Tanada V Cuenco

Constitutional Law Political Question

FACTS: After the 1955 elections, members of the
Senate were chosen. The Senate was
overwhelmingly occupied by the Nacionalista Party.
The lone opposition senator was Lorenzo. Diosdado
on the other hand was a senatorial candidate who
lost the bid but was contesting it before the SET.
But prior to a decision the SET would have to
choose its members. It is provided that the SET
should be composed of 9 members; 3 justices, 3
senators from the majority party and 3 senators
from the minority party. But since there is only one
minority senator the other two SET members
supposed to come from the minority were filled in
by the NP. Lorenzo assailed this process. So did
Diosdado because he deemed that if the SET would
be dominated by NP senators then he, as a member
of the Liberalista will not have any chance in his
election contest. Cuenco et al (members of the NP)
averred that the SC cannot take cognizance of the
issue because it is a political question. Cuenco
argued that the power to choose the members of the
SET is vested in the Senate alone and the remedy
for Lorenzo and Diosdado is not to raise the issue
before judicial courts but rather to leave it before
the bar of public opinion.

ISSUE: Whether or not the issue is a political
question.

HELD: The SC took cognizance of the case and
ruled in favor of Lorenzo and Diosdado. 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.


ALTERNATIVE CENTER FOR
ORGANIZATIONAL REFORMS AND
DEVELOPMENT, INC., VS. ZAMORA
G.R. No. 144256

Subject: Public Corporation
Doctrine: Automatic release of IRA

Facts:
Pres. Estrada, pursuant to Sec 22, Art VII
mandating the Pres to submit to Congress a budget
of expenditures within 30 days before the opening
of every regular session, submitted the National
Expenditures program for FY 2000. The President
proposed an IRA of P121,778,000,000. This
became RA 8760, AN ACT APPROPRIATING
FUNDS FOR THE OPERATION OF THE
GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF THE
PHILIPPINES FROM JANUARY ONE TO
DECEMBER THIRTY-ONE, TWO THOUSAND,
AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES also known as
General Appropriations Act (GAA) for the Year
2000. It provides under the heading
ALLOCATIONS TO LOCAL GOVERNMENT
UNITS that the IRA for local government units
shall amount to P111,778,000,000.

In another part of the GAA, under the heading
UNPROGRAMMED FUND, it is provided that
an amount of P10,000,000,000 (P10 Billion), apart
from the P111,778,000,000 mentioned above, shall
be used to fund the IRA, which amount shall be
released only when the original revenue targets
submitted by the President to Congress can be
realized based on a quarterly assessment to be
conducted by certain committees which the GAA
specifies, namely, the Development Budget
Coordinating Committee, the Committee on
Finance of the Senate, and the Committee on
Appropriations of the House of Representatives.

Thus, while the GAA appropriates
P111,778,000,000 of IRA as Programmed Fund, it
appropriates a separate amount of P10 Billion of
IRA under the classification of Unprogrammed
Fund, the latter amount to be released only upon the
occurrence of the condition stated in the GAA.

On August 22, 2000, a number of NGOs and POs,
along with 3 barangay officials filed with this Court
the petition at bar, for Certiorari, Prohibition and
Mandamus With Application for Temporary
Restraining Order, against respondents then
Executive Secretary Ronaldo Zamora, then
Secretary of the Department of Budget and
Management Benjamin Diokno, then National
Treasurer Leonor Magtolis-Briones, and the
Commission on Audit, challenging the
constitutionality of provision XXXVII
(ALLOCATIONS TO LOCAL GOVERNMENT
UNITS) referred to by petitioners as Section 1,
XXXVII (A), and LIV (UNPROGRAMMED
FUND) Special Provisions 1 and 4 of the GAA (the
GAA provisions)

Petitioners contend that the said provisions violates
the LGUs autonomy by unlawfully reducing the
IRA allotted by 10B and by withholding its release
by placing the same under Unprogrammed funds.
Although the effectivity of the Year 2000 GAA has
ceased, this Court shall nonetheless proceed to
resolve the issues raised in the present case, it being
impressed with public interest. Petitioners argue
that the GAA violated the constitutional mandate of
automatically releasing the IRAs when it made its
release contingent on whether revenue collections
could meet the revenue targets originally submitted
by the President, rather than making the release
automatic.

ISSUE: WON the subject GAA violates LGUs
fiscal autonomy by not automatically releasing the
whole amount of the allotted IRA.

HELD:
Article X, Section 6 of the Constitution provides:
SECTION 6. Local government units shall have a
just share, as determined by law, in the national
taxes which shall be automatically released to them.

Petitioners argue that the GAA violated this
constitutional mandate when it made the release of
IRA contingent
on whether revenue collections could meet the
revenue targets originally submitted by the
President, rather than making the release automatic.
Respondents counterargue that the above
constitutional provision is addressed not to the
legislature but to the executive, hence, the same
does not prevent the legislature from imposing
conditions upon the release of the IRA.

Respondents thus infer that the subject
constitutional provision merely prevents the
executive branch of the government from
unilaterally withholding the IRA, but not the
legislature from authorizing the executive branch to
withhold the same. In the words of respondents,
This essentially means that the President or any
member of the Executive Department cannot
unilaterally, i.e., without the backing of statute,
withhold the release of the IRA.

As the Constitution lays upon the executive the duty
to automatically release the just share of local
governments in the national taxes, so it enjoins the
legislature not to pass laws that might prevent the
executive from performing this duty. To hold that
the executive branch may disregard constitutional
provisions which define its duties, provided it has
the backing of statute, is virtually to make the
Constitution amendable by statute a proposition
which is patently absurd. If indeed the framers
intended to allow the enactment of statutes making
the release of IRA conditional instead of automatic,
then Article X, Section 6 of the Constitution would
have been worded differently.

Since, under Article X, Section 6 of the
Constitution, only the just share of local
governments is qualified by the words as
determined by law, and not the release thereof, the
plain implication is that Congress is not authorized
by the Constitution to hinder or impede the
automatic release of the IRA.

In another case, the Court held that the only
possible exception to mandatory automatic release
of the IRA is, as held in Batangas:
if the national internal revenue collections for the
current fiscal year is less than 40 percent of the
collections of the preceding third fiscal year, in
which case what should be automatically released
shall be a proportionate
amount of the collections for the current fiscal year.
The adjustment may even be made on a quarterly
basis depending on the actual collections of national
internal revenue taxes for the quarter of the current
fiscal year.
This Court recognizes that the passage of the GAA
provisions by Congress was motivated by the
laudable intent to lower the budget deficit in line
with prudent fiscal management. The
pronouncement in Pimentel, however, must be
echoed: [T]he rule of law requires that even the
best intentions must be carried out within the
parameters of the Constitution and the law. Verily,
laudable purposes must be carried out by legal
methods.
WHEREFORE, the petition is GRANTED.
XXXVII and LIV Special Provisions 1 and 4 of the
Year 2000 GAA are hereby declared
unconstitutional insofar as they set apart a portion
of the IRA, in the amount of P10 Billion, as part of
the UNPROGRAMMED FUND.

People v. Concepcion
G.R. No. 19190 (November 29, 1922)

FACTS:
Defendant authorized an extension of credit in
favor of Concepcion, a co-
partnership. Defendants wife was a
director of this co-partnership. Defendant was
found guilty of violating Sec. 35 of Act No. 2747
which says that The National Bank shall not,
directly or indirectly, grant loans to any of the
members of the Board of Directors of the bank nor
to agents of the branch banks. This Section was
in effect in 1919 but was repealed in Act No. 2938
approved on January 30, 1921.

ISSUE:
W/N Defendant can be convicted of
violating Sections of Act No. 2747, which were
repealed by Act No. 2938.

HELD:
In the interpretation and construction, the primary
rule is to ascertain and give effect to the intention of
the Legislature. Section 49 in relation to Sec. 25 of
Act No. 2747 provides a punishment for any person
who shall violate any provisions of the
Act. Defendant contends that the repeal of these
Sections by Act No. 2938 has served to take away
basis for criminal prosecution. The Court holds that
where an act of the Legislature which penalizes an
offense repeals a former act which penalized
the same offense, such repeal does not have the
effect of thereafter depriving the Courts of
jurisdiction to try, convict and sentence offenders
charged with violations of the old law.