V.

Application of the Natural Law

Culled from History and Philosophy:
Are the Rights Against Unreasonable Search and Seizure
and to the Exclusion of Illegally Seized Evidence Natural Rights
which Private Respondent Dimaano Can Invoke?

In answering this question, Justice Goldbergs concurring opinion in the Griswold

case serves as a helpful guidepost to determine whether a right is so fundamental that
the people cannot be deprived of it without undermining the tenets of civil society and
government, viz:

In determining which rights are fundamental, judges are not left at large to decide
cases in light of their personal and private notions. Rather, they must look to the
traditions and [collective] conscience of our people to determine whether a principle is
so rooted [there] . . . as to be ranked as fundamental. (Snyder v. Com. of
Massachusetts, 291 U.S. 97, 105 (1934)). The inquiry is whether a right involved is of
such character that it cannot be denied without violating those fundamental principles
of liberty and justice which lie at the base of all our civil and political institutions. . . .
Powell v. State of Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 67 (1932) (emphasis supplied)
[274]

In deciding a case, invoking natural law as solely a matter of the judges personal
preference, invites criticism that the decision is a performative contradiction and thus self-
defeating. Critics would point out that while the decision invokes natural law that abhors
arbitrariness, that same decision is tainted with what it abhors as it stands on the judges
subjective and arbitrary choice of a school of legal thought. Just as one judge will fight
tooth and nail to defend the natural law philosophy, another judge will match his fervor in
defending a contrary philosophy he espouses. However, invoking natural law because
the history, tradition and moral fiber of a people indubitably show adherence to it is an
altogether different story, for ultimately, in our political and legal tradition, the people are
the source of all government authority, and the courts are their creation. While it may be
argued that the choice of a school of legal thought is a matter of opinion, history is a fact
against which one cannot argue - and it would not be turning somersault with history to
say that the American Declaration of Independence and the consequent adoption of a
constitution stood on a modern natural law theory foundation as this is universally taken
for granted by writers on government.[275] It is also well-settled in Philippine history that the
American system of government and constitution were adopted by our 1935
Constitutional Convention as a model of our own republican system of government and
constitution. In the words of Claro M. Recto, President of the Convention, the 1935
Constitution is frankly an imitation of the American Constitution. Undeniably therefore,
modern natural law theory, specifically Lockes natural rights theory, was used by the
Founding Fathers of the American constitutional democracy and later also used by the
Filipinos.[276] Although the 1935 Constitution was revised in 1973, minimal modifications
were introduced in the 1973 Constitution which was in force prior to the EDSA
Revolution. Therefore, it could confidently be asserted that the spirit and letter of the 1935
Constitution, at least insofar as the system of government and the Bill of Rights were
concerned, still prevailed at the time of the EDSA Revolution. Even the 1987 Constitution
ratified less than a year from the EDSA Revolution retained the basic provisions of the
1935 and 1973 Constitutions on the system of government and the Bill of Rights, with the
significant difference that it emphasized respect for and protection of human rights and
stressed that sovereignty resided in the people and all government authority emanates
from them.
Two facts are easily discernible from our constitutional history. First, the Filipinos are
a freedom-loving race with high regard for their fundamental and natural rights. No
amount of subjugation or suppression, by rulers with the same color as the Filipinos skin
or otherwise, could obliterate their longing and aspiration to enjoy these rights. Without
the peoples consent to submit their natural rights to the ruler, [277] these rights cannot
forever be quelled, for like water seeking its own course and level, they will find their place
in the life of the individual and of the nation; natural right, as part of nature, will take its
own course. Thus, the Filipinos fought for and demanded these rights from the Spanish
and American colonizers, and in fairly recent history, from an authoritarian ruler. They
wrote these rights in stone in every constitution they crafted starting from the 1899
Malolos Constitution. Second, although Filipinos have given democracy its own Filipino
face, it is undeniable that our political and legal institutions are American in origin. The
Filipinos adopted the republican form of government that the Americans introduced and
the Bill of Rights they extended to our islands, and were the keystones that kept the body
politic intact. These institutions sat well with the Filipinos who had long yearned for
participation in government and were jealous of their fundamental and natural
rights. Undergirding these institutions was the modern natural law theory which stressed
natural rights in free, independent and equal individuals who banded together to form
government for the protection of their natural rights to life, liberty and property. The sole
purpose of government is to promote, protect and preserve these rights. And when
government not only defaults in its duty but itself violates the very rights it was established
to protect, it forfeits its authority to demand obedience of the governed and could be
replaced with one to which the people consent. The Filipino people exercised this highest
of rights in the EDSA Revolution of February 1986.
I will not endeavor to identify every natural right that the Filipinos fought for in
EDSA. The case at bar merely calls us to determine whether two particular rights - the
rights against unreasonable search and seizure and to the exclusion of evidence obtained
therefrom - have the force and effect of natural rights which private respondent Dimaano
can invoke against the government.
I shall first deal with the right against unreasonable search and seizure. On February
25, 1986, the new president, Corazon Aquino, issued Proclamation No. 1 where she
declared that she and the vice president were taking power in the name and by the will of
the Filipino people and pledged to do justice to the numerous victims of human rights
violations.[278] It is implicit from this pledge that the new government recognized and
respected human rights. Thus, at the time of the search on March 3, 1986, it may be
asserted that the government had the duty, by its own pledge, to uphold human
rights. This presidential issuance was what came closest to a positive law guaranteeing
human rights without enumerating them. Nevertheless, even in the absence of a positive
law granting private respondent Dimaano the right against unreasonable search and
seizure at the time her house was raided, I respectfully submit that she can invoke her
natural right against unreasonable search and seizure.
The right against unreasonable search and seizure is a core right implicit in the
natural right to life, liberty and property. Our well-settled jurisprudence that the right
against unreasonable search and seizure protects the peoples rights to security of person
and property, to the sanctity of the home, and to privacy is a recognition of this
proposition. The life to which each person has a right is not a life lived in fear that his
person and property may be unreasonably violated by a powerful ruler. Rather, it is a life
lived with the assurance that the government he established and consented to, will protect
the security of his person and property. The ideal of security in life and property dates
back even earlier than the modern philosophers and the American and French
revolutions, but pervades the whole history of man. It touches every aspect of mans
existence, thus it has been described, viz:

The right to personal security emanates in a persons legal and uninterrupted

enjoyment of his life, his limbs, his body, his health, and his reputation. It includes the
right to exist, and the right to enjoyment of life while existing, and it is invaded not
only by a deprivation of life but also of those things which are necessary to the
enjoyment of life according to the nature, temperament, and lawful desires of the
individual.[279]