Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
SUPREME COURT
Manila
EN BANC
G.R. No. 78742 July 14, 1989
ASSOCIATION OF SMALL LANDOWNERS IN THE
PHILIPPINES, INC., JUANITO D. GOMEZ, GERARDO
B. ALARCIO, FELIPE A. GUICO, JR., BERNARDO M.
ALMONTE, CANUTO RAMIR B. CABRITO, ISIDRO T.
GUICO, FELISA I. LLAMIDO, FAUSTO J. SALVA,
REYNALDO G. ESTRADA, FELISA C. BAUTISTA,
ESMENIA J. CABE, TEODORO B. MADRIAGA,
AUREA J. PRESTOSA, EMERENCIANA J. ISLA,
FELICISIMA C. ARRESTO, CONSUELO M.
MORALES, BENJAMIN R. SEGISMUNDO, CIRILA A.
JOSE & NAPOLEON S. FERRER, petitioners,
vs.
HONORABLE SECRETARY OF AGRARIAN
REFORM, respondent.
G.R. No. 79310 July 14, 1989
ARSENIO AL. ACUNA, NEWTON JISON, VICTORINO
FERRARIS, DENNIS JEREZA, HERMINIGILDO
GUSTILO, PAULINO D. TOLENTINO and PLANTERS'
COMMITTEE, INC., Victorias Mill District, Victorias,
Negros Occidental, petitioners,
vs.
JOKER ARROYO, PHILIP E. JUICO and
PRESIDENTIAL AGRARIAN REFORM
COUNCIL, respondents.
G.R. No. 79744 July 14, 1989
INOCENTES PABICO, petitioner,
vs.
HON. PHILIP E. JUICO, SECRETARY OF THE
DEPARTMENT OF AGRARIAN REFORM, HON.
JOKER ARROYO, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY OF THE
OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT, and Messrs.
SALVADOR TALENTO, JAIME ABOGADO,
CONRADO AVANCENA and ROBERTO
TAAY, respondents.
G.R. No. 79777 July 14, 1989
NICOLAS S. MANAAY and AGUSTIN HERMANO,
JR., petitioners,
vs.
HON. PHILIP ELLA JUICO, as Secretary of Agrarian
Reform, and LAND BANK OF THE
PHILIPPINES, respondents.
CRUZ, J.:
In ancient mythology, Antaeus was a terrible giant who
blocked and challenged Hercules for his life on his way
to Mycenae after performing his eleventh labor. The two
wrestled mightily and Hercules flung his adversary to the
ground thinking him dead, but Antaeus rose even
stronger to resume their struggle. This happened several
times to Hercules' increasing amazement. Finally, as
they continued grappling, it dawned on Hercules that
Antaeus was the son of Gaea and could never die as
long as any part of his body was touching his Mother
Earth. Thus forewarned, Hercules then held Antaeus up
in the air, beyond the reach of the sustaining soil, and
crushed him to death.
Mother Earth. The sustaining soil. The giver of life,
without whose invigorating touch even the powerful
Antaeus weakened and died.
The cases before us are not as fanciful as the foregoing
tale. But they also tell of the elemental forces of life and
death, of men and women who, like Antaeus need the
sustaining strength of the precious earth to stay alive.
"Land for the Landless" is a slogan that underscores the
acute imbalance in the distribution of this precious
resource among our people. But it is more than a slogan.
Through the brooding centuries, it has become a battle-
cry dramatizing the increasingly urgent demand of the
dispossessed among us for a plot of earth as their place
in the sun.
Recognizing this need, the Constitution in 1935
mandated the policy of social justice to "insure the well-
being and economic security of all the
people," 1 especially the less privileged. In 1973, the new
Constitution affirmed this goal adding specifically that
"the State shall regulate the acquisition, ownership, use,
enjoyment and disposition of private property and
equitably diffuse property ownership and
profits." 2 Significantly, there was also the specific
injunction to "formulate and implement an agrarian
reform program aimed at emancipating the tenant from
the bondage of the soil." 3
The Constitution of 1987 was not to be outdone. Besides
echoing these sentiments, it also adopted one whole and
separate Article XIII on Social Justice and Human
Rights, containing grandiose but undoubtedly sincere
provisions for the uplift of the common people. These
include a call in the following words for the adoption by
the State of an agrarian reform program:
SEC. 4. The State shall, by law, undertake an
agrarian reform program founded on the right of
farmers and regular farmworkers, who are
landless, to own directly or collectively the lands
they till or, in the case of other farmworkers, to
receive a just share of the fruits thereof. To this
end, the State shall encourage and undertake
the just distribution of all agricultural lands,
subject to such priorities and reasonable
retention limits as the Congress may prescribe,
taking into account ecological, developmental, or
equity considerations and subject to the
payment of just compensation. In determining
retention limits, the State shall respect the right
of small landowners. The State shall further
provide incentives for voluntary land-sharing.
Earlier, in fact, R.A. No. 3844, otherwise known as the
Agricultural Land Reform Code, had already been
enacted by the Congress of the Philippines on August 8,
1963, in line with the above-stated principles. This was
substantially superseded almost a decade later by P.D.
No. 27, which was promulgated on October 21, 1972,
along with martial law, to provide for the compulsory
acquisition of private lands for distribution among tenant-
farmers and to specify maximum retention limits for
landowners.
The people power revolution of 1986 did not change and
indeed even energized the thrust for agrarian reform.
Thus, on July 17, 1987, President Corazon C. Aquino
issued E.O. No. 228, declaring full land ownership in
favor of the beneficiaries of P.D. No. 27 and providing for
the valuation of still unvalued lands covered by the
decree as well as the manner of their payment. This was
followed on July 22, 1987 by Presidential Proclamation
No. 131, instituting a comprehensive agrarian reform
program (CARP), and E.O. No. 229, providing the
mechanics for its implementation.
Subsequently, with its formal organization, the revived
Congress of the Philippines took over legislative power
from the President and started its own deliberations,
including extensive public hearings, on the improvement
of the interests of farmers. The result, after almost a year
of spirited debate, was the enactment of R.A. No. 6657,
otherwise known as the Comprehensive Agrarian
Reform Law of 1988, which President Aquino signed on
June 10, 1988. This law, while considerably changing
the earlier mentioned enactments, nevertheless gives
them suppletory effect insofar as they are not
inconsistent with its provisions. 4
The above-captioned cases have been consolidated
because they involve common legal questions, including
serious challenges to the constitutionality of the several
measures mentioned above. They will be the subject of
one common discussion and resolution, The different
antecedents of each case will require separate
treatment, however, and will first be explained
hereunder.
G.R. No. 79777
Squarely raised in this petition is the constitutionality of
P.D. No. 27, E.O. Nos. 228 and 229, and R.A. No. 6657.
The subjects of this petition are a 9-hectare riceland
worked by four tenants and owned by petitioner Nicolas
Manaay and his wife and a 5-hectare riceland worked by
four tenants and owned by petitioner Augustin Hermano,
Jr. The tenants were declared full owners of these lands
by E.O. No. 228 as qualified farmers under P.D. No. 27.
The petitioners are questioning P.D. No. 27 and E.O.
Nos. 228 and 229 on grounds inter alia of separation of
powers, due process, equal protection and the
constitutional limitation that no private property shall be
taken for public use without just compensation.
They contend that President Aquino usurped legislative
power when she promulgated E.O. No. 228. The said
measure is invalid also for violation of Article XIII,
Section 4, of the Constitution, for failure to provide for
retention limits for small landowners. Moreover, it does
not conform to Article VI, Section 25(4) and the other
requisites of a valid appropriation.
In connection with the determination of just
compensation, the petitioners argue that the same may
be made only by a court of justice and not by the
President of the Philippines. They invoke the recent
cases of EPZA v. Dulay 5 andManotok v. National Food
Authority. 6 Moreover, the just compensation
contemplated by the Bill of Rights is payable in money or
in cash and not in the form of bonds or other things of
value.
In considering the rentals as advance payment on the
land, the executive order also deprives the petitioners of
their property rights as protected by due process. The
equal protection clause is also violated because the
order places the burden of solving the agrarian problems
on the owners only of agricultural lands. No similar
obligation is imposed on the owners of other properties.
The petitioners also maintain that in declaring the
beneficiaries under P.D. No. 27 to be the owners of the
lands occupied by them, E.O. No. 228 ignored judicial
prerogatives and so violated due process. Worse, the
measure would not solve the agrarian problem because
even the small farmers are deprived of their lands and
the retention rights guaranteed by the Constitution.
In his Comment, the Solicitor General stresses that P.D.
No. 27 has already been upheld in the earlier cases
ofChavez v. Zobel, 7 Gonzales v. Estrella, 8 and
Association of Rice and Corn Producers of the
Philippines, Inc. v. The National Land Reform
Council. 9 The determination of just compensation by the
executive authorities conformably to the formula
prescribed under the questioned order is at best initial or
prelim inary only. It does not foreclose judicial
intervention whenever sought or warranted. At any rate,
the challenge to the order is premature because no
valuation of their property has as yet been made by the
Department of Agrarian Reform. The petitioners are also
not proper parties because the lands owned by them do
not exceed the maximum retention limit of 7 hectares.
Replying, the petitioners insist they are proper parties
because P.D. No. 27 does not provide for retention limits
on tenanted lands and that in any event their petition is a
class suit brought in behalf of landowners with
landholdings below 24 hectares. They maintain that the
determination of just compensation by the administrative
authorities is a final ascertainment. As for the cases
invoked by the public respondent, the constitutionality of
P.D. No. 27 was merely assumed in Chavez, while what
was decided in Gonzales was the validity of the
imposition of martial law.
In the amended petition dated November 22, 1588, it is
contended that P.D. No. 27, E.O. Nos. 228 and 229
(except Sections 20 and 21) have been impliedly
repealed by R.A. No. 6657. Nevertheless, this statute
should itself also be declared unconstitutional because it
suffers from substantially the same infirmities as the
earlier measures.
A petition for intervention was filed with leave of court on
June 1, 1988 by Vicente Cruz, owner of a 1. 83- hectare
land, who complained that the DAR was insisting on the
implementation of P.D. No. 27 and E.O. No. 228 despite
a compromise agreement he had reached with his
tenant on the payment of rentals. In a subsequent
motion dated April 10, 1989, he adopted the allegations
in the basic amended petition that the above- mentioned
enactments have been impliedly repealed by R.A. No.
6657.
G.R. No. 79310
The petitioners herein are landowners and sugar
planters in the Victorias Mill District, Victorias, Negros
Occidental. Co-petitioner Planters' Committee, Inc. is an
organization composed of 1,400 planter-members. This
petition seeks to prohibit the implementation of Proc. No.
131 and E.O. No. 229.
The petitioners claim that the power to provide for a
Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program as decreed
by the Constitution belongs to Congress and not the
President. Although they agree that the President could
exercise legislative power until the Congress was
convened, she could do so only to enact emergency
measures during the transition period. At that, even
assuming that the interim legislative power of the
President was properly exercised, Proc. No. 131 and
E.O. No. 229 would still have to be annulled for violating
the constitutional provisions on just compensation, due
process, and equal protection.
They also argue that under Section 2 of Proc. No. 131
which provides:
Agrarian Reform Fund.-There is hereby created a
special fund, to be known as the Agrarian Reform Fund,
an initial amount of FIFTY BILLION PESOS
(P50,000,000,000.00) to cover the estimated cost of the
Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program from 1987 to
1992 which shall be sourced from the receipts of the
sale of the assets of the Asset Privatization Trust and
Receipts of sale of ill-gotten wealth received through the
Presidential Commission on Good Government and
such other sources as government may deem
appropriate. The amounts collected and accruing to this
special fund shall be considered automatically
appropriated for the purpose authorized in this
Proclamation the amount appropriated is in futuro, not in
esse. The money needed to cover the cost of the
contemplated expropriation has yet to be raised and
cannot be appropriated at this time.
Furthermore, they contend that taking must be
simultaneous with payment of just compensation as it is
traditionally understood, i.e., with money and in full, but
no such payment is contemplated in Section 5 of the
E.O. No. 229. On the contrary, Section 6, thereof
provides that the Land Bank of the Philippines "shall
compensate the landowner in an amount to be
established by the government, which shall be based on
the owner's declaration of current fair market value as
provided in Section 4 hereof, but subject to certain
controls to be defined and promulgated by the
Presidential Agrarian Reform Council." This
compensation may not be paid fully in money but in any
of several modes that may consist of part cash and part
bond, with interest, maturing periodically, or direct
payment in cash or bond as may be mutually agreed
upon by the beneficiary and the landowner or as may be
prescribed or approved by the PARC.
The petitioners also argue that in the issuance of the two
measures, no effort was made to make a careful study of
the sugar planters' situation. There is no tenancy
problem in the sugar areas that can justify the
application of the CARP to them. To the extent that the
sugar planters have been lumped in the same legislation
with other farmers, although they are a separate group
with problems exclusively their own, their right to equal
protection has been violated.
A motion for intervention was filed on August 27,1987 by
the National Federation of Sugarcane Planters (NASP)
which claims a membership of at least 20,000 individual
sugar planters all over the country. On September 10,
1987, another motion for intervention was filed, this time
by Manuel Barcelona, et al., representing coconut and
riceland owners. Both motions were granted by the
Court.
NASP alleges that President Aquino had no authority to
fund the Agrarian Reform Program and that, in any
event, the appropriation is invalid because of uncertainty
in the amount appropriated. Section 2 of Proc. No. 131
and Sections 20 and 21 of E.O. No. 229 provide for an
initial appropriation of fifty billion pesos and thus
specifies the minimum rather than the maximum
authorized amount. This is not allowed. Furthermore, the
stated initial amount has not been certified to by the
National Treasurer as actually available.
Two additional arguments are made by Barcelona, to
wit, the failure to establish by clear and convincing
evidence the necessity for the exercise of the powers of
eminent domain, and the violation of the fundamental
right to own property.
The petitioners also decry the penalty for non-
registration of the lands, which is the expropriation of the
said land for an amount equal to the government
assessor's valuation of the land for tax purposes. On the
other hand, if the landowner declares his own valuation
he is unjustly required to immediately pay the
corresponding taxes on the land, in violation of the
uniformity rule.
In his consolidated Comment, the Solicitor General first
invokes the presumption of constitutionality in favor of
Proc. No. 131 and E.O. No. 229. He also justifies the
necessity for the expropriation as explained in the
"whereas" clauses of the Proclamation and submits that,
contrary to the petitioner's contention, a pilot project to
determine the feasibility of CARP and a general survey
on the people's opinion thereon are not indispensable
prerequisites to its promulgation.
On the alleged violation of the equal protection clause,
the sugar planters have failed to show that they belong
to a different class and should be differently treated. The
Comment also suggests the possibility of Congress first
distributing public agricultural lands and scheduling the
expropriation of private agricultural lands later. From this
viewpoint, the petition for prohibition would be
premature.
The public respondent also points out that the
constitutional prohibition is against the payment of public
money without the corresponding appropriation. There is
no rule that only money already in existence can be the
subject of an appropriation law. Finally, the earmarking
of fifty billion pesos as Agrarian Reform Fund, although
denominated as an initial amount, is actually the
maximum sum appropriated. The word "initial" simply
means that additional amounts may be appropriated
later when necessary.
On April 11, 1988, Prudencio Serrano, a coconut planter,
filed a petition on his own behalf, assailing the
constitutionality of E.O. No. 229. In addition to the
arguments already raised, Serrano contends that the
measure is unconstitutional because:
(1) Only public lands should be included in the
CARP;
(2) E.O. No. 229 embraces more than one
subject which is not expressed in the title;
(3) The power of the President to legislate was
terminated on July 2, 1987; and
(4) The appropriation of a P50 billion special
fund from the National Treasury did not originate
from the House of Representatives.
G.R. No. 79744
The petitioner alleges that the then Secretary of
Department of Agrarian Reform, in violation of due
process and the requirement for just compensation,
placed his landholding under the coverage of Operation
Land Transfer. Certificates of Land Transfer were
subsequently issued to the private respondents, who
then refused payment of lease rentals to him.
On September 3, 1986, the petitioner protested the
erroneous inclusion of his small landholding under
Operation Land transfer and asked for the recall and
cancellation of the Certificates of Land Transfer in the
name of the private respondents. He claims that on
December 24, 1986, his petition was denied without
hearing. On February 17, 1987, he filed a motion for
reconsideration, which had not been acted upon when
E.O. Nos. 228 and 229 were issued. These orders
rendered his motion moot and academic because they
directly effected the transfer of his land to the private
respondents.
The petitioner now argues that:
(1) E.O. Nos. 228 and 229 were invalidly issued
by the President of the Philippines.
(2) The said executive orders are violative of the
constitutional provision that no private property
shall be taken without due process or just
compensation.
(3) The petitioner is denied the right of maximum
retention provided for under the 1987
Constitution.
The petitioner contends that the issuance of E.0. Nos.
228 and 229 shortly before Congress convened is
anomalous and arbitrary, besides violating the doctrine
of separation of powers. The legislative power granted to
the President under the Transitory Provisions refers only
to emergency measures that may be promulgated in the
proper exercise of the police power.
The petitioner also invokes his rights not to be deprived
of his property without due process of law and to the
retention of his small parcels of riceholding as
guaranteed under Article XIII, Section 4 of the
Constitution. He likewise argues that, besides denying
him just compensation for his land, the provisions of
E.O. No. 228 declaring that:
Lease rentals paid to the landowner by the
farmer-beneficiary after October 21, 1972 shall
be considered as advance payment for the land.
is an unconstitutional taking of a vested property right. It
is also his contention that the inclusion of even small
landowners in the program along with other landowners
with lands consisting of seven hectares or more is
undemocratic.
In his Comment, the Solicitor General submits that the
petition is premature because the motion for
reconsideration filed with the Minister of Agrarian Reform
is still unresolved. As for the validity of the issuance of
E.O. Nos. 228 and 229, he argues that they were
enacted pursuant to Section 6, Article XVIII of the
Transitory Provisions of the 1987 Constitution which
reads:
The incumbent president shall continue to exercise
legislative powers until the first Congress is convened.
On the issue of just compensation, his position is that
when P.D. No. 27 was promulgated on October 21.
1972, the tenant-farmer of agricultural land was deemed
the owner of the land he was tilling. The leasehold
rentals paid after that date should therefore be
considered amortization payments.
In his Reply to the public respondents, the petitioner
maintains that the motion he filed was resolved on
December 14, 1987. An appeal to the Office of the
President would be useless with the promulgation of
E.O. Nos. 228 and 229, which in effect sanctioned the
validity of the public respondent's acts.
G.R. No. 78742
The petitioners in this case invoke the right of retention
granted by P.D. No. 27 to owners of rice and corn lands
not exceeding seven hectares as long as they are
cultivating or intend to cultivate the same. Their
respective lands do not exceed the statutory limit but are
occupied by tenants who are actually cultivating such
lands.
According to P.D. No. 316, which was promulgated in
implementation of P.D. No. 27:
No tenant-farmer in agricultural lands primarily
devoted to rice and corn shall be ejected or
removed from his farmholding until such time as
the respective rights of the tenant- farmers and
the landowner shall have been determined in
accordance with the rules and regulations
implementing P.D. No. 27.
The petitioners claim they cannot eject their tenants and
so are unable to enjoy their right of retention because
the Department of Agrarian Reform has so far not issued
the implementing rules required under the above-quoted
decree. They therefore ask the Court for a writ of
mandamus to compel the respondent to issue the said
rules.
In his Comment, the public respondent argues that P.D.
No. 27 has been amended by LOI 474 removing any
right of retention from persons who own other
agricultural lands of more than 7 hectares in aggregate
area or lands used for residential, commercial, industrial
or other purposes from which they derive adequate
income for their family. And even assuming that the
petitioners do not fall under its terms, the regulations
implementing P.D. No. 27 have already been issued, to
wit, the Memorandum dated July 10, 1975 (Interim
Guidelines on Retention by Small Landowners, with an
accompanying Retention Guide Table), Memorandum
Circular No. 11 dated April 21, 1978, (Implementation
Guidelines of LOI No. 474), Memorandum Circular No.
18-81 dated December 29,1981 (Clarificatory Guidelines
on Coverage of P.D. No. 27 and Retention by Small
Landowners), and DAR Administrative Order No. 1,
series of 1985 (Providing for a Cut-off Date for
Landowners to Apply for Retention and/or to Protest the
Coverage of their Landholdings under Operation Land
Transfer pursuant to P.D. No. 27). For failure to file the
corresponding applications for retention under these
measures, the petitioners are now barred from invoking
this right.
The public respondent also stresses that the petitioners
have prematurely initiated this case notwithstanding the
pendency of their appeal to the President of the
Philippines. Moreover, the issuance of the implementing
rules, assuming this has not yet been done, involves the
exercise of discretion which cannot be controlled through
the writ of mandamus. This is especially true if this
function is entrusted, as in this case, to a separate
department of the government.
In their Reply, the petitioners insist that the above-cited
measures are not applicable to them because they do
not own more than seven hectares of agricultural land.
Moreover, assuming arguendo that the rules were
intended to cover them also, the said measures are
nevertheless not in force because they have not been
published as required by law and the ruling of this Court
in Tanada v. Tuvera.10 As for LOI 474, the same is
ineffective for the additional reason that a mere letter of
instruction could not have repealed the presidential
decree.
I
Although holding neither purse nor sword and so
regarded as the weakest of the three departments of the
government, the judiciary is nonetheless vested with the
power to annul the acts of either the legislative or the
executive or of both when not conformable to the
fundamental law. This is the reason for what some
quarters call the doctrine of judicial supremacy. Even so,
this power is not lightly assumed or readily exercised.
The doctrine of separation of powers imposes upon the
courts a proper restraint, born of the nature of their
functions and of their respect for the other departments,
in striking down the acts of the legislative and the
executive as unconstitutional. The policy, indeed, is a
blend of courtesy and caution. To doubt is to sustain.
The theory is that before the act was done or the law
was enacted, earnest studies were made by Congress
or the President, or both, to insure that the Constitution
would not be breached.
In addition, the Constitution itself lays down stringent
conditions for a declaration of unconstitutionality,
requiring therefor the concurrence of a majority of the
members of the Supreme Court who took part in the
deliberations and voted on the issue during their session
en banc.11 And as established by judge made doctrine,
the Court will assume jurisdiction over a constitutional
question only if it is shown that the essential requisites of
a judicial inquiry into such a question are first satisfied.
Thus, there must be an actual case or controversy
involving a conflict of legal rights susceptible of judicial
determination, the constitutional question must have
been opportunely raised by the proper party, and the
resolution of the question is unavoidably necessary to
the decision of the case itself. 12
With particular regard to the requirement of proper party
as applied in the cases before us, we hold that the same
is satisfied by the petitioners and intervenors because
each of them has sustained or is in danger of sustaining
an immediate injury as a result of the acts or measures
complained of. 13 And even if, strictly speaking, they are
not covered by the definition, it is still within the wide
discretion of the Court to waive the requirement and so
remove the impediment to its addressing and resolving
the serious constitutional questions raised.
In the first Emergency Powers Cases, 14 ordinary
citizens and taxpayers were allowed to question the
constitutionality of several executive orders issued by
President Quirino although they were invoking only an
indirect and general interest shared in common with the
public. The Court dismissed the objection that they were
not proper parties and ruled that "the transcendental
importance to the public of these cases demands
that they be settled promptly and definitely,
brushing aside, if we must, technicalities of
procedure." We have since then applied this exception
in many other cases. 15
The other above-mentioned requisites have also been
met in the present petitions.
In must be stressed that despite the inhibitions pressing
upon the Court when confronted with constitutional
issues like the ones now before it, it will not hesitate to
declare a law or act invalid when it is convinced that this
must be done. In arriving at this conclusion, its only
criterion will be the Constitution as God and its
conscience give it the light to probe its meaning and
discover its purpose. Personal motives and political
considerations are irrelevancies that cannot influence its
decision. Blandishment is as ineffectual as intimidation.
For all the awesome power of the Congress and the
Executive, the Court will not hesitate to "make the
hammer fall, and heavily," to use Justice Laurel's pithy
language, where the acts of these departments, or of
any public official, betray the people's will as expressed
in the Constitution.
It need only be added, to borrow again the words of
Justice Laurel, that —
... when the judiciary mediates to allocate
constitutional boundaries, it does not assert
any superiority over the other departments; it
does not in reality nullify or invalidate an act of
the Legislature, but only asserts the solemn
and sacred obligation assigned to it by the
Constitution to determine conflicting claims
of authority under the Constitution and to
establish for the parties in an actual controversy
the rights which that instrument secures and
guarantees to them. This is in truth all that is
involved in what is termed "judicial supremacy"
which properly is the power of judicial review
under the Constitution. 16
The cases before us categorically raise constitutional
questions that this Court must categorically resolve. And
so we shall.
II
We proceed first to the examination of the preliminary
issues before resolving the more serious challenges to
the constitutionality of the several measures involved in
these petitions.
The promulgation of P.D. No. 27 by President Marcos in
the exercise of his powers under martial law has already
been sustained in Gonzales v. Estrella and we find no
reason to modify or reverse it on that issue. As for the
power of President Aquino to promulgate Proc. No. 131
and E.O. Nos. 228 and 229, the same was authorized
under Section 6 of the Transitory Provisions of the 1987
Constitution, quoted above.
The said measures were issued by President Aquino
before July 27, 1987, when the Congress of the
Philippines was formally convened and took over
legislative power from her. They are not "midnight"
enactments intended to pre-empt the legislature
because E.O. No. 228 was issued on July 17, 1987, and
the other measures, i.e., Proc. No. 131 and E.O. No.
229, were both issued on July 22, 1987. Neither is it
correct to say that these measures ceased to be valid
when she lost her legislative power for, like any statute,
they continue to be in force unless modified or repealed
by subsequent law or declared invalid by the courts. A
statute does not ipso facto become inoperative simply
because of the dissolution of the legislature that enacted
it. By the same token, President Aquino's loss of
legislative power did not have the effect of invalidating all
the measures enacted by her when and as long as she
possessed it.
Significantly, the Congress she is alleged to have
undercut has not rejected but in fact substantially
affirmed the challenged measures and has specifically
provided that they shall be suppletory to R.A. No. 6657
whenever not inconsistent with its provisions. 17 Indeed,
some portions of the said measures, like the creation of
the P50 billion fund in Section 2 of Proc. No. 131, and
Sections 20 and 21 of E.O. No. 229, have been
incorporated by reference in the CARP Law. 18
That fund, as earlier noted, is itself being questioned on
the ground that it does not conform to the requirements
of a valid appropriation as specified in the Constitution.
Clearly, however, Proc. No. 131 is not an appropriation
measure even if it does provide for the creation of said
fund, for that is not its principal purpose. An
appropriation law is one the primary and specific
purpose of which is to authorize the release of public
funds from the treasury. 19 The creation of the fund is
only incidental to the main objective of the proclamation,
which is agrarian reform.
It should follow that the specific constitutional provisions
invoked, to wit, Section 24 and Section 25(4) of Article
VI, are not applicable. With particular reference to
Section 24, this obviously could not have been complied
with for the simple reason that the House of
Representatives, which now has the exclusive power to
initiate appropriation measures, had not yet been
convened when the proclamation was issued. The
legislative power was then solely vested in the President
of the Philippines, who embodied, as it were, both
houses of Congress.
The argument of some of the petitioners that Proc. No.
131 and E.O. No. 229 should be invalidated because
they do not provide for retention limits as required by
Article XIII, Section 4 of the Constitution is no longer
tenable. R.A. No. 6657 does provide for such limits now
in Section 6 of the law, which in fact is one of its most
controversial provisions. This section declares:
Retention Limits. — Except as otherwise
provided in this Act, no person may own or
retain, directly or indirectly, any public or private
agricultural land, the size of which shall vary
according to factors governing a viable family-
sized farm, such as commodity produced,
terrain, infrastructure, and soil fertility as
determined by the Presidential Agrarian Reform
Council (PARC) created hereunder, but in no
case shall retention by the landowner exceed
five (5) hectares. Three (3) hectares may be
awarded to each child of the landowner, subject
to the following qualifications: (1) that he is at
least fifteen (15) years of age; and (2) that he is
actually tilling the land or directly managing the
farm; Provided, That landowners whose lands
have been covered by Presidential Decree No.
27 shall be allowed to keep the area originally
retained by them thereunder, further, That
original homestead grantees or direct
compulsory heirs who still own the original
homestead at the time of the approval of this Act
shall retain the same areas as long as they
continue to cultivate said homestead.
The argument that E.O. No. 229 violates the
constitutional requirement that a bill shall have only one
subject, to be expressed in its title, deserves only short
attention. It is settled that the title of the bill does not
have to be a catalogue of its contents and will suffice if
the matters embodied in the text are relevant to each
other and may be inferred from the title. 20
The Court wryly observes that during the past
dictatorship, every presidential issuance, by whatever
name it was called, had the force and effect of law
because it came from President Marcos. Such are the
ways of despots. Hence, it is futile to argue, as the
petitioners do in G.R. No. 79744, that LOI 474 could not
have repealed P.D. No. 27 because the former was only
a letter of instruction. The important thing is that it was
issued by President Marcos, whose word was law during
that time.
But for all their peremptoriness, these issuances from
the President Marcos still had to comply with the
requirement for publication as this Court held in Tanada
v. Tuvera. 21 Hence, unless published in the Official
Gazette in accordance with Article 2 of the Civil Code,
they could not have any force and effect if they were
among those enactments successfully challenged in that
case. LOI 474 was published, though, in the Official
Gazette dated November 29,1976.)
Finally, there is the contention of the public respondent
in G.R. No. 78742 that the writ of mandamus cannot
issue to compel the performance of a discretionary act,
especially by a specific department of the government.
That is true as a general proposition but is subject to one
important qualification. Correctly and categorically
stated, the rule is that mandamus will lie to compel the
discharge of the discretionary duty itself but not to
control the discretion to be exercised. In other words,
mandamus can issue to require action only but not
specific action.
Whenever a duty is imposed upon a public
official and an unnecessary and unreasonable
delay in the exercise of such duty occurs, if it is
a clear duty imposed by law, the courts will
intervene by the extraordinary legal remedy of
mandamus to compel action. If the duty is purely
ministerial, the courts will require specific action.
If the duty is purely discretionary, the courts
by mandamus will require action only. For
example, if an inferior court, public official, or
board should, for an unreasonable length of
time, fail to decide a particular question to the
great detriment of all parties concerned, or a
court should refuse to take jurisdiction of a
cause when the law clearly gave it jurisdiction
mandamus will issue, in the first case to require
a decision, and in the second to require that
jurisdiction be taken of the cause. 22
And while it is true that as a rule the writ will not be
proper as long as there is still a plain, speedy and
adequate remedy available from the administrative
authorities, resort to the courts may still be permitted if
the issue raised is a question of law. 23
III
There are traditional distinctions between the police
power and the power of eminent domain that logically
preclude the application of both powers at the same time
on the same subject. In the case of City of Baguio v.
NAWASA, 24for example, where a law required the
transfer of all municipal waterworks systems to the
NAWASA in exchange for its assets of equivalent value,
the Court held that the power being exercised was
eminent domain because the property involved was
wholesome and intended for a public use. Property
condemned under the police power is noxious or
intended for a noxious purpose, such as a building on
the verge of collapse, which should be demolished for
the public safety, or obscene materials, which should be
destroyed in the interest of public morals. The
confiscation of such property is not compensable, unlike
the taking of property under the power of expropriation,
which requires the payment of just compensation to the
owner.
In the case of Pennsylvania Coal Co. v.
Mahon, 25 Justice Holmes laid down the limits of the
police power in a famous aphorism: "The general rule at
least is that while property may be regulated to a certain
extent, if regulation goes too far it will be recognized as a
taking." The regulation that went "too far" was a law
prohibiting mining which might cause the subsidence of
structures for human habitation constructed on the land
surface. This was resisted by a coal company which had
earlier granted a deed to the land over its mine but
reserved all mining rights thereunder, with the grantee
assuming all risks and waiving any damage claim. The
Court held the law could not be sustained without
compensating the grantor. Justice Brandeis filed a lone
dissent in which he argued that there was a valid
exercise of the police power. He said:
Every restriction upon the use of property
imposed in the exercise of the police power
deprives the owner of some right theretofore
enjoyed, and is, in that sense, an abridgment by
the State of rights in property without making
compensation. But restriction imposed to protect
the public health, safety or morals from dangers
threatened is not a taking. The restriction here in
question is merely the prohibition of a noxious
use. The property so restricted remains in the
possession of its owner. The state does not
appropriate it or make any use of it. The state
merely prevents the owner from making a use
which interferes with paramount rights of the
public. Whenever the use prohibited ceases to
be noxious — as it may because of further
changes in local or social conditions — the
restriction will have to be removed and the
owner will again be free to enjoy his property as
heretofore.
Recent trends, however, would indicate not a
polarization but a mingling of the police power and the
power of eminent domain, with the latter being used as
an implement of the former like the power of taxation.
The employment of the taxing power to achieve a police
purpose has long been accepted. 26 As for the power of
expropriation, Prof. John J. Costonis of the University of
Illinois College of Law (referring to the earlier case of
Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 US 365, which
sustained a zoning law under the police power) makes
the following significant remarks:
Euclid, moreover, was decided in an era when
judges located the Police and eminent domain
powers on different planets. Generally speaking,
they viewed eminent domain as encompassing
public acquisition of private property for
improvements that would be available for public
use," literally construed. To the police power, on
the other hand, they assigned the less intrusive
task of preventing harmful externalities a point
reflected in the Euclid opinion's reliance on an
analogy to nuisance law to bolster its support of
zoning. So long as suppression of a privately
authored harm bore a plausible relation to some
legitimate "public purpose," the pertinent
measure need have afforded no compensation
whatever. With the progressive growth of
government's involvement in land use, the
distance between the two powers has
contracted considerably. Today government
often employs eminent domain interchangeably
with or as a useful complement to the police
power-- a trend expressly approved in the
Supreme Court's 1954 decision in Berman v.
Parker, which broadened the reach of eminent
domain's "public use" test to match that of the
police power's standard of "public purpose." 27
The Berman case sustained a redevelopment project
and the improvement of blighted areas in the District of
Columbia as a proper exercise of the police power. On
the role of eminent domain in the attainment of this
purpose, Justice Douglas declared:
If those who govern the District of Columbia
decide that the Nation's Capital should be
beautiful as well as sanitary, there is nothing in
the Fifth Amendment that stands in the way.
Once the object is within the authority of
Congress, the right to realize it through the
exercise of eminent domain is clear.
For the power of eminent domain is merely the
means to the end. 28
In Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York
City, 29 decided by a 6-3 vote in 1978, the U.S Supreme
Court sustained the respondent's Landmarks
Preservation Law under which the owners of the Grand
Central Terminal had not been allowed to construct a
multi-story office building over the Terminal, which had
been designated a historic landmark. Preservation of the
landmark was held to be a valid objective of the police
power. The problem, however, was that the owners of
the Terminal would be deprived of the right to use the
airspace above it although other landowners in the area
could do so over their respective properties. While
insisting that there was here no taking, the Court
nonetheless recognized certain compensatory rights
accruing to Grand Central Terminal which it said would
"undoubtedly mitigate" the loss caused by the regulation.
This "fair compensation," as he called it, was explained
by Prof. Costonis in this wise:
In return for retaining the Terminal site in its pristine
landmark status, Penn Central was authorized to
transfer to neighboring properties the authorized but
unused rights accruing to the site prior to the Terminal's
designation as a landmark — the rights which would
have been exhausted by the 59-story building that the
city refused to countenance atop the Terminal.
Prevailing bulk restrictions on neighboring sites were
proportionately relaxed, theoretically enabling Penn
Central to recoup its losses at the Terminal site by
constructing or selling to others the right to construct
larger, hence more profitable buildings on the transferee
sites. 30
The cases before us present no knotty complication
insofar as the question of compensable taking is
concerned. To the extent that the measures under
challenge merely prescribe retention limits for
landowners, there is an exercise of the police power for
the regulation of private property in accordance with the
Constitution. But where, to carry out such regulation, it
becomes necessary to deprive such owners of whatever
lands they may own in excess of the maximum area
allowed, there is definitely a taking under the power of
eminent domain for which payment of just compensation
is imperative. The taking contemplated is not a mere
limitation of the use of the land. What is required is the
surrender of the title to and the physical possession of
the said excess and all beneficial rights accruing to the
owner in favor of the farmer-beneficiary. This is definitely
an exercise not of the police power but of the power of
eminent domain.
Whether as an exercise of the police power or of the
power of eminent domain, the several measures before
us are challenged as violative of the due process and
equal protection clauses.
The challenge to Proc. No. 131 and E.O. Nos. 228 and
299 on the ground that no retention limits are prescribed
has already been discussed and dismissed. It is noted
that although they excited many bitter exchanges during
the deliberation of the CARP Law in Congress, the
retention limits finally agreed upon are, curiously
enough, not being questioned in these petitions. We
therefore do not discuss them here. The Court will come
to the other claimed violations of due process in
connection with our examination of the adequacy of just
compensation as required under the power of
expropriation.
The argument of the small farmers that they have been
denied equal protection because of the absence of
retention limits has also become academic under
Section 6 of R.A. No. 6657. Significantly, they too have
not questioned the area of such limits. There is also the
complaint that they should not be made to share the
burden of agrarian reform, an objection also made by the
sugar planters on the ground that they belong to a
particular class with particular interests of their own.
However, no evidence has been submitted to the Court
that the requisites of a valid classification have been
violated.
Classification has been defined as the grouping of
persons or things similar to each other in certain
particulars and different from each other in these same
particulars. 31 To be valid, it must conform to the
following requirements: (1) it must be based on
substantial distinctions; (2) it must be germane to the
purposes of the law; (3) it must not be limited to existing
conditions only; and (4) it must apply equally to all the
members of the class. 32 The Court finds that all these
requisites have been met by the measures here
challenged as arbitrary and discriminatory.
Equal protection simply means that all persons or things
similarly situated must be treated alike both as to the
rights conferred and the liabilities imposed. 33 The
petitioners have not shown that they belong to a different
class and entitled to a different treatment. The argument
that not only landowners but also owners of other
properties must be made to share the burden of
implementing land reform must be rejected. There is a
substantial distinction between these two classes of
owners that is clearly visible except to those who will not
see. There is no need to elaborate on this matter. In any
event, the Congress is allowed a wide leeway in
providing for a valid classification. Its decision is
accorded recognition and respect by the courts of justice
except only where its discretion is abused to the
detriment of the Bill of Rights.
It is worth remarking at this juncture that a statute may
be sustained under the police power only if there is a
concurrence of the lawful subject and the lawful method.
Put otherwise, the interests of the public generally as
distinguished from those of a particular class require the
interference of the State and, no less important, the
means employed are reasonably necessary for the
attainment of the purpose sought to be achieved and not
unduly oppressive upon individuals. 34 As the subject
and purpose of agrarian reform have been laid down by
the Constitution itself, we may say that the first
requirement has been satisfied. What remains to be
examined is the validity of the method employed to
achieve the constitutional goal.
One of the basic principles of the democratic system is
that where the rights of the individual are concerned, the
end does not justify the means. It is not enough that
there be a valid objective; it is also necessary that the
means employed to pursue it be in keeping with the
Constitution. Mere expediency will not excuse
constitutional shortcuts. There is no question that not
even the strongest moral conviction or the most urgent
public need, subject only to a few notable exceptions,
will excuse the bypassing of an individual's rights. It is no
exaggeration to say that a, person invoking a right
guaranteed under Article III of the Constitution is a
majority of one even as against the rest of the nation
who would deny him that right.
That right covers the person's life, his liberty and his
property under Section 1 of Article III of the Constitution.
With regard to his property, the owner enjoys the added
protection of Section 9, which reaffirms the familiar rule
that private property shall not be taken for public use
without just compensation.
This brings us now to the power of eminent domain.
IV
Eminent domain is an inherent power of the
State that enables it to forcibly acquire private
lands intended for public use upon payment of
just compensation to the owner. Obviously,
there is no need to expropriate where the owner
is willing to sell under terms also acceptable to
the purchaser, in which case an ordinary deed of
sale may be agreed upon by the parties. 35 It is
only where the owner is unwilling to sell, or
cannot accept the price or other conditions
offered by the vendee, that the power of eminent
domain will come into play to assert the
paramount authority of the State over the
interests of the property owner. Private rights
must then yield to the irresistible demands of the
public interest on the time-honored justification,
as in the case of the police power, that the
welfare of the people is the supreme law.
But for all its primacy and urgency, the power of
expropriation is by no means absolute (as indeed no
power is absolute). The limitation is found in the
constitutional injunction that "private property shall not
be taken for public use without just compensation" and
in the abundant jurisprudence that has evolved from the
interpretation of this principle. Basically, the
requirements for a proper exercise of the power are: (1)
public use and (2) just compensation.
Let us dispose first of the argument raised by the
petitioners in G.R. No. 79310 that the State should first
distribute public agricultural lands in the pursuit of
agrarian reform instead of immediately disturbing
property rights by forcibly acquiring private agricultural
lands. Parenthetically, it is not correct to say that only
public agricultural lands may be covered by the CARP
as the Constitution calls for "the just distribution of all
agricultural lands." In any event, the decision to
redistribute private agricultural lands in the manner
prescribed by the CARP was made by the legislative and
executive departments in the exercise of their discretion.
We are not justified in reviewing that discretion in the
absence of a clear showing that it has been abused.
A becoming courtesy admonishes us to respect the
decisions of the political departments when they decide
what is known as the political question. As explained by
Chief Justice Concepcion in the case of Tañada v.
Cuenco: 36
The term "political question" connotes what it
means in ordinary parlance, namely, a question
of policy. It refers to "those questions which,
under the Constitution, are to be decided by the
people in their sovereign capacity; or in regard
to which full discretionary authority has been
delegated to the legislative or executive branch
of the government." It is concerned with issues
dependent upon the wisdom, not legality, of a
particular measure.
It is true that the concept of the political question has
been constricted with the enlargement of judicial power,
which now includes the authority of the courts "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." 37 Even so, this should not be construed
as a license for us to reverse the other departments
simply because their views may not coincide with ours.
The legislature and the executive have been seen fit, in
their wisdom, to include in the CARP the redistribution of
private landholdings (even as the distribution of public
agricultural lands is first provided for, while also
continuing apace under the Public Land Act and other
cognate laws). The Court sees no justification to
interpose its authority, which we may assert only if we
believe that the political decision is not unwise, but
illegal. We do not find it to be so.
In U.S. v. Chandler-Dunbar Water Power Company,38 it
was held:
Congress having determined, as it did by the Act
of March 3,1909 that the entire St. Mary's river
between the American bank and the
international line, as well as all of the upland
north of the present ship canal, throughout its
entire length, was "necessary for the purpose of
navigation of said waters, and the waters
connected therewith," that determination is
conclusive in condemnation proceedings
instituted by the United States under that Act,
and there is no room for judicial review of the
judgment of Congress ... .
As earlier observed, the requirement for public use has
already been settled for us by the Constitution itself No
less than the 1987 Charter calls for agrarian reform,
which is the reason why private agricultural lands are to
be taken from their owners, subject to the prescribed
maximum retention limits. The purposes specified in
P.D. No. 27, Proc. No. 131 and R.A. No. 6657 are only
an elaboration of the constitutional injunction that the
State adopt the necessary measures "to encourage and
undertake the just distribution of all agricultural lands to
enable farmers who are landless to own directly or
collectively the lands they till." That public use, as
pronounced by the fundamental law itself, must be
binding on us.
The second requirement, i.e., the payment of just
compensation, needs a longer and more thoughtful
examination.
Just compensation is defined as the full and fair
equivalent of the property taken from its owner by the
expropriator. 39 It has been repeatedly stressed by this
Court that the measure is not the taker's gain but the
owner's loss. 40 The word "just" is used to intensify the
meaning of the word "compensation" to convey the idea
that the equivalent to be rendered for the property to be
taken shall be real, substantial, full, ample. 41
It bears repeating that the measures challenged in these
petitions contemplate more than a mere regulation of the
use of private lands under the police power. We deal
here with an actual taking of private agricultural lands
that has dispossessed the owners of their property and
deprived them of all its beneficial use and enjoyment, to
entitle them to the just compensation mandated by the
Constitution.
As held in Republic of the Philippines v.
Castellvi, 42 there is compensable taking when the
following conditions concur: (1) the expropriator must
enter a private property; (2) the entry must be for more
than a momentary period; (3) the entry must be under
warrant or color of legal authority; (4) the property must
be devoted to public use or otherwise informally
appropriated or injuriously affected; and (5) the utilization
of the property for public use must be in such a way as
to oust the owner and deprive him of beneficial
enjoyment of the property. All these requisites are
envisioned in the measures before us.
Where the State itself is the expropriator, it is not
necessary for it to make a deposit upon its taking
possession of the condemned property, as "the
compensation is a public charge, the good faith of the
public is pledged for its payment, and all the resources
of taxation may be employed in raising the
amount." 43 Nevertheless, Section 16(e) of the CARP
Law provides that:
Upon receipt by the landowner of the
corresponding payment or, in case of rejection
or no response from the landowner, upon the
deposit with an accessible bank designated by
the DAR of the compensation in cash or in LBP
bonds in accordance with this Act, the DAR shall
take immediate possession of the land and shall
request the proper Register of Deeds to issue a
Transfer Certificate of Title (TCT) in the name of
the Republic of the Philippines. The DAR shall
thereafter proceed with the redistribution of the
land to the qualified beneficiaries.
Objection is raised, however, to the manner of fixing the
just compensation, which it is claimed is entrusted to the
administrative authorities in violation of judicial
prerogatives. Specific reference is made to Section
16(d), which provides that in case of the rejection or
disregard by the owner of the offer of the government to
buy his land-
... the DAR shall conduct summary
administrative proceedings to determine the
compensation for the land by requiring the
landowner, the LBP and other interested parties
to submit evidence as to the just compensation
for the land, within fifteen (15) days from the
receipt of the notice. After the expiration of the
above period, the matter is deemed submitted
for decision. The DAR shall decide the case
within thirty (30) days after it is submitted for
decision.
To be sure, the determination of just compensation is a
function addressed to the courts of justice and may not
be usurped by any other branch or official of the
government. EPZA v. Dulay 44 resolved a challenge to
several decrees promulgated by President Marcos
providing that the just compensation for property under
expropriation should be either the assessment of the
property by the government or the sworn valuation
thereof by the owner, whichever was lower. In declaring
these decrees unconstitutional, the Court held through
Mr. Justice Hugo E. Gutierrez, Jr.:
The method of ascertaining just compensation
under the aforecited decrees constitutes
impermissible encroachment on judicial
prerogatives. It tends to render this Court inutile
in a matter which under this Constitution is
reserved to it for final determination.
Thus, although in an expropriation proceeding
the court technically would still have the power
to determine the just compensation for the
property, following the applicable decrees, its
task would be relegated to simply stating the
lower value of the property as declared either by
the owner or the assessor. As a necessary
consequence, it would be useless for the court
to appoint commissioners under Rule 67 of the
Rules of Court. Moreover, the need to satisfy the
due process clause in the taking of private
property is seemingly fulfilled since it cannot be
said that a judicial proceeding was not had
before the actual taking. However, the strict
application of the decrees during the
proceedings would be nothing short of a mere
formality or charade as the court has only to
choose between the valuation of the owner and
that of the assessor, and its choice is always
limited to the lower of the two. The court cannot
exercise its discretion or independence in
determining what is just or fair. Even a grade
school pupil could substitute for the judge
insofar as the determination of constitutional just
compensation is concerned.
xxx
In the present petition, we are once again
confronted with the same question of whether
the courts under P.D. No. 1533, which contains
the same provision on just compensation as its
predecessor decrees, still have the power and
authority to determine just compensation,
independent of what is stated by the decree and
to this effect, to appoint commissioners for such
purpose.
This time, we answer in the affirmative.
xxx
It is violative of due process to deny the owner
the opportunity to prove that the valuation in the
tax documents is unfair or wrong. And it is
repulsive to the basic concepts of justice and
fairness to allow the haphazard work of a minor
bureaucrat or clerk to absolutely prevail over the
judgment of a court promulgated only after
expert commissioners have actually viewed the
property, after evidence and arguments pro and
con have been presented, and after all factors
and considerations essential to a fair and just
determination have been judiciously evaluated.
A reading of the aforecited Section 16(d) will readily
show that it does not suffer from the arbitrariness that
rendered the challenged decrees constitutionally
objectionable. Although the proceedings are described
as summary, the landowner and other interested parties
are nevertheless allowed an opportunity to submit
evidence on the real value of the property. But more
importantly, the determination of the just compensation
by the DAR is not by any means final and conclusive
upon the landowner or any other interested party, for
Section 16(f) clearly provides:
Any party who disagrees with the decision may
bring the matter to the court of proper jurisdiction
for final determination of just compensation.
The determination made by the DAR is only preliminary
unless accepted by all parties concerned. Otherwise, the
courts of justice will still have the right to review with
finality the said determination in the exercise of what is
admittedly a judicial function.
The second and more serious objection to the provisions
on just compensation is not as easily resolved.
This refers to Section 18 of the CARP Law providing in
full as follows:
SEC. 18. Valuation and Mode of Compensation.
— The LBP shall compensate the landowner in
such amount as may be agreed upon by the
landowner and the DAR and the LBP, in
accordance with the criteria provided for in
Sections 16 and 17, and other pertinent
provisions hereof, or as may be finally
determined by the court, as the just
compensation for the land.
The compensation shall be paid in one of the
following modes, at the option of the landowner:
(1) Cash payment, under the following terms
and conditions:
(a) For lands above fifty (50)
hectares, insofar as the excess
hectarage is concerned —
Twenty-five percent (25%) cash,
the balance to be paid in
government financial
instruments negotiable at any
time.
(b) For lands above twenty-four
(24) hectares and up to fifty (50)
hectares — Thirty percent
(30%) cash, the balance to be
paid in government financial
instruments negotiable at any
time.
(c) For lands twenty-four (24)
hectares and below — Thirty-
five percent (35%) cash, the
balance to be paid in
government financial
instruments negotiable at any
time.
(2) Shares of stock in government-owned or
controlled corporations, LBP preferred shares,
physical assets or other qualified investments in
accordance with guidelines set by the PARC;
(3) Tax credits which can be used against any
tax liability;
(4) LBP bonds, which shall have the following
features:
(a) Market interest rates aligned
with 91-day treasury bill rates.
Ten percent (10%) of the face
value of the bonds shall mature
every year from the date of
issuance until the tenth (10th)
year: Provided, That should the
landowner choose to forego the
cash portion, whether in full or in
part, he shall be paid
correspondingly in LBP bonds;
(b) Transferability and
negotiability. Such LBP bonds
may be used by the landowner,
his successors-in- interest or his
assigns, up to the amount of
their face value, for any of the
following:
(i) Acquisition of land or other
real properties of the
government, including assets
under the Asset Privatization
Program and other assets
foreclosed by government
financial institutions in the same
province or region where the
lands for which the bonds were
paid are situated;
(ii) Acquisition of shares of stock
of government-owned or
controlled corporations or
shares of stock owned by the
government in private
corporations;
(iii) Substitution for surety or bail
bonds for the provisional
release of accused persons, or
for performance bonds;
(iv) Security for loans with any
government financial institution,
provided the proceeds of the
loans shall be invested in an
economic enterprise, preferably
in a small and medium- scale
industry, in the same province
or region as the land for which
the bonds are paid;
(v) Payment for various taxes
and fees to government:
Provided, That the use of these
bonds for these purposes will be
limited to a certain percentage
of the outstanding balance of
the financial instruments;
Provided, further, That the
PARC shall determine the
percentages mentioned above;
(vi) Payment for tuition fees of
the immediate family of the
original bondholder in
government universities,
colleges, trade schools, and
other institutions;
(vii) Payment for fees of the
immediate family of the original
bondholder in government
hospitals; and
(viii) Such other uses as the
PARC may from time to time
allow.
The contention of the petitioners in G.R. No. 79777 is
that the above provision is unconstitutional insofar as it
requires the owners of the expropriated properties to
accept just compensation therefor in less than money,
which is the only medium of payment allowed. In support
of this contention, they cite jurisprudence holding that:
The fundamental rule in expropriation matters is
that the owner of the property expropriated is
entitled to a just compensation, which should be
neither more nor less, whenever it is possible to
make the assessment, than the money
equivalent of said property. Just compensation
has always been understood to be the just and
complete equivalent of the loss which the owner
of the thing expropriated has to suffer by reason
of the expropriation . 45 (Emphasis supplied.)
In J.M. Tuazon Co. v. Land Tenure Administration, 46 this
Court held:
It is well-settled that just compensation means
the equivalent for the value of the property at the
time of its taking. Anything beyond that is more,
and anything short of that is less, than just
compensation. It means a fair and full equivalent
for the loss sustained, which is the measure of
the indemnity, not whatever gain would accrue
to the expropriating entity. The market value of
the land taken is the just compensation to which
the owner of condemned property is entitled, the
market value being that sum of money which a
person desirous, but not compelled to buy, and
an owner, willing, but not compelled to sell,
would agree on as a price to be given and
received for such property. (Emphasis supplied.)
In the United States, where much of our jurisprudence
on the subject has been derived, the weight of authority
is also to the effect that just compensation for property
expropriated is payable only in money and not
otherwise. Thus —
The medium of payment of compensation is
ready money or cash. The condemnor cannot
compel the owner to accept anything but money,
nor can the owner compel or require the
condemnor to pay him on any other basis than
the value of the property in money at the time
and in the manner prescribed by the Constitution
and the statutes. When the power of eminent
domain is resorted to, there must be a standard
medium of payment, binding upon both parties,
and the law has fixed that standard as money in
cash. 47 (Emphasis supplied.)
Part cash and deferred payments are not and
cannot, in the nature of things, be regarded as a
reliable and constant standard of
compensation. 48
"Just compensation" for property taken by
condemnation means a fair equivalent in money,
which must be paid at least within a reasonable
time after the taking, and it is not within the
power of the Legislature to substitute for such
payment future obligations, bonds, or other
valuable advantage. 49(Emphasis supplied.)
It cannot be denied from these cases that the traditional
medium for the payment of just compensation is money
and no other. And so, conformably, has just
compensation been paid in the past solely in that
medium. However, we do not deal here with the
traditional excercise of the power of eminent domain.
This is not an ordinary expropriation where only a
specific property of relatively limited area is sought to be
taken by the State from its owner for a specific and
perhaps local purpose.
What we deal with here is a revolutionary kind of
expropriation.
The expropriation before us affects all private agricultural
lands whenever found and of whatever kind as long as
they are in excess of the maximum retention limits
allowed their owners. This kind of expropriation is
intended for the benefit not only of a particular
community or of a small segment of the population but of
the entire Filipino nation, from all levels of our society,
from the impoverished farmer to the land-glutted owner.
Its purpose does not cover only the whole territory of this
country but goes beyond in time to the foreseeable
future, which it hopes to secure and edify with the vision
and the sacrifice of the present generation of Filipinos.
Generations yet to come are as involved in this program
as we are today, although hopefully only as beneficiaries
of a richer and more fulfilling life we will guarantee to
them tomorrow through our thoughtfulness today. And,
finally, let it not be forgotten that it is no less than the
Constitution itself that has ordained this revolution in the
farms, calling for "a just distribution" among the farmers
of lands that have heretofore been the prison of their
dreams but can now become the key at least to their
deliverance.
Such a program will involve not mere millions of pesos.
The cost will be tremendous. Considering the vast areas
of land subject to expropriation under the laws before us,
we estimate that hundreds of billions of pesos will be
needed, far more indeed than the amount of P50 billion
initially appropriated, which is already staggering as it is
by our present standards. Such amount is in fact not
even fully available at this time.
We assume that the framers of the Constitution were
aware of this difficulty when they called for agrarian
reform as a top priority project of the government. It is a
part of this assumption that when they envisioned the
expropriation that would be needed, they also intended
that the just compensation would have to be paid not in
the orthodox way but a less conventional if more
practical method. There can be no doubt that they were
aware of the financial limitations of the government and
had no illusions that there would be enough money to
pay in cash and in full for the lands they wanted to be
distributed among the farmers. We may therefore
assume that their intention was to allow such manner of
payment as is now provided for by the CARP Law,
particularly the payment of the balance (if the owner
cannot be paid fully with money), or indeed of the entire
amount of the just compensation, with other things of
value. We may also suppose that what they had in mind
was a similar scheme of payment as that prescribed in
P.D. No. 27, which was the law in force at the time they
deliberated on the new Charter and with which they
presumably agreed in principle.
The Court has not found in the records of the
Constitutional Commission any categorical agreement
among the members regarding the meaning to be given
the concept of just compensation as applied to the
comprehensive agrarian reform program being
contemplated. There was the suggestion to "fine tune"
the requirement to suit the demands of the project even
as it was also felt that they should "leave it to Congress"
to determine how payment should be made to the
landowner and reimbursement required from the farmer-
beneficiaries. Such innovations as "progressive
compensation" and "State-subsidized compensation"
were also proposed. In the end, however, no special
definition of the just compensation for the lands to be
expropriated was reached by the Commission. 50
On the other hand, there is nothing in the records either
that militates against the assumptions we are making of
the general sentiments and intention of the members on
the content and manner of the payment to be made to
the landowner in the light of the magnitude of the
expenditure and the limitations of the expropriator.
With these assumptions, the Court hereby declares that
the content and manner of the just compensation
provided for in the afore- quoted Section 18 of the CARP
Law is not violative of the Constitution. We do not mind
admitting that a certain degree of pragmatism has
influenced our decision on this issue, but after all this
Court is not a cloistered institution removed from the
realities and demands of society or oblivious to the need
for its enhancement. The Court is as acutely anxious as
the rest of our people to see the goal of agrarian reform
achieved at last after the frustrations and deprivations of
our peasant masses during all these disappointing
decades. We are aware that invalidation of the said
section will result in the nullification of the entire
program, killing the farmer's hopes even as they
approach realization and resurrecting the spectre of
discontent and dissent in the restless countryside. That
is not in our view the intention of the Constitution, and
that is not what we shall decree today.
Accepting the theory that payment of the just
compensation is not always required to be made fully in
money, we find further that the proportion of cash
payment to the other things of value constituting the total
payment, as determined on the basis of the areas of the
lands expropriated, is not unduly oppressive upon the
landowner. It is noted that the smaller the land, the
bigger the payment in money, primarily because the
small landowner will be needing it more than the big
landowners, who can afford a bigger balance in bonds
and other things of value. No less importantly, the
government financial instruments making up the balance
of the payment are "negotiable at any time." The other
modes, which are likewise available to the landowner at
his option, are also not unreasonable because payment
is made in shares of stock, LBP bonds, other properties
or assets, tax credits, and other things of value
equivalent to the amount of just compensation.
Admittedly, the compensation contemplated in the law
will cause the landowners, big and small, not a little
inconvenience. As already remarked, this cannot be
avoided. Nevertheless, it is devoutly hoped that these
countrymen of ours, conscious as we know they are of
the need for their forebearance and even sacrifice, will
not begrudge us their indispensable share in the
attainment of the ideal of agrarian reform. Otherwise, our
pursuit of this elusive goal will be like the quest for the
Holy Grail.
The complaint against the effects of non-registration of
the land under E.O. No. 229 does not seem to be viable
any more as it appears that Section 4 of the said Order
has been superseded by Section 14 of the CARP Law.
This repeats the requisites of registration as embodied in
the earlier measure but does not provide, as the latter
did, that in case of failure or refusal to register the land,
the valuation thereof shall be that given by the provincial
or city assessor for tax purposes. On the contrary, the
CARP Law says that the just compensation shall be
ascertained on the basis of the factors mentioned in its
Section 17 and in the manner provided for in Section 16.
The last major challenge to CARP is that the landowner
is divested of his property even before actual payment to
him in full of just compensation, in contravention of a
well- accepted principle of eminent domain.
The recognized rule, indeed, is that title to the property
expropriated shall pass from the owner to the
expropriator only upon full payment of the just
compensation. Jurisprudence on this settled principle is
consistent both here and in other democratic
jurisdictions. Thus:
Title to property which is the subject of condemnation
proceedings does not vest the condemnor until the
judgment fixing just compensation is entered and paid,
but the condemnor's title relates back to the date on
which the petition under the Eminent Domain Act, or the
commissioner's report under the Local Improvement Act,
is filed. 51
... although the right to appropriate and use land taken
for a canal is complete at the time of entry, title to the
property taken remains in the owner until payment is
actually made. 52 (Emphasis supplied.)
In Kennedy v. Indianapolis, 53 the US Supreme Court
cited several cases holding that title to property does not
pass to the condemnor until just compensation had
actually been made. In fact, the decisions appear to be
uniformly to this effect. As early as 1838, in Rubottom v.
McLure, 54 it was held that "actual payment to the owner
of the condemned property was a condition precedent to
the investment of the title to the property in the State"
albeit "not to the appropriation of it to public use."
In Rexford v. Knight, 55 the Court of Appeals of New York
said that the construction upon the statutes was that the
fee did not vest in the State until the payment of the
compensation although the authority to enter upon and
appropriate the land was complete prior to the payment.
Kennedy further said that "both on principle and
authority the rule is ... that the right to enter on and use
the property is complete, as soon as the property is
actually appropriated under the authority of law for a
public use, but that the title does not pass from the
owner without his consent, until just compensation has
been made to him."
Our own Supreme Court has held
in Visayan Refining Co. v. Camus and Paredes, 56 that:
If the laws which we have exhibited or cited in
the preceding discussion are attentively
examined it will be apparent that the method of
expropriation adopted in this jurisdiction is such
as to afford absolute reassurance that no piece
of land can be finally and irrevocably taken from
an unwilling owner until compensation is paid ...
. (Emphasis supplied.)
It is true that P.D. No. 27 expressly ordered the
emancipation of tenant-farmer as October 21, 1972 and
declared that he shall "be deemed the owner" of a
portion of land consisting of a family-sized farm except
that "no title to the land owned by him was to be actually
issued to him unless and until he had become a full-
fledged member of a duly recognized farmers'
cooperative." It was understood, however, that full
payment of the just compensation also had to be made
first, conformably to the constitutional requirement.
When E.O. No. 228, categorically stated in its Section 1
that:
All qualified farmer-beneficiaries are now
deemed full owners as of October 21, 1972 of
the land they acquired by virtue of Presidential
Decree No. 27. (Emphasis supplied.)
it was obviously referring to lands already validly
acquired under the said decree, after proof of full-fledged
membership in the farmers' cooperatives and full
payment of just compensation. Hence, it was also
perfectly proper for the Order to also provide in its
Section 2 that the "lease rentals paid to the landowner
by the farmer- beneficiary after October 21, 1972
(pending transfer of ownership after full payment of just
compensation), shall be considered as advance
payment for the land."
The CARP Law, for its part, conditions the transfer of
possession and ownership of the land to the government
on receipt by the landowner of the corresponding
payment or the deposit by the DAR of the compensation
in cash or LBP bonds with an accessible bank. Until
then, title also remains with the landowner. 57 No outright
change of ownership is contemplated either.
Hence, the argument that the assailed measures violate
due process by arbitrarily transferring title before the
land is fully paid for must also be rejected.
It is worth stressing at this point that all rights acquired
by the tenant-farmer under P.D. No. 27, as recognized
under E.O. No. 228, are retained by him even now under
R.A. No. 6657. This should counter-balance the express
provision in Section 6 of the said law that "the
landowners whose lands have been covered by
Presidential Decree No. 27 shall be allowed to keep the
area originally retained by them thereunder, further, That
original homestead grantees or direct compulsory heirs
who still own the original homestead at the time of the
approval of this Act shall retain the same areas as long
as they continue to cultivate said homestead."
In connection with these retained rights, it does not
appear in G.R. No. 78742 that the appeal filed by the
petitioners with the Office of the President has already
been resolved. Although we have said that the doctrine
of exhaustion of administrative remedies need not
preclude immediate resort to judicial action, there are
factual issues that have yet to be examined on the
administrative level, especially the claim that the
petitioners are not covered by LOI 474 because they do
not own other agricultural lands than the subjects of their
petition.
Obviously, the Court cannot resolve these issues. In any
event, assuming that the petitioners have not yet
exercised their retention rights, if any, under P.D. No. 27,
the Court holds that they are entitled to the new retention
rights provided for by R.A. No. 6657, which in fact are on
the whole more liberal than those granted by the decree.
V
The CARP Law and the other enactments also involved
in these cases have been the subject of bitter attack
from those who point to the shortcomings of these
measures and ask that they be scrapped entirely. To be
sure, these enactments are less than perfect; indeed,
they should be continuously re-examined and rehoned,
that they may be sharper instruments for the better
protection of the farmer's rights. But we have to start
somewhere. In the pursuit of agrarian reform, we do not
tread on familiar ground but grope on terrain fraught with
pitfalls and expected difficulties. This is inevitable. The
CARP Law is not a tried and tested project. On the
contrary, to use Justice Holmes's words, "it is an
experiment, as all life is an experiment," and so we learn
as we venture forward, and, if necessary, by our own
mistakes. We cannot expect perfection although we
should strive for it by all means. Meantime, we struggle
as best we can in freeing the farmer from the iron
shackles that have unconscionably, and for so long,
fettered his soul to the soil.
By the decision we reach today, all major legal obstacles
to the comprehensive agrarian reform program are
removed, to clear the way for the true freedom of the
farmer. We may now glimpse the day he will be released
not only from want but also from the exploitation and
disdain of the past and from his own feelings of
inadequacy and helplessness. At last his servitude will
be ended forever. At last the farm on which he toils will
be his farm. It will be his portion of the Mother Earth that
will give him not only the staff of life but also the joy of
living. And where once it bred for him only deep despair,
now can he see in it the fruition of his hopes for a more
fulfilling future. Now at last can he banish from his small
plot of earth his insecurities and dark resentments and
"rebuild in it the music and the dream."
WHEREFORE, the Court holds as follows:
1. R.A. No. 6657, P.D. No. 27, Proc. No. 131,
and E.O. Nos. 228 and 229 are SUSTAINED
against all the constitutional objections raised in
the herein petitions.
2. Title to all expropriated properties shall be
transferred to the State only upon full payment
of compensation to their respective owners.
3. All rights previously acquired by the tenant-
farmers under P.D. No. 27 are retained and
recognized.
4. Landowners who were unable to exercise
their rights of retention under P.D. No. 27 shall
enjoy the retention rights granted by R.A. No.
6657 under the conditions therein prescribed.
5. Subject to the above-mentioned rulings all the
petitions are DISMISSED, without
pronouncement as to costs.
SO ORDERED.
Fernan, (C.J.), Narvasa, Melencio-Herrera, Gutierrez,
Jr., Paras, Feliciano, Gancayco, Padilla, Bidin,
Sarmiento, Cortes, Griño-Aquino, Medialdea and
Regalado, JJ., concur.
Footnotes
1 Art. 11, Sec. 5.
2 1973 Constitution, Art. II, Sec. 6.
3 Ibid., Art. XIV, Sec. 12.
4 R.A. No. 6657, Sec. 15.
5 149 SCRA 305.
6 150 SCRA 89.
7 55 SCRA 26.
8 91 SCRA 294.
9 113 SCRA 798.
10 136 SCRA 271; 146 SCRA 446.
11 Art. VIII, Sec. 4(2).
12 Dumlao v. COMELEC, 95 SCRA 392.
13 Ex Parte Levitt, 303 US 633.
14 Araneta v. Dinglasan, 84 Phil. 368.
15 Pascual v. Secretary of Public Works, 110
Phil. 331; PHILCONSA v. Gimenez, 15 SCRA
479; Sanidad v. COMELEC, 73 SCRA 333.
16 Angara v. Electoral Commission, 63 Phil.
139.
17 R.A. No. 6657, Sec. 75.
18 Ibid., Sec. 63.
19 Bengzon v. Secretary of Justice, 299 US 410.
20 Alalayan v. NPC, 24 SCRA 172; Sumulong v.
COMELEC, 73 Phil. 288. Tio v. Videogram
Regulatory Board, 151 SCRA 208.
21 Supra.
22 Lamb v. Phipps, 22 Phil. 456.
23 Malabanan v. Ramento, 129 SCRA 359;
Espanol v. Chairman, Philippine Veterans
Administration, 137 SCRA 314.
24 106 Phil. 144.
25 260 US 393.
26 Powell v. Pennsylvania, 127 US 678: Lutz v.
Araneta, 98 Phil. 148; Tio v. Videogram
Regulatory Board, supra.
27 John J. Costonis "The Disparity Issue: A
Context for the Grand Central Terminal
Decision," Harvard Law Review, Vol.
91:40,1977, p. 404.
28 348 US 1954.
29 438 US 104.
30 See note 27.
31 International Harvester Co. v. Missouri, 234
US 199.
32 People v. Cayat, 68 Phil. 12.
33 Ichong v. Hernandez, 101 Phil. 1155.
34 US v. Toribio, 15 Phil. 85; Fable v. City of
Manila, 21 Phil. 486; Case v. Board of Health,
24 Phil. 256.
35 Noble v. City of Manila, 67 Phil. 1.
36 100 Phil. 1101.
37 1987 Constitution, Art. VIII, Sec. 1.
38 57 L ed. 1063.
39 Manila Railroad Co. v. Velasquez, 32 Phil.
286.
40 Province of Tayabas v. Perez, 66 Phil. 467;
J.M. Tuazon & Co., Inc. v. Land Tenure
Administration, 31 SCRA 413; Municipality of
Daet v. Court of Appeals, 93 SCRA 503;
Manotok v. National Housing Authority, 150
SCRA 89.
41 City of Manila v. Estrada, 25 Phil. 208.
42 58 SCRA 336.
43 Lewis, Law of Eminent Domain, 3rd Edition,
pp. 1166- 1167.
44 149 SCRA 305.
45 Manila Railroad Co. v. Velasquez, 32 Phil.
286; Province of Tayabas v. Perez, supra, at
note 40.
46 31 SCRA 413.
47 Mandl v. City of Phoenix, 18 p 2d 273.
48 Sacramento Southern R. Co. v. Heilbron 156
Cal. 408,104 pp. 979, 980.
49 City of Waterbury v. Platt Bros. & Co., 56 A
856, 76 Conn, 435 citing Butler v. Ravine Road
Sewer Com'rs, 39 N.J.L. 665; Bloodgood v.
Mohawk v. H.R.R. Co., N.Y. 18 Wend. 9 35, 31
Am. Dec. 313; Sanborn v. Helden, 51 Cal 266;
Burlington & C.R. Co. v. Schweikart, 14 p. 329,
10 Colo, 178; 23 Words and Phrases, pl. 460.
50 Record of the Constitutional Commission,
Vol. 2, pp. 647, 704; Vol. 3, pp. 16-20, 243-247.
51 Chicago Park Dist. v. Downey Coal Co., 1 Ill.
2d 54.
52 Kennedy v. Indianapolis, 103 US 599, 26 L
ed 550.
53 Ibid.
54 4 Blkf., 508.
55 11 NY 314.
56 40 Phil. 550.
57 Sec. 16(d).
Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila
THIRD DIVISION
G.R. No. 79416 September 5, 1989
ROSALINA BONIFACIO, surviving wife; and children
GABRIEL, PONCIANO, TIBURCIO, BEATRIZ,
GENEROSA, SILVERIA, LEONARDO, FELOMENA,
ENCARNACION and LEONILA, all surnamed
BONIFACIO, petitioners,
vs.
HON. NATIVIDAD G. DIZON, Presiding Judge of the
Regional Trial Court of Malolos, Branch XIII, Malolos,
Bulacan and PASTORA SAN MIGUEL, respondents.
FERNAN, C.J.:
The issue raised in the instant petition
for certiorari certified to us by the Court of Appeals in its
resolution 1 dated November 28, 1986 in CA-G.R. SP
No. 10033 as involving a pure question of law is phrased
by petitioners, thus:
WHETHER OR NOT, THE FAVORABLE
JUDGMENT OBTAINED BY THE DECEDENT
IS INHERITED BY THE COMPULSORY HEIRS,
THEREBY VESTING TO THE LATTER, ALL
THE RIGHTS CONFERRED BY THE
JUDGMENT TO (sic) THE DECEDENT. 2
The favorable judgment adverted to by petitioners traces
its origin to the complaint filed on July 1, 1968 by
Olimpio Bonifacio before the then Court of Agrarian
Relations, Fifth Regional District, Branch I-A of Baliwag,
Bulacan, seeking the ejectment of private respondent
Pastora San Miguel from Bonifacio's two-hectare
agricultural land situated at Patubig, Marilao, Bulacan
and covered by Transfer Certificate of Title No. T-27298.
The ground relied upon therefor was personal cultivation
under Section 36 (1) of R.A. 3844, otherwise known as
the Agricultural Land Reform Code (CAR Case No.
2160-B'68).
After trial on the merits, judgment was rendered therein
on September 18, 1970 by Judge Manuel Jn. Serapio:
1. Granting authority to plaintiff OLIMPIO
BONIFACIO to eject defendant PASTORA SAN
MIGUEL from the landholding in question
situated at Patubig, Marilao, Bulacan with an
area of two (2) hectares, more or less, and
consequently, ordering said defendant to vacate
the same landholding and deliver possession
thereof to said plaintiff for the latter's personal
cultivation, subject to the provisions of Section
25 of R.A. 3844; and
2. Dismissing all other claims and counterclaims
of the parties. 3
On appeal by private respondent Pastora San Miguel,
the Court of Appeals 4 modified said judgment with
respect to her counterclaim by ordering Olimpio
Bonifacio to pay her the amount of P 1,376.00. The
judgment was affirmed in all other respects. 5
Still dissatisfied, private respondent Pastora San Miguel
sought relief from this Court. During the pendency of her
petition, on August 7, 1983, Olimpio Bonifacio died. As
no notice of such death was given to the Court, no order
for the substitution of his heirs was made. On July 31,
1985, the Court En Banc resolved to deny private
respondent's petition for lack of merit and to affirm the
decision of the Court of Appeals. 6
Subsequently, petitioners Rosalina Bonifacio, as
surviving wife, and Gabriel, Ponciano, Tiburcio, Beatriz,
Generosa, Silveria, Leonardo, Felomena, Encarnacion
and Leonila all surnamed Bonifacio, as children and
heirs of Olimpio Bonifacio, moved for the execution of
the decision in CAR Case No. 2160-B'68 before the
respondent Regional Trial Court of Bulacan. A writ of
execution was issued on February 20, 1986 and on
March 6, 1986, the Deputy Sheriff submitted his Report
(Partial Delivery of Possession), stating in part that
except for a portion thereof occupied by the house of
Pastora San Miguel which the latter refused to vacate,
he had delivered the land subject matter of the action to
Rosalina Bonifacio as surviving wife of Olimpio
Bonifacio.
Thereafter, private respondent Pastora San Miguel
moved to quash the writ of execution. This was opposed
by petitioners who in turn sought the issuance of a writ of
demolition and an order declaring Pastora San Miguel in
contempt of court for allegedly re-entering the subject
land.
After hearing, respondent Judge Natividad G. Dizon
issued a resolution on July 15, 1986, the dispositive
portion of which reads:
WHEREFORE, the implementation of the writ of
execution of the Decision dated September 18,
1970 made by the Sheriff of this Court, per
directive contained in our Order of February 18,
1986, is hereby declared null and void; the
"Motion for Demolition" filed by plaintiff is hereby
denied; and, the "Petition for Contempt" likewise
denied.
SO ORDERED. 7
Petitioners assail this resolution in the petition
for certiorari filed before the Court of Appeals, which as
stated earlier, was certified to us pursuant to Section 9
(3) of Batas Pambansa Blg. 129 in relation to Section 5
(2) [e], Art. X of the 1973 Constitution and Rule 50, Sec.
3 of the Revised Rules of Court.
Petitioners contend that respondent judge committed
grave abuse of discretion tantamount to lack of
jurisdiction in ruling that the decision in CAR Case No.
2160-B'68 can no longer be executed as said action is
purely personal in character and therefore cannot, upon
Olimpio Bonifacio's death, be inherited by his heirs. They
assert that CAR Case No. 2160-B'68, being an
ejectment case and not one of those specifically
provided by law to be purely personal, survives the
death of a party. Furthermore, as under Rule 39, Section
49 (b) of the Rules of Court, a judgment is binding not
only upon the parties but also on their successors-in-
interest, petitioners are entitled to enforce the decision in
CAR Case No. 2160-B'68.
Private respondent, on the other hand, places stress on
the fact that the action under consideration is not an
ordinary ejectment case but an agrarian case for the
ejectment of an agricultural lessee. She theorizes that
the right being asserted in the action is personal to
Olimpio Bonifacio, which necessarily died with him. She
further contends that the non-substitution of Olimpio
Bonifacio by his heirs rendered the proceedings taken
after his death null and void. She also points to certain
supervening events which allegedly prohibit execution of
the judgment in CAR Case No. 2160-B'68, to wit: the
amendment of Section 36 (1), R.A. 3844 by R.A. No.
6389 and 2) the promulgation of P.D. No. 27.
Private respondent is correct in characterizing CAR
Case No. 2160-B'68 as more than an ordinary ejectment
case. It is, indeed, an agrarian case for the ejectment of
an agricultural lessee, which in the light of the public
policy involved, is more closely and strictly regulated by
the State. This factor, however, does not operate to bar
the application to the instant case of the general rule that
an ejectment case survives the death of a party. 8
Much of the problem lies in the term "personal
cultivation" by which the ground for ejectment under
Section 36 (1) of R.A. 3844 was loosely referred. As it is,
the term gave the impression that the ejectment of an
agricultural lessee was allowed only if and when the
landowner-lessor and no other opted to cultivate the
landholding; thereby giving use to a bigger
misconception that the right of cultivation pertained
exclusively to the landowner-lessor, and therefore his
personal right alone. A reading of Section 36 (1), R.A.
3844 however readily demonstrates the fallacy of this
interpretation. Said section provides:
Sec. 36. Possession of Landholding;
Exceptions. — Notwithstanding any agreement
as to the period or future surrender of the land,
an agricultural lessee shall continue in the
enjoyment and possession of his landholding
except when his dispossession has been
authorized by the Court in a judgment that is
final and executory if after due hearing it is
shown that:
(1) The agricultural lessor-owner or a member of
the immediate family will personally cultivate the
landholding or will convert the landholding, if
suitably located, into residential, factory, hospital
or school site or other useful non-agricultural
purposes . . . .
Under this provision, ejectment of an agricultural lessee
was authorized not only when the landowner-lessor
desired to cultivate the landholding, but also when a
member of his immediate family so desired. In so
providing, the law clearly did not intend to limit the right
of cultivation strictly and personally to the landowner but
to extend the exercise of such right to the members of
his immediate family. Clearly then, the right of cultivation
as a ground for ejectment was not a right exclusive and
personal to the landowner-lessor. To say otherwise
would be to put to naught the right of cultivation likewise
conferred upon the landowner's immediate family
members.
The right of cultivation was extended to the landowner's
immediate family members evidently to place the
landowner-lessor in parity with the agricultural lessee
who was (and still is) allowed to cultivate the land with
the aid of his farm household. In this regard, it must be
observed that an agricultural lessee who cultivates the
landholding with the aid of his immediate farm household
is within the contemplation of the law engaged in
"personal cultivation."
Thus, whether used in reference to the agricultural
lessor or lessee, the term "personal cultivation" cannot
be given a restricted connotation to mean a right
personal and exclusive to either lessor or lessee. In
either case, the right extends to the members of the
lessor's or lessee's immediate family members.
Petitioners are not only the heirs and successors-in-
interest, but the immediate family members of the
deceased landowner-lessor as well. The right to cultivate
the landholding asserted in CAR Case No. 2160-B'68
not being a purely personal right of the deceased
landowner-lessor, the same was transmitted to
petitioners as heirs and successors-in-interest.
Petitioners are entitled to the enforcement of the
judgment in CAR Case No. 2160-B'68.
Rules of procedure make it the duty of the attorney to
inform the court promptly of his client's death, incapacity
or incompetency during the pendency of the action and
to give the name and residence of his executor,
administrator, guardian or other legal representative. 9 In
case of a party's death, the court, if the action survives,
shall then order upon proper notice the legal
representatives of the deceased to appear and to be
substituted for the deceased within a period of 30 days
or within such time as may be granted.10
In the case at bar, Olimpio Bonifacio's death during the
pendency of private respondent's petition was not
communicated to the Court. As ruled by this Court in the
case of Florendo, Jr. vs. Coloma, supra, involving
substantially the same facts and issue:
. . . The petitioners challenge the proceeding in
the Court of Appeals after the death of the
plaintiff-appellant Adela Salindon. They are of
the opinion that since there was no legal
representative substituted for Salindon after her
death, the appellate court lost its jurisdiction
over the case and consequently, the
proceedings in the said court are null and void.
This argument is without merit.
There is no dispute that an ejectment case
survives the death of a party. The supervening
death of plaintiff-appellant Salindon did not
extinguish her civil personality (Republic v.
Bagtas 6 SCRA 242; Vda. de Haberes v. Court
of Appeals, 104 SCRA 534). . . .
xxx xxx xxx
In the case at bar, Salindon's counsel after her
death on December 11, 1976 failed to inform the
court of Salindon's death. The appellate court
could not be expected to know or take judicial
notice of the death of Salindon without the
proper manifestation from Salindon's counsel. In
such a case and considering that the
supervening death of appellant did not
extinguish her civil personality, the appellate
court was well within its jurisdiction to proceed
as it did with the case. There is no showing that
the appellate court's proceedings in the case
were tainted with irregularities.
Private respondent's challenge against the proceedings
held after Olimpio Bonifacio's death cannot therefore be
heeded.
Neither can private respondent derive comfort from the
amendment of Section 36 (1) of R.A. 3844 by Section 7
of R.A. No. 6389 11 and the promulgation of P.D. No.
27. 12 In Nilo v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. L-34586,
April 2, 1984,128 SCRA 519, we categorically ruled that
both R.A. No. 6389 and P.D. No. 27 cannot be applied
retroactively under the general rule that statutes have no
retroactive effect unless otherwise provided therein.
There being no cogent reason to nullify the
implementation of the writ of execution in CAR Case No.
2160-B'68, respondent judge acted with grave abuse of
discretion in having done so. The writ prayed for should
issue.
WHEREFORE, the petition is GRANTED. The assailed
resolution dated July 15, 1986 is hereby SET ASIDE.
The immediate execution of the decision in CAR Case
No. 2160-B'68 is ordered. This decision is immediately
executory. No pronouncement as to costs.
SO ORDERED.
Gutierrez, Jr., Bidin and Cortes, JJ., concur.
Feliciano, J., is on leave.
Footnotes
1 Penned by Associate Justice Celso L.
Magsino concurred in by Associate Justices
Serafin E. Camilon and Manuel C. Herrera.
2 Rollo, p. 2.
3 Rollo, p. 25.
4 Decision promulgated on March 6, 1973 in
CA-G.R. No. 46549-R penned by Justice
Antonio G. Lucero and concurred in by then CA
Justices Cecilia Muñoz-Palma and Guillermo S.
Santos.
5 Rollo, p. 35.
6 Rollo, p. 36.
7 Rollo, p. 17.
8 Florendo, Jr. vs. Coloma, G.R. No. 60544,
May 19, 1984, 129 SCRA 304.
9 Sec. 16, Rule 16, Rules of Court.
10 Sec. 17, Rule 3, Rules of Court.
11 Section 36 (1) of R.A. 3844 was amended by
Sec. 7 of R.A. No. 6389 to read:
"(1) The landholding is declared by the
department head upon recommendation of the
National Planning Commission to be suited for
residential, commercial, industrial or some other
urban purposes: Provided, That the agricultural
lessee shall be entitled to disturbance
compensation equivalent to five times the
average of the gross harvests on his landholding
during the last five preceding calendar years,"
thereby eliminating personal cultivation as a
ground for the ejectment of a tenant/lessee.
12 P.D. No. 27 decreed the emancipation of the
tenant from the bondage of the soil, transferred
to him the ownership of the land he tills and
provided for the instruments and mechanisms
for such transfer.
Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila
EN BANC
G.R. No. L-61388 April 20, 1983
IN THE ISSUANCE OF THE WRIT OF HABEAS
CORPUS FOR DR. AURORA PARONG, NORBERTO
PORTUGUESE, SABINO PADILLA, FRANCIS
DIVINAGRACIA, IMELDA DE LOS SANTOS,
BENJAMIN PINEDA, ZENAIDA MALLARI, MARIANO
SORIANO, TITO TANGUILIG, LETTY BALLOGAN,
BIENVENIDA GARCIA, EUFRONIO ORTIZ. JR.,
JUANITO GRANADA and TOM VASQUEZ. JOSEFINA
GARCIA-PADILLA, petitioner,
vs.
MINISTER JUAN PONCE ENRILE, GEN, FABIAN C.
VER, GEN. FIDEL V. RAMOS, and FIDEL V. RAMOS,
and LT. COL. MIGUEL CORONEL, respondents.
Lorenzo M. Tanada, Jose W. Diokno, Joker P. Arroyo,
Efren M Mercado and Alexander Padilla for petitioner.
The Solicitor General for respondents.
DE CASTRO, J.:
Petition for a writ of habeas corpus and mandamus
seeking the following relief:
WHEREFORE, petitioners pray this Honorable
Court:
1. To immediately issue a writ of habeas corpus
directing respondents to appear and produce the
bodies of Dr. AURORA PARONG, NORBERTO
PORTUGUESE, SABINO PADILLA, FRANCIS
DIVINAGRACIA, IMELDA DE LOS SANTOS,
BENJAMIN PINEDA, ZENAIDA MALLARI,
MARIANO SORIANO, TITO TANGUILIG,
LETTY BALLOGAN, BIENVENIDA GARCIA,
EUFRONIO ORTIZ, JR., JUANITO GRANADA
and TOM VASQUEZ, forthwith before this
Honorable Court and to make due return of the
writ therewith;
2. To issue, in addition or in the alternative to the
writ of habeas corpus, a writ of mandamus
compelling the respondents to disclose the
petitioners' present place of detention and to
order the respondents to allow counsel and
relatives to visit and confer with the petitioners;
3. Pending the determination of the legality of
their continued detention, to forthwith release
the detainees on bail upon such terms and
conditions as the Court may fix, and after
hearing, to order petitioners' immediate release;
and
4. To grant petitioners such other and further
relief as may be deemed just and equitable in
the premises.
The records show that nine (9) of the fourteen (14)
detainees herein were arrested on July 6, 1982 at about
1:45 p.m. when three (3) teams of the PC/INP of
Bayombong, Nueva Viscaya led by Lt. Col. Coronel, lst
Lt. de Guzman and lst Lt. Baria, after securing a Search
Warrant No. S-82 issued by Judge Sofronio Sayo of the
Court of First Instance of Nueva Viscaya conducted a
raid at the residence of Dra. Aurora Parong.
Apprehended during the said raid were Dra. Aurora
Parong, Benjamin Pineda, Sabino Padilla, Francisco
Divinagracia, Zenaida Mallari, Letty Ballogan, Norberto
Portuguese, and Mariano Soriano who were then having
a conference in the dining room of Dra. Parong's
residence which had been doing on since 10:00 a.m. of
that same day.
The other four (4) detainees herein, namely: Imelda de
los Santos, Eufronio Ortiz, Jr., Juanita Granada, and
Bienvenida Garcia, were arrested on the following day,
July 7, 1982 by the same PC teams.
On July 15, 1982, Tom Vasquez was arrested, and his
Volkswagen car, bearing Plate No. DAP 347, was seized
by the PC authorities.
The herein fourteen (14) detainees (hereafter referred to
sometimes as petitioners) were all detained at the
PC/INP Command Headquarters, Bayombong, Nueva
Vizcaya from July 6, 1982 until their transfer on the
morning of August 10, 1982 to an undisclosed place
reportedly to Camp Crame, Quezon City, to Echague,
Isabela, and to Tuguegarao, Cagayan.
Hence, this petition for the writ of habeas corpus and
mandamus filed by Josefina Garcia-Padilla, mother of
detained petitioner Sabino G. Padilla, Jr. on August 13,
1982. The mandamus aspect of the instant petition has,
however, become moot and academic, and whereabouts
of petitioners having already become known to petitioner
Josefina Garcia-Padilla.
It is alleged in the petition that the arrest of petitioners
was patently unlawful and illegal since it was effected
without any warrant of arrest; that the PC/INP raiding
team which made the arrest were only armed with a
search warrant (No. 3-82) issued by Judge Sofronio G.
Sayo of the Court of First Instance of Nueva Viscaya,
and nowhere in said warrant was authority given to
make arrests, much less detention; that the search
warrant which authorized respondents to seize
"subversive documents, firearms of assorted calibers,
medicine and other subversive paraphernalia" in the
house and clinic of Dra. Aurora Parong was a roving and
general warrant and is, therefore, illegal per se because
it does not state specifically the things that are to be
seized (Stonehill vs. Diokno, 20 SCRA 383); that no
criminal charges have as of yet been filed against any of
the detainees; that the fourteen (14) detainees were
initially held at the PC/INP Command in Bayombong,
Nueva Viscaya from July 6 up to August 10, 1982, but
were subsequently transferred by helicopter in the
morning of August 10, 1982 to a place or safehouse
known only to respondents; that there is no judgment,
decree, decision or order from a court of law which
would validate the continued detention of the petitioner;
that while it is true that a purported telegram stating the
issuance of a Presidential Commitment Order (PCO)
was shown to the detainees on or about July 11 and 12,
1982, but counsel and the detainees have not yet been
given a copy of such PCO nor notified of its contents,
raising a doubt whether such commitment order has in
fact been issued.
It is further alleged that respondents are denying the
detainees their constitutional right to counsel, averring
that the detainees were allowed regular visits by counsel
and relatives during their period of detention from July 6
to August 10, 1982 at the PC/INP Command in
Bayombong, Nueva Viscaya; however, when a certain
Major Cristobal and Lt. Marcos (alleged to be from the
Camp Crame Intelligence Units) took full control of the
investigation, counsels were allowed to visit only on
weekends; that when the detainees were transferred on
August 10, 1982 to a place known only to respondents,
the detainees' counsels and relatives were not notified,
raising the apprehension that petitioners' constitutional
rights to silence, to counsel and against self-
incrimination are being violated; that counsels have tried
to locate if the detainees were taken to Camp Crame or
Camp Bago Bantay but to no avail; that Major Forondo
of the PC Command in Nueva Viscaya informed Mrs.
Josefina Padilla that the detainees were transferred to
Tuguegarao, Cagayan, others to Echague, Isabela; that
there seems to be a deliberate and concerted effort by
respondents to conceal from counsel and relatives the
detainees' place of detention, raising the apprehension
that respondents are using force, violence, threat,
intimidation and other means which vitiate free will to
obtain confession and statements from the detainees in
violation of their constitutional rights.
In the resolution of this Court en banc dated August 17,
1982, the writ of habeas corpus was issued and
respondents were required to make a return of the writ.
Hearing on the petition was set on August 26, 1982.
In the return to the writ filed on August 23, 1982.
respondents, through the Solicitor General, alleged, to
wit:
I. AS TO HABEAS CORPUS
1. The detainees mentioned in the petition, with
the exception of Tom Vasquez who was
temporarily released on July 17, 1982, after his
arrest on July 15, 1982, are all being detained
by virtue of a Presidential Commitment Order
(PCO) issued on July 12, 1982, pursuant to LOI
No. 1211 dated March 9, 1982, in relation to
Presidential Proclamation No. 2045 dated
January 17, 1981. The said PCO was issued by
President Ferdinand E. Marcos for violation of
P.D. No. 885. ...
2. The corresponding charges against the said
detainees have been filed in court and before
the Acting Provincial Fiscal of Nueva Viscaya
where they are pleading. A warrant of arrest
against detainee Dra. Aurora Parong was issued
on August 4, 1982, by the Municipal Court of
Bayombong, for illegal possession of firearm
and ammunition. ...
II. AFFIRMATIVE DEFENSE ON HABEAS
CORPUS
3. The persons named in the above-mentioned
Presidential Commitment Order were arrested
and are being detained for offenses with respect
to which under Proclamation No. 2045, the
privilege of the writ of habeas corpus continues
to be suspended, thus:
NOW, THEREFORE, I, FERDINAND E.
MARCOS, President/Prime Minister of
the Philippines, by virtue of the powers
vested in me by the Constitution, do
hereby revoke Proclamation No. 1081
(Proclaiming a state of Martial Law in
the Philippines) and Proclamation No.
1104 (Declaring the Continuation of
Martial Law) and proclaim the
termination of the state of martial law
throughout the Philippines; Provided,
that the call to the Armed Forces of the
Philippines to prevent or suppress
lawless violence, insurrection, rebellion
and subversion shall continue to be in
force and effect; and Provided that in
the two autonomous regions in
Mindanao, upon the request of the
residents therein, the suspension of the
privilege of the writ of habeas corpus
shag continue; and in all other places
the suspension of the privilege of the
writ shall also continue with respect to
persons at present detained as well as
others who may hereafter be similarly
detained for the crimes of insurrection or
rebellion, subversion, conspiracy or
proposals to commit such crimes, and
for all other crimes and offenses
committed by them in furtherance or on
the occasion thereof, or incident thereto,
or in connection therewith. (Emphasis
supplied)
The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus is
unavailing as to them. Courts cannot inquire into
the validity and cause of their arrest and
detention.
4. The power of the President in an emergency,
such as that which necessitated the continued
suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas
corpus, to order the detention of persons
believed engaged in crimes related to national
security is recognized. (Aquino vs. Enrile, 59
SCRA 83; Luneta, et al. vs. Special Military
Commission, No. 1, et al., 102 SCRA 56).
5. In the instant petition, petitioner Josefina
Garcia-Padilla does not appear to have been
authorized by the thirteen (13) other detainees
to represent them in the case at bar."
Accordingly, the petition was duly heard on August 26,
1982. After hearing, the Court issued the following
resolution, to wit:
G.R. No. 61388 (In the Matter of the Petition for
the Insurance of the Writ of Habeas Corpus of
Dr. Aurora Parong, Norberto Portuguese,
Sabino Padilla, Francis Divinagracia, Imelda de
los Santos, Benjamin Pineda, Zenaida Mallari,
Mariano Soriano, Tito Tanguilig, Letty Ballogan,
Bienvenida Garcia, Eufronio Ortiz, Jr., Juanito
Granada and Tom Vasquez; Josefina Garcia-
Padilla vs. Minister Juan Ponce Enrile, Gen.
Fabian C. Ver, Gen. Fidel V. Ramos and Lt. Col.
Miguel Coronel.)- The return of the writ of
habeas corpus and answer to the prayer for
mandamus filed by the Solicitor General for
respondents in compliance with the resolution of
August 17, 1982 is NOTED.
At the hearing of this case this morning, former
Senator Jose W. Diokno, Attorneys Alexander A.
Padilla and Efren H. Mercado appeared for
petitioner. Solicitor General Estelito P. Mendoza
and Assistant Solicitor General Ramon A.
Barcelona, appeared for the respondents. All of
the detainees, except Tom Vasquez, who was
temporarily released on July 17, 1982, were
present in Court; Dr. Aurora Parong, Norberto
Portuguese, Sabino Padilla, Francis
Divinagracia, Imelda de los Santos, Benjamin
Pineda, Zenaida Mallari, Mariano Soriano, Tito
Tanguilig, Letty Ballogan, Bienvenida Garcia,
Eufronio Ortiz, Jr. and Juanito Granada.
Attorney Alexander A. Padilla argued for the
petitioner. Solicitor General Mendoza argued for
the respondents. Former Senator Diokno argued
in the rebuttal. The Court Resolved to require
the Solicitor General to SUBMIT within five (5)
days from date the documents relevant to the
issuance of the Presidential Commitment Order.
Thereafter, the case shall be considered
SUBMITTED for resolution.
As required, the Solicitor General submitted the
documents relevant to the issuance of the Presidential
Commitment Order on August 27, 1982, after which the
case was submitted for resolution.
The fundamental issue here, as in all petitioner for the
writ of habeas corpus, is whether or not petitioners'
detention is legal. We have carefully gone over the
claims of the parties in their respective pleadings as well
as in the oral argument during the hearing on August 26,
1982, and We find that petitioners have not been illegally
deprived of their constitutional right to liberty, neither in
the manner of their arrest, nor by their continued
detention, and that the circumstances attendant in the
herein case do not warrant their release on a writ of
habeas corpus.
1. At the time of the arrest of the nine (9) of the fourteen
(14) detainees herein on July 6, 1982, records reveal
that they were then having conference in the dining room
of Dra. Parong's residence from 10:00 a.m. of that same
day. Prior thereto, all the fourteen (14) detainees were
under surveillance as they were then Identified as
members of the Communist Party of the Philippines
(CPP) engaging in subversive activities and using the
house of detainee Dra. Aurora Parong in Bayombong,
Nueva Viscaya, as their headquarters. Caught
in flagrante delicto, the nine (9) detainees mentioned
scampered towards different directions leaving in top of
their conference table numerous subversive documents,
periodicals, pamphlets, books, correspondence,
stationaries, and other papers, including a plan on how
they would infiltrate the youth and student sector (code-
named YORK). Also found were one (1) .38 cal. revolver
with eight (8) live bullets, nineteen (19) rounds of
ammunition for M16 armalite, eighteen thousand six
hundred fifty pesos (P18,650.00) cash believed to be
CPP/NPA funds, assorted medicine packed and ready
for distribution, as sizeable quantity of printing
paraphernalia, which were then seized. There is no
doubt that circumstances attendant in the arrest of the
herein detainees fall under a situation where arrest is
lawful even without a judicial warrant as specifically
provided for under Section 6(a), Rule 113 of the Rules of
Court and allowed under existing jurisprudence on the
matter. As provided therein, a peace officer or a private
person may, without a warrant, arrest a person when the
person to be arrested has committed or actually
committing, or is about to commit an offense in his
presence.
2. The arrest of persons involved in the rebellion whether
as its fighting armed elements, or for committing non-
violent acts but in furtherance of the rebellion, is more an
act of capturing them in the course of an armed conflict,
to quell the rebellion, than for the purpose of immediately
prosecuting them in court for a statutory offense. The
arrest, therefore, need not follow the usual procedure in
the prosecution of offenses which requires the
determination by a judge of the existence of probable
cause before the issuance of a judicial warrant of arrest
and the granting of bail if the offense is bailable.
Obviously, the absence of a judicial warrant is no legal
impediment to arresting or capturing persons committing
overt acts of violence against government forces, or any
other milder acts but equally in pursuance of the
rebellious movement. The arrest or capture is thus
impelled by the exigencies of the situation that involves
the very survival of society and its government and duly
constituted authorities. If killing and other acts of
violence against the rebels find justification in the
exigencies of armed hostilities which is of the essence of
waging a rebellion or insurrection, most assuredly so in
case of invasion, merely seizing their persons and
detaining them while any of these contingencies
continues cannot be less justified. In the language
of Moyer vs. Peabody, 1 cited with approval in Aquino, et
al. vs. Ponce Enrile, 2 the President " shall make the
ordinary use of the soldiers to that end that he may kill
persons who resist, and, of course, that he may use the
milder measure of seizing the bodies of those whom he
considers to stand in the way of restoring peace. Such
arrests are not necessarily for punishment, but are by
way of precaution, to prevent the exercise of hostile
power."
Thus characterized, the arrest and detention of persons
ordered by the President through the issuance of
Presidential Commitment Order PCO is merely
preventive. "When it comes to a decision by the head of
the State upon a matter involving its life, the ordinary
rights of individuals must yield to what he deems the
necessities of the moment. Public danger warrants the
substitution of executive process for judicial
process." 3 What should be underscored is that if the
greater violation against life itself such as killing, will not
be the subject of judicial inquiry, as it cannot be raised
as transgressing against the due process clause that
protects life, liberty and property, lesser violations
against liberty, such as arrest and detention, may not be
insisted upon as reviewable by the courts.
3. Transcendentally important, therefore, is the question
of whether the issuance of a Presidential Commitment
Order (PCO) has provided the legal basis of the
detention of herein detainees following their arrest for
Proclamation No. 2045 covered offenses. This question
has to be set at rest promptly and decisively, if We are to
break a seemingly continuous flow of petitions for
habeas corpus, as what had been seen lately of such
petitioners being filed in this Court one after the other.
The function of the PCO is to validate, on constitutional
ground, the detention of a person for any of the offenses
covered by Proclamation No. 2045 which continues in
force the suspension of the privilege of the writ of
habeas corpus, if the arrest has been made initially
without any warrant, its legal effect is to render the writ
unavailing as a means of judicially inquiring into the
legality of the detention in view of the suspension of the
privilege of the writ. The grant of the power to suspend
the said privilege provides the basis for continuing with
perfect legality the detention as long as the invasion or
rebellion has not been repelled or quelled, and the need
therefor in the interest of public safety continues.
The significance of the conferment of this power,
constitutionally upon the President as Commander-in-
Chief, is that the exercise thereof is not subject to judicial
inquiry, with a view to determining its legality in the light
of the bill of rights guarantee to individual freedom. This
must be so because the suspension of the privilege is a
military measure the necessity of which the President
alone may determine as an incident of his grave
responsibility as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed
Forces, of protecting not only public safety but the very
life of the State, the government and duly constituted
authorities. This should be clear beyond doubt in the
case of "invasion," along which "rebellion" or
"insurrection" is mentioned by the Constitution, which
contingency does not present a legal question on
whether there is a violation of the right to personal liberty
when any member of the invading force is captured and
detained.
The presidential responsibility is one attended with all
urgency when so grave a peril to the life of the Nation
besets the country in times of the aforementioned
contingencies. In the discharge of this awesome and
sacred responsibility, the President should be free from
interference. The existence of warlike conditions as are
created by invasion, rebellion or insurrection, the direst
of all emergencies that can possibly confront a nation,
argues, beyond dispute, against subjecting his actions in
this regard to judicial inquiry or interference from
whatever source. If freedom from judicial review is
conceded in the exercise of his peacetime powers as
that of appointment and of granting pardon,
denominated as political powers of the President, it
should incontestably be more so with his wartime power,
as it were, to adopt any measure in dealing with
situations calling for military action as in case of
invasion, rebellion or insurrection.
The suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas
corpus is one such measure. To be effective, the
occasion for its application on specific individuals should
be left to the exclusive and sound judgment of the
President, at least while the exigencies of invasion,
rebellion or insurrection persist, and the public safety
requires it, a matter, likewise, which should be left for the
sole determination of the President as Commander-in-
Chief of the Nation's armed forces. The need for a
unified command in such contingencies is imperative-
even axiomatic-as a basic military concept in the art of
warfare.
4. From the clear language of the Lansang case, 4 "the
function of 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. " If, however, the constitutional
right to bail is granted to the herein petitioners by the
court, through the procedure laid down under Rule 114
of the Rules of court, what inevitably results is the
supplanting of the decision of the President to detain
pursuant to Proclamation No. 2045, of persons who
come under its coverage.
The specific mention in the Constitution of rebellion and
insurrection along with invasion and imminent danger
thereof, shows that the terms "rebellion and insurrection"
are used therein in the sense of a state or condition of
the Nation, not in the concept of a statutory offense.
What, therefore, should determine the legality of
imposing what is commonly referred to as "preventive
detention" resulting from the suspension of the privilege
of habeas corpus, is the necessity of its adoption as a
measure to suppress or quell the rebellion, or beat off an
invasion. The necessity for such measure as a means of
defense for national survival quite clearly transcends in
importance and urgency the claim of those detained to
the right to bail to obtain their freedom. To hold
otherwise would defeat the purpose of the constitutional
grant of the power to suspend the privilege of the writ of
habeas corpus on the occasions expressly mentioned in
the charter. For what indeed could the purpose be of
suspending the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus
other than to restrict, at least for the duration of the
emergency of invasion or rebellion, the right to personal
liberty, dictated as it is, in the greater interest of public
safety and national security.
So it is that Proclamation No. 2045 mentions not only
rebellion or insurrection as coming within the suspension
of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, but also
other offenses, including subversion which is not
mentioned in the Constitution, committed by reason or
on the occasion of the rebellion, or in connection
therewith, or in the furtherance thereof. There need be
no alarm over what libertarian jurists fear as violation of
the constitutional right to personal liberty when the
President decrees the suspension of the privilege of
habeas corpus. Only those who give cause for it will be
subject to restriction of their liberty, as the necessity
therefor arises in the interest of national defense and
survival. The constitutional guarantee of individual
freedom is intact in all its plenitude and sanctity, save
only as the Constitution has envisioned the need for its
limitation, and only to a few, in relation to the entire
population, as the Constitution itself permits in case of
overwhelming and imperious necessity.
5. Worthy of profound notice and keen appreciation is
the fact that the authority to suspend the privilege of the
writ of habeas corpus has been deliberately vested on
the President as the Commander-in-Chief of the armed
forces, together with the related power to call out the
armed forces to suppress lawless violence and impose
martial law. 5The choice could not have been more wise
and sound, for no other official may, with equal capability
and fitness, be entrusted with the grave responsibility
that goes with the grant of the authority. The legislature
was considered in the alternative upon which to lodge
the power, or to share in its exercise, but the distilled
wisdom of the Constitutional Convention finally made its
choice for the President alone.
As previously noted, "invasion" which is not a statutorily-
defined offense and "imminent danger thereof" as
mentioned in the Constitution indicate that "rebellion and
insurrection" are also mentioned therein not in their
concept as statutorily-defined public crimes, but as a
state or condition of extreme emergency resulting from
the existence of the aforesaid events. Now, if captured
enemies from the invading force may not be charged
with any statutory offense that would provide the
occasion to demand the right to bail, it is obvious that
persons engaged in rebellion or insurrection may not
claim the right to be released on bail when similarly
captured or arrested during the continuance of the
aforesaid contingency. They may not even claim the
right to be charged immediately in court, as they may
rightfully do so, were they being charged with an
ordinary or common offense. This is so because
according to legal writers or publicists, the suspension of
the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus "has the sole
effect of allowing the executive to defer the trials of
persons charged with certain offenses during the period
of emergency." 6 This clearly means denial of the right to
be released on bail on being charged in court with
bailable offenses.
The suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas
corpus must, indeed, carry with it the suspension of the
right to bail, if the government's campaign to suppress
the rebellion is to be enhanced and rendered effective. If
the right to bail may be demanded during the
continuance of the rebellion, and those arrested,
captured and detained in the course thereof will be
released, they would, without the least doubt, rejoin their
comrades in the field thereby jeopardizing the success of
government efforts to bring to an end the invasion,
rebellion or insurrection.
Realistically, a person engaged in the rebellion does not,
upon being arrested or captured, cease to be as
committed to the cause of the movement. Through a
grand conspiracy, as is of the essence of how rebellion
is committed, involving a great mass of confederates
bound together by a common goal, he remains in a state
of continued participation in the criminal act or design.
His heart still beats with the same emotion for the
success of the movement of which he continues to be an
ardent adherent and ally. It is simple logic then to hold
that there should be no legal compulsion for a captured
rebel to be charged in court, only to be released on bail,
while he is, realistically and legally, still as much as part
and parcel of the movement, continuing as it is, as those
still engaged in carrying on actively to attain their goal of
overthrowing the established regime. Hence, it is easy to
perceive how impressed with absolute verity is the
opinion expressed by two acknowledged authorities on
Constitutional law in our country, 7 which We quote:
... If the return to the writ shows that the person
in custody was apprehended and detained in
areas where the privileges of the writ have been
suspended or for the crimes mentioned in the
executive proclamation, the court will suspend
further proceedings in the action.
Impeccable as it is, the opinion could not but find a
resonant echo as it did in the recent case of Buscayno
vs. Military Commission; 8 decided after Proclamation
No. 2045 was issued, which in terms clear and
categorical, held that the constitutional right to bail is
unavailing when the privilege of the writ of habeas
corpus is suspended with respect to certain crimes as
enumerated or described in the abovementioned
Proclamation.
It is, likewise, all too well-known that when the rebel
forces capture government troopers or kidnap private
individuals, they do not accord to them any of the rights
now being demanded by the herein petitioners,
particularly to be set at liberty upon the filing of bail. As a
matter of common knowledge, captives of the rebels or
insurgents are not only not given the right to be
released, but also denied trial of any kind. In some
instances, they may even be liquidated
unceremoniously. What is then sought by the
suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus
is, among others, to put the government forces on equal
fighting terms with the rebels, by authorizing the
detention of their own rebel or dissident captives as the
rebellion goes on. In this way, the advantage the
rebellion forces have over those of the government, as
when they resort to guerilla tactics with sophisticated
weapons, is, at least, minimized, thereby enhancing the
latter's chances of beating their enemy. It would,
therefore, seem to be ignoring realities in the name of
misplaced magnanimity and compassion, and for the
sake of humanity, to grant the demand for respect of
rights supposedly guaranteed by the Constitution by
those who themselves seek to destroy that very same
instrument, trampling over it already as they are still
waging war against the government. This stark actuality
gives added force and substance to the rationale of the
suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus
in case of invasion, insurrection, rebellion, or imminent
danger thereof, when public safety requires it.
6. Invoking the Lansang case, 9 however, petitioners
would ask this Court to review the issuance of the PCO
against them, intimating that arbitrariness attended its
issuance because, relying on the evidence supposedly
available in the hands of the military, they claim they are
not guilty of rebellion. They also contend that the
provisions of LOI No. 1211 have not been complied with.
The Lansang case went no further than to pronounce the
suspension of the writ of the privilege of habeas corpus
on August 21, 1971, valid and constitutional, on a finding
that there was no arbitrariness attendant to the
suspension. It never intended to suggest that for every
individual case of arrest and detention, the writ of
habeas corpus is available, even after the suspension of
this privilege, to question the legality of the arrest and
detention on ground of arbitrariness. When a person is
charged in court for an ordinary offense, the law does
not authorize the filing of a petition for habeas corpus
based on the ground that there is absolutely no evidence
to hold him for trial, which, in effect, constitutes an
allegation of arbitrariness in the filing of the case against
him. The law has afforded him adequate safeguards
against arbitrariness, such as the requirement of
determining the existence of a probable cause by the
judge before the issuance of the warrant of arrest. The
finding of such probable cause may not be immediately
brought for review by this Court in a habeas corpus
proceeding, on the claim of arbitrariness. The matter is
to be decided on the basis of the evidence, and this
Court is not the proper forum for the review sought, not
being a trier of facts. If such a procedure were allowed, it
would be easy to delay and obstruct the prosecution of
an offense by a resort to a petition for habeas corpus
based on arbitrariness, which most accuse, if not all,
would be most inclined, specially when they are out on
bail. The petition now before Us is exactly one of this
kind. If granted, the effect is to transfer the jurisdiction of
the trial courts in criminal cases to this Court, which is
simply inconceivable. Moreover, arbitrariness, while so
easy to allege, is hard to prove, in the face of the
formidable obstacle built up by the presumption of
regularity in the performance of official duty.
Unexhilaratingly, this is the revealing experience of this
Court in the Lansang case, where it doubtlessly realized
how hardly possible it is to adduce evidence or proof
upon which to show the President having acted with
arbitrariness.
7. The last question relates to the legality of the
Presidential Commitment Order (PCO) issued by the
President on July 12, 1982, tested by the conformity of
its issuance to the procedure laid down under LOI 1211,
petitioners insisting that the LOI limits the authority of the
President to cause the arrest and detention of persons
engaged in or charged with, the crimes mentioned in
Proclamation No. 2045. They contend that the procedure
prescribed in the LOI not having been observed, the
PCO issued thereunder did not validate the initial illegal
arrest of the herein petitioners as wen as their continued
detention.
It must be noted that LOI No. 1211, which provides the
guidelines in the arrest and detention of persons
engaged in, or charged with, the crimes mentioned in
Proclamation No. 2045, charged with, the crimes
mentioned contemplates of three situations when an
arrest can be made, to wit:
1. The arrest and detention effected by virtue of
a warrant issued by a judge;
2. The arrest and detention effected by a military
commander or the head of a law enforcement
agency after it is determined that the person or
persons to be arrested would probably escape
or commit further acts which would endanger
public order and safety. After the arrest,
however, the case shall be immediately referred
to the city or provincial fiscal or to the municipal,
city, circuit, or district judge for preliminary
examination or investigation who, if the evidence
warrants, shall file the corresponding charges
and, thereafter, we a warrant of arrest;
3. The military commander or the head of the
law enforcement agency may apply to the
President thru the Minister of National Defense,
for a Presidential Commitment Order under the
following circumstances:
(a) When resort to judicial process is not
possible or expedient without
endangering public order and safety; or
(b) When the release on bail of the
person or persons already under
arrest by virtue of a judicial warrant
would endanger said public order and
safety.
Petitioners appear to place entire reliance on paragraphs
1 and 2 of LOI No. 1211, ignoring paragraph 3 of LOI
No. 1211, which provides:
3. The above notwithstanding, the military
commander or the head of the law enforcement
agency may apply to the President thru the
Minister of National Defense, for a Presidential
Commitment Order covering the person or
persons believed to be participants in the
commission of the crimes referred to in
paragraph 1 under the following circumstances:
(a) When resort to judicial process is not
possible or expedient without
endangering public order and safety; or
(b) When the release on bail of the
person or persons already under arrest
by virtue of a judicial warrant would
endanger said public order and safety.
The reliance of petitioners on paragraphs 1 and 2 of LOI
1211 as to the alleged necessity of judicial warrant
before a person may be arrested and detained is not
well-founded. Neither is the contention that paragraph 3
of LOI 1211 applies only when judicial process is not
possible. This is a narrow and constricted interpretation
of LOI 1211 when viewed in its entirety. Even in
instances when a resort to judicial process is possible,
where, in the judgment of the President, a resort thereto
would not be expedient because it would endanger the
public order or safety, a PCO is justified. So, too, when
release on bail in the ordinary judicial process will invite
the same danger.
By its very nature, and clearly by its language, LOI 1211
is a mere directive of the President as Commander-in-
Chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines to his
subordinates or implementing officers for the ultimate
objective of providing guidelines in the arrest and
detention of the persons covered by Presidential
Proclamation No. 2045. The purpose is "to insure
protection to individual liberties without sacrificing the
requirements of public order and safety and the
effectiveness of the campaign against those seeking the
forcible overthrow of the government and duty
constituted authorities. " LOI 1211 does not, in any
manner, limit the authority of the President to cause the
arrest and detention of persons engaged in, or charged
with the crimes or offenses mentioned in said
Proclamation in that he (President) would subject himself
to the superior authority of the judge who, under normal
judicial processes in the prosecution of the common
offenses, is the one authorized to issue a judicial warrant
after a preliminary investigation is conducted with a
finding of probable cause. Those who would read such
an intention on the part of the President in issuing LOI
1211 seems to do so in their view that LOI forms part of
the law of the land under the 1976 amendment of the
Constitution. 10 They would then contend that a PCO
issued not in compliance with the provisions of the LOI
would be an illegality and of no effect.
To form part of the law of the land, the decree, order or
LOI must be issued by the President in the exercise of
his extraordinary power of legislation as contemplated in
Section 6 of the 1976 amendments to the Constitution,
whenever in his judgment, there exists a grave
emergency or a threat or imminence thereof, or
whenever the interim Batasan 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. There can be no pretense, much less
a showing, that these conditions prompted the President
to issue LOI 1211. Verily, not all LOI issued by the
President should be dignified into forming part of the law
of the land.
In the event then that the judge believes no warrant shall
issue, the President, under Presidential Proclamation
No. 2045 and Letter of Instruction No. 1211, is not bound
by such finding, as explicitly provided in paragraph 2 of
LOI 1211. That the President avails of the facilities of the
judicial machinery, as is the clear intent of LOI 1211, to
aid him in exercising his power to restrain personal
liberty, as dictated by the necessities and exigencies of
the emergency, does not indicate any intention on his
part to renounce or to allow even mere curtailment of his
power such that the judicial process will thereupon take
its normal course, under which the detainees or accused
would then be entitled to demand their right of due
process, particularly in relation to their personal
liberty. 11 The issuance of the PCO by the President
necessarily constitutes a finding that the conditions he
has prescribed in LOI 1211 for the issuance of that PCO
have been met, and intends that the detention would be
pursuant to the executive process incident to the
government campaign against the rebels, subversives
and dissidents waging a rebellion or insurrection. The
ruling in the Nava vs. Gatmaitan case,* as above
intimated, must have shown him that to prosecute the
offense through the judicial process of forthwith instead
of deferring it, would neither be wise nor expedient if he
were to deal effectively with the grave emergency at
hand.
What has been said above shows the need of
reexamining the Lansang case with a view to reverting to
the ruling of Barcelon vs. Baker, 5 Phil. 87, a 1905
decision, and Montenegro vs. Castaneda, 91 Phil. 882
(1952), that the President's decision to suspend the
privilege of the writ of habeas corpus is "final and
conclusive upon the courts, and all other persons." This
well-settled ruling was diluted in the Lansang case which
declared that the "function of the Court is merely to
check — not to supplant — the Executive, or 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." Judicial
interference was thus held as permissible, and the test
as laid down therein is not whether the President acted
correctly but whether he acted arbitrarily. This would
seem to be pure semanticism, if We consider that with
particular reference to the nature of the actions the
President would take on the occasion of the grave
emergency he has to deal with, which, as clearly
indicated in Section 9, Art. VII of the Constitution
partakes of military measures, the judiciary can, with
becoming modesty, ill afford to assume the authority to
check or reverse or supplant the presidential actions. On
these occasions, the President takes absolute
command, for the very life of the Nation and its
government, which, incidentally, includes the courts, is in
grave peril. In so doing, the President is answerable only
to his conscience, the people and to God. For their part,
in giving him the supreme mandate as their President,
the people can only trust and pray that, giving him their
own loyalty with utmost patriotism, the President will not
fail them.
In his separate opinion in the Lansang case, then Justice
Fernando, now our learned Chief Justice, went along
with the proposition that the decision of the Executive in
the exercise of his power to suspend the privilege of the
writ of habeas corpus is his alone, and in his own
language, is "ordinarily beyond the ken of the Courts."
This is so, as the Founding Fathers must have felt that in
the particular situations at hand, the Executive and the
Judiciary should maintain a mutually deferential attitude.
This is the very essence of the doctrine of "political
question, " as determining the justiciability of a case. The
wisdom of this concept remains well-recognized in
advanced constitutional systems. To erase it from our
own system as seems to be what was done in the
Lansang case, may neither be proper nor prudent. A
good example could be given in the exercise of the
presidential power of pardon which is beyond judicial
review, specially under the new Constitution where the
condition that it may be granted only after final conviction
has been done away with.
True, the Constitution is the law "equally in war and in
peace," 12 as Chief Justice Fernando cited in his brilliant
separate opinion in the same Lansang case. Precisely, it
is the Constitution that gives the President specific
"military power" in times of warlike conditions as exist on
the occasion of invasion, insurrection or rebellion. Both
power and right are constitutionally granted, with the
difference that the guarantee of the right to liberty is for
personal benefit, while the grant of the presidential
power is for public safety. Which of the two enjoys
primacy over the other is all too obvious. For
the power is intended as a limitation of the right, in much
the same way as individual freedom yields to the
exercise of the police power of the State in the interest of
general welfare. The difference again is that the power
comes into being during extreme emergencies the
exercise of which, for complete effectiveness for the
purpose it was granted should not permit intereference,
while individual freedom is obviously for full enjoyment in
time of peace, but in time of war or grave peril to the
nation, should be limited or restricted. In a true sense
then, our Constitution is for both peacetime and in time
of war; it is not that in time of war the Constitution is
silenced. The Founding Fathers, with admirable foresight
and vision, inserted provisions therein that come into
play and application in time of war or similar
emergencies. So it is that, as proclaimed by the
Constitution, the defense of the State is a prime duty of
government. Compulsory military service may be
imposed, certainly a mandate that derogates on the right
to personal liberty. It, therefore, becomes self-evident
that the duty of the judiciary to protect individual rights
must yield to the power of the Executive to protect the
State, for if the State perishes, the Constitution, with the
Bill of Rights that guarantees the right to personal liberty,
perishes with it.
In times of war or national emergency, the legislature
may surrender a part of its power of legislation to the
President. 13 Would it not be as proper and wholly
acceptable to lay down the principle that during such
crises, the judiciary should be less jealous of its power
and more trusting of the Executive in the exercise of its
emergency powers in recognition of the same necessity?
Verily, the existence of the emergencies should be left to
President's sole and unfettered determination. His
exercise of the power to suspend the privilege of the writ
of habeas corpus on the occasion thereof, should also
be beyond judicial review. Arbitrariness, as a ground for
judicial inquiry of presidential acts and decisions, sounds
good in theory but impractical and unrealistic,
considering how well-nigh impossible it is for the courts
to contradict the finding of the President on the existence
of the emergency that gives occasion for the exercise of
the power to suspend the privilege of the writ. For the
Court to insist on reviewing Presidential action on the
ground of arbitrariness may only result in a violent
collision of two jealous powers with tragic
consequences, by all means to be avoided, in favor of
adhering to the more desirable and long-tested doctrine
of "political question" in reference to the power of judicial
review. 14
Amendment No. 6 of the 1973 Constitution, as earlier
cited, affords further reason for the reexamination of the
Lansang doctrine and reversion to that of Barcelon vs.
Baker and Montenegro vs. Castaneda.
Accordingly, We hold that in times of war and similar
emergency as expressly provided in the Constitution, the
President may suspend the privilege of the writ of
habeas corpus, which has the effect of allowing the
Executive to defer the prosecution of any of the offenses
covered by Proclamation No. 2045, including, as a
necessary consequence, the withholding for the duration
of the suspension of the privilege, of the right to bail. The
power could have been vested in Congress, instead of
the President, as it was so vested in the United States
for which reason, when President Lincoln himself
exercised the power in 1861, Chief Justice Taney of the
U.S. Supreme Court expressed the opinion that
Congress alone possessed this power under the
Constitutional., 15 Incidentally, it seems unimaginable
that the judiciary could subject the suspension, if
decreed through congressional action, to the same
inquiry as our Supreme Court did with the act of the
President, in the Lansang case, to determine if the
Congress acted with arbitrariness.
We further hold that under LOI 1211, a Presidential
Commitment Order, the issuance of which is the
exclusive prerogative of the President under the
Constitution, may not be declared void by the courts,
under the doctrine of "political question," as has been
applied in the Baker and Castaneda cases, on any
ground, let alone its supposed violation of the provision
of LOI 1211, thus diluting, if not abandoning the doctrine
of the Lansang case. The supreme mandate received by
the President from the people and his oath to do justice
to every man should be sufficient guarantee, without
need of judicial overseeing, against commission by him
of an act of arbitrariness in the discharge particularly of
those duties imposed upon him for the protection of
public safety which in itself includes the protection of life,
liberty and property. This Court is not possessed with the
attribute of infallibility that when it reviews the acts of the
President in the exercise of his exclusive power, for
possible fault of arbitrariness, it would not itself go so far
as to commit the self-same fault.
Finally, We hold that upon the issuance of the
Presidential Commitment Order against herein
petitioners, their continued detention is rendered valid
and legal, and their right to be released even after the
filing of charges against them in court, to depend on the
President, who may order the release of a detainee or
his being placed under house arrest, as he has done in
meritorious cases.
WHEREFORE, the instant petition should be, as it is
hereby dismissed.
SO ORDERED.
Guerrero, Plana, Escolin, Vasquez, Relova and
Gutierrez, Jr., JJ., concur.
Concepcion, Jr. and Melencio-Herrera, JJ., concur in the
result.
Aquino, J., is on leave.
Separate Opinions
The Case
The Facts
The factual antecedents, as narrated by Respondent
Court, are not disputed by the parties. We reproduce
them in part, as follows:
Simeon de Guzman, an American citizen, died
sometime in 1968, leaving real properties in the
Philippines. His forced heirs were his widow,
defendant appellee [herein private respondent] Helen
Meyers Guzman, and his son, defendant appellee
[also herein private respondent] David Rey Guzman,
both of whom are also American citizens. On August
9, 1989, Helen executed a deed of quitclaim (Annex
A-Complaint), assigning[,] transferring and conveying
to David Rey all her rights, titles and interests in and
over six parcels of land which the two of them
inherited from Simeon.
Among the said parcels of land is that now in
litigation, x x x situated in Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria,
Bulacan, containing an area of 6,695 square meters,
covered by Transfer Certificate of Title No. T-170514
of the Registry of Deeds of Bulacan. The quitclaim
having been registered, TCT No. T-170514 was
cancelled and TCT No. T-120259 was issued in the
name of appellee David Rey Guzman.
On February 5, 1991, David Rey Guzman sold
said parcel of land to defendant-appellee [also herein
private respondent] Emiliano Cataniag, upon which
TCT No. T-120259 was cancelled and TCT No. T-
130721(M) was issued in the latters name.[4]
Petitioners, who are owners of the adjoining lot, filed a
complaint before the Regional Trial Court of Malolos,
Bulacan, questioning the constitutionality and validity of
the two conveyances -- between Helen Guzman and
David Rey Guzman, and between the latter and Emiliano
Cataniag -- and claiming ownership thereto based on
their right of legal redemption under Art. 1621[5]of the
Civil Code.
In its decision[6] dated March 10, 1992,[7] the trial court
dismissed the complaint. It ruled that Helen Guzmans
waiver of her inheritance in favor of her son was not
contrary to the constitutional prohibition against the sale
of land to an alien, since the purpose of the waiver was
simply to authorize David Rey Guzman to dispose of
their properties in accordance with the Constitution and
the laws of the Philippines, and not to subvert them.On
the second issue, it held that the subject land was urban;
hence, petitioners had no reason to invoke their right of
redemption under Art. 1621 of the Civil Code.
The Halilis sought a reversal from the Court of
Appeals which, however, denied their
appeal. Respondent Court affirmed the factual finding of
the trial court that the subject land was
urban. Citing Tejido vs. Zamacoma[8] and Yap vs.
Grageda,[9] it further held that, although the transfer of
the land to David Rey may have been invalid for being
contrary to the Constitution, there was no more point in
allowing herein petitioners to recover the property, since
it has passed on to and was thus already owned by a
qualified person.
Hence, this petition.[10]
Issues
[1]
Rollo, pp. 19-30.
[2]
Ninth Division, composed of JJ. Cezar D.
Francisco, ponente; Gloria C. Paras (chairman) and
Buenaventura J. Guerrero, concurring.
[3]
Assailed Decision, p. 12; Rollo, p. 30.
[4]
Assailed Decision, p. 2; Rollo, p. 20.
[5]
ART. 1621. The owners of adjoining lands shall also
have the right of redemption when a piece of rural land,
the area of which does not exceed one hectare, is
alienated, unless the grantee does not own any rural
land.
This right is not applicable to adjacent lands which are
separated by brooks, drains, ravines, roads and other
apparent servitudes for the benefit of other estates.
If two or more adjoining owners desire to exercise the
right of redemption at the same time, the owner of the
adjoining land of smaller area shall be preferred; and
should both lands have the same area, the one who first
requested the redemption.
[6]
CA Rollo, pp. 29-31.
[7]
Penned by Judge Valentin R. Cruz.
[8]
138 SCRA 78, August 7, 1985.
[9]
121 SCRA 244, March 28, 1983.
[10]
This case was considered submitted for resolution
upon receipt by this Court of petitioners memorandum
on November 8, 1996.
[11]
Petition, p. 6; Rollo, p. 12.
[12]
First Philippine International Bank vs. Court of
Appeals, 252 SCRA 259, January 24, 1996.
[13]
Fuentes vs. Court of Appeals, 268 SCRA 703,
February 26, 1997; Geronimo vs. Court of Appeals, 224
SCRA 494, July 5, 1993. See also Lacanilao vs. Court of
Appeals, 262 SCRA 486, September 26, 1996;
Verendia vs. Court of Appeals, 217 SCRA 417, January
22, 1993.
[14]
RTC decision, p. 3; CA Rollo, p. 31.
[15]
Tolentino, Ibid.; Cortes vs. Flores, 47 Phil 992,
September 6, 1924.
[16]
Tolentino, Civil Code of the Philippines, 1992 ed.,
Vol. V, p. 182; Del Pilar vs. Catindig, 35 Phil 263,
November 4, 1916.
[17]
79 Phil 461, November 15, 1947, per Moran, CJ.
[18]
Ibid., pp. 473-474.
[19]
239 SCRA 341, December 20, 1994, per Quiason, J.
[20]
At p. 346.
[21]
Cf. Ramirez vs. Vda. de Ramirez, 111 SCRA 704,
February 15, 1982.
[22]
United Church Board of World
Ministries vs. Sebastian, 159 SCRA 446, 451-452,
March 30, 1988; per Cruz, J. See also
Tejido vs. Zamacoma, 138 SCRA 78, August 7, 1985;
Sarsosa vda. de Barsobia vs.Cuenco, 113 SCRA 547,
April 16, 1982; Godinez vs. Fong Pak Luen, 120 SCRA
223, January 27, 1983; Yap vs. Maravillas, 121 SCRA
244, March 28, 1983; De Castro vs. Tan, 129 SCRA 85,
April 30, 1984.
[23]
Ibid.
[24]
Supra.
[25]
Supra.
[26]
Supra.
[27]
96 Phil 447, January 31, 1955, per Padilla, J.
[28]
1 SCRA 406, January 31, 1961, per Barrera, J.
[29]
Supra, p. 453.
EN BANC
[1]
Journal No. 39, pp. 66, 68; Rollo, pp. 210, 212;
Transcript of November 21, 1996 session, pp. 39-
52;Rollo, pp. 368-381; Petition, p. 6, par. 10; Rollo,
p. 8.
[2]
Rule VIII, 35. Voting. Every member present in the
session shall vote on every question put unless he
inhibits himself on account of personal pecuniary interest
therein.
Rule XVII, 103. Manner of Voting. The Speaker shall rise
to put a question saying As many as are in favor of
(as the question may be), say Aye and, after the
affirmative vote is counted, As many as are
opposed, say Nay ....
[3]
Rule XIX, 112. Reading and Withdrawal of
Motions. The Speaker shall state the motion or, if in
writing, shall cause it to be read by the Secretary
General before being debated. A motion may be
withdrawn any time before its approval.
[4]
Rule XVI, 97. Recognition of Member. When two or
more members rise at the same time, the Speaker
shall recognize the Member who is to speak first.
[5]
Rule XX, 121. Definition. Questions of privilege are
those affecting the duties, conduct, rights, privileges,
dignity, integrity or reputation of the House or of its
members, collectively or individually.
122. Precedence. Subject to the ten-minute rule,
questions of privilege shall have precedence over all
other questions, except a motion to adjourn and a
point of order.
Rule XXI, 123. Definition and Precedence. A privileged
motion pertains to a subject matter which, under the
rules, takes precedence over others.
The order of precedence of privileged motions is
determined in each case by the rules.
Rule XVIII, 109. Who May Vote; Procedure;
Exceptions. When a bill, report or motion is adopted
or lost, a member who voted with the majority may
move for its reconsideration on the same or
succeeding session day. The motion shall take
precedence over all other questions, except a
motion to adjourn, a question of privilege, and a
point of order.
[6]
235 SCRA 630 (1994).
[7]
Rollo, p. 228.
[8]
Id., p. 229.
[9]
Art. VI, 16(3).
[10]
E.g., United States v. Ballin, Joseph & Co., 144 U.S.
1, 36 L.Ed. 321 (1862); Exxon Corp. v. FTC, 589
F.2d 582 (1978); Murray v. Buchanan, 674 F.2d 14
(1982); Metzenbaum v. Federal Energy Regulatory
Comn, 675 F.2d 1282 (1982). See also Osmea v.
Pendatun, 109 Phil. 863 (1960).
[11]
109 Phil. at 870-71. See also EVAT cases
[Tolentino v. Secretary of Finance], 235 SCRA 630.
[12]
144 U.S. at 5, 36 L.Ed. at 324-25 (emphasis added).
[13]
64 Fla. 41; 59 So. 963, 968 (1912) (emphasis added).
[14]
124 Ohio St. 256, 177 N.E. 910, 911 (1931)
(emphasis added).
[15]
79 Conn. 141, 64 Atl. 5, 9-10 (1906) (emphasis
added).
[16]
80 Wis. 407, 50 N.W. 185, 186 (1891) (emphasis
added).
[17]
5 Okl. 297, 47 Pac. 1094 (1897) (emphasis added).
[18]
Enrique M. Fernando, Constitution of the Philippines
Annotated 188-189 (1977); Pacete v. Secretary
ofthe Commission on Appointments, 40 SCRA 58
(1971).
[19]
Petition, p. 25, quoting the sponsorship speech of
former Chief Justice Roberto Concepcion, chairman
of the Committee on Judiciary of the Constitutional
Commission, in 1 Records of the Constitutional
Commission 436 (Session of July 10, 1986).
[20]
Gonzales v. Macaraig, 191 SCRA 452
(1990); See Marcos v. Manglapus, 177 SCRA 668,
695 (1989); Lansang v. Garcia, 42 SCRA 448
(1971).
[21]
Co v. Electoral Tribunal of the House of
Representatives, 199 SCRA 692,701 (1991);
Llamas v. Orbos, 202 SCRA 849, 857 (1991);
Lansang v. Garcia, 42 SCRA at 480-481 (emphasis
added).
[22]
4 Cong. Rec. 413-414 (Feb. 15, 1957).
[23]
United States v. Ballin, Joseph & Co., 144 U.S. at 5,
36 L.Ed. at 324-25; State v. Lewis, 186 S.E. 625,
630 (1936).
[24]
United States v. Smith, 286 U.S. 6, 76 L.Ed. 954
(1931).
[25]
Gregg v. Barrett, 771 F.2d 539, 549 (1985).
[26]
Art. VI, 26(2).
[27]
Id., 16(4).
[28]
Id., 27(1).
[29]
Id., p. 17; id., p. 19.
[30]
Inocencio Pareja, Rules of the House of
Representatives Commented and Annotated 331
(1963); Reynaldo Fajardo, Principles of
Parliamentary Procedure 157-158, 172-173 (1963).
[31]
Rule XIX, 13.
[32]
1 Records of the Constitutional Commission 436
(Session of July 10, 1986).
[33]
Alice Sturgis, Standard Code of Parliamentary
Procedure, 17 (1950).
[34]
Paul Mason, Manual of Legislative Procedure 335
(1953).
[35]
Conference Committee Report, Rollo, p. 36; Petition,
p. 14; Rollo, p. 16.
[36]
Ibid.
[37]
Petition, p. 14; Rollo, p. 16.
[38]
Astorga v. Villegas, 56 SCRA 714 (1974).
[39]
Mabanag v. Lopez Vito, 78 Phil. 1, 12 (1947).
[40]
Id. at 17, quoting 4 John Wigmore, Treatise on the
Law on Evidence 1350 at 702 (1940). This excerpt is
preserved in the Chadbourne edition of this locus
classicus. See 4 Wigmore on Evidence 1350 at 834
(James H. Chadbourne, ed. 1972).
[41]
EVAT cases [Tolentino v. Secretary of Finance], 235
SCRA at 672. Cf. Morales v. Subido, 27 SCRA
131(1969).
[42]
Philippine Judges Assn v. Prado, 227 SCRA 703, 710
(1993); Morales v. Subido, 27 SCRA 131.
[43]
Casco Philippine Chemical Co., Inc. v. Gimenez, 7
SCRA 347 (1963); Resins, Inc. v. Auditor General,
25 SCRA 754 (1968).
[44]
4 Wigmore on Evidence 1350 (James H.
Chadbourne, ed. 1972); 6 Manuel V. Moran,
Comments on the Rules of Court 115 (1980); 7
Vicente J. Francisco, The Revised Rules of Court
(Pt. II) 454 (1973).
[45]
Marshall Field & Co. v. Clark, 143 U.S. 649, 672, 36
L.Ed. 294, 303 (1891).
[46]
The following are required to be entered on the
Journal: (1) The yeas and nays on the third and final
reading of a bill (Art. VI, 26(2)); (2)
the yeas and nays on any question, at the request of
one-fifth of the members present (Id., 16(4)); (3)
the yeas and nays upon repassing a bill over the
Presidents veto (Id., 27(1); and (4) the Presidents
objection to a bill which he has vetoed. (Id.)
[47]
34 Phil. 729, 735 (1916), quoting State ex rel.
Herron v. Smith, 44 Ohio 348 (1886).
[48]
Gregg v. Barrett, 771 F.2d 529.
[49]
Metzenbaum v. Federal Energy Regulatory Comn,
675 F.2d 1282.