documents was constitutionally objectionable for being
capricious or pain nuisance. Therefore, the court denied the petition
for prohibition.