1.

Maritime Zones
(1). Internal waters of the Philippines consist of waters around, between and connecting the
islands of the Philippine Archipelago, regardless of their breadth and dimensions, including
the waters in bays, rivers and lakes. No right of innocent passage for foreign vessels exists in
the case of internal waters. (Harris, Cases and Materials on International Law, 5th ed., 1998,
p. 407).
(3). Territorial Sea extends up to 12 nautical miles;
(2). Contiguous zone is the zone contiguous to the territorial sea and extends up to twelve
nautical miles from the territorial sea and over which the coastal state may exercise control
necessary to prevent infringement of its customs, fiscal, immigration or sanitary laws and
regulations within the territory or territorial sea. (Article 33 of UNCLOS)
(4) Exclusive Economic Zone is the zone extending up to 200 nautical miles from the
baselines of a state over which the coastal state has sovereign rights for the purpose of
exploring and exploiting, conserving and managing its natural resources, whether living or
non-living, of the waters super adjacent to the seabed and of the seabed and subsoil and
with regard to other activities for the economic exploitation and exploration of the zone.
(Articles 56 and 57, UNCLOS)
(5) Extended Continental Shelf extends up to 350 nautical miles; exclusive rights to explore it
and exploit its natural resources; exclusive rights in the sense that if the coastal State does
not explore the continental shelf or exploit its natural resources, no one may undertake
these activities without the express consent of the coastal State.

2. Legislative veto
It is a statutory provision requiring the President or an administrative agency to present the
proposed implementing rules and regulations of a law to Congress which, by itself or
through a committee formed by it, retains a right or power to approve or disapprove such
regulations before they take effect.

Congressional oversight is not unconstitutional per se. However, Any post-enactment

congressional measure x x x should be limited to scrutiny and investigation. In particular,
congressional oversight must be confined to the following:

(1) scrutiny based primarily on Congress‘ power of appropriation and the budget hearings
conducted in connection with it, its power to ask heads of departments to appear before
and be heard by either of its Houses on any matter pertaining to their departments and its
power of confirmation; and

(2) investigation and monitoring of the implementation of laws pursuant to the power of
Congress to conduct inquiries in aid of legislation.

Any action or step beyond that will undermine the separation of powers guaranteed by the
Constitution, and will therefore be unconstitutional. (GR 166715, Abakada v Purisima)

PDAF
Post-enactment measures which govern the areas of project identification, fund release and
fund realignment are not related to functions of congressional oversight and, hence, allow
legislators to intervene and/or assume duties that properly belong to the sphere of budget
execution. Indeed, by virtue of the foregoing, legislators have been, in one form or another,
authorized to participate in "the various operational aspects of budgeting," including "the
evaluation of work and financial plans for individual activities" and the "regulation and
release of funds" in violation of the separation of powers principle. (Belgica v Ochoa)

3. DAP is not an appropriation. It is a program. (A public expenditure must comply with the
constitutional requirement. Article VI, Sec. 29 of the Constitution provides “[n]o money shall
be paid out of the Treasury except in pursuance of an appropriation made by law.”)

Savings would include any programmed appropriation in the GAA free from any obligation
or encumbrance, which are: (1) Still available after the completion or final discontinuance or
abandonment of the work, activity or purpose for which the appropriation is authorized; (2)
From appropriations balances arising from unpaid compensation and related costs
pertaining to vacant positions and leaves of absences without pay; and
(3) From appropriations balances realized from the implementation of measures resulting in
improved systems and efficiencies and thus enabled agencies to meet and deliver the
required or planned targets, programs, and services approved in the GAAs at a lesser cost.

Cross-border transfer of funds

By providing that the President, the President of the Senate, the Speaker of the House of
Representatives, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and the Heads of the Constitutional
Commissions may be authorized to augment any item in the GAA "for their respective
offices," Section 25(5), Article VI of the 1987 Constitution, has delineated borders between
their offices, such that funds appropriated for one office are prohibited from crossing over
to another office even in the guise of augmentation of a deficient item or items. Thus, we
call such transfers of funds cross-border transfers or cross-border augmentations.

4. Betrayal of public trust refers to "[a]cts which are just short of being criminal but
constitute gross faithlessness against public trust, tyrannical abuse of power, inexcusable
negligence of duty, favoritism, and gross exercise of discretionary powers." In other words,
acts that should constitute betrayal of public trust as to warrant removal from office may be
less than criminal but must be attended by bad faith and of such gravity and seriousness as
the other grounds for impeachment. (Gonzales v OP, 2012)

5. Morales v CA, 2015: Jurisdiction of CA over certiorari proceedings against Ombudsman

The second paragraph of Section 14, RA 6770's extremely limited restriction on remedies is
inappropriate since a Rule 45 appeal -which is within the sphere of the rules of procedure
promulgated by this Court - can only be taken against final decisions or orders of lower
courts, and not against "findings" of quasi-judicial agencies. Congress cannot interfere with
matters of procedure; hence, it cannot alter the scope of a Rule 45 appeal so as to apply to
interlocutory "findings" issued by the Ombudsman. More significantly, by confining the
remedy to a Rule 45 appeal, the provision takes away the remedy of certiorari, grounded on
errors of jurisdiction, in denigration of the judicial power constitutionally vested in courts. In
this light, the second paragraph of Section 14, RA 6770 also increased this Court's appellate
jurisdiction, without a showing, however, that it gave its consent to the same.

With the unconstitutionality of the second paragraph of Sec 14 of RA 6770, CA has

jurisdiction over the Rule 65 petition for certiorari filed by Binay, Jr. in order to nullify the
preventive suspension order issued by the Ombudsman, an interlocutory order.

6. Distinguish between amendment and revision.

Revision broadly implies a change that alters a basic principle in the constitution, like
altering the principle of separation of powers or the system of checks-and-balances. There is
also revision if the change alters the substantial entirety of the constitution, as when the
change affects substantial provisions of the constitution. On the other hand, amendment
broadly refers to a change that adds, reduces, or deletes without altering the basic principle
involved. Revision generally affects several provisions of the constitution, while amendment
generally affects only the specific provision being amended. (Lambino v. COMELEC, 505
SCRA 160)

7. Poe vs Comelec re jurisdiction of the comelec re qualification of president.

The tribunals which have jurisdiction over the question of the qualifications of the
President, the Vice-President, Senators and the Members of the House of Representatives
was made clear by the Constitution. There is no such provision for candidates for these
positions.

Not one of the enumerated powers of the COMELEC as stated in Article IX C, Sec. 2 of the
Constitution grants the commission the power to determine the qualifications of a
candidate. Such powers are granted to the Electoral Tribunal as stated in Article VI Section
17 and the Supreme Court under Article VII, Section 4 of the Constitution. Insofar as the
qualification of a candidate is concerned, Rule 25 and Rule 23 of the COMELEC rules do not
allow, are not authorization and are not vestment of jurisdiction for the COMELEC to
determine the qualification of a candidate. The facts of qualification must first be
established in a prior proceeding before an authority vested with jurisdiction. Prior
determination of qualification may be by statute, by an executive order or by a judgment of
a competent court or tribunal.

Before we get derailed by the distinction as to grounds and the consequences of the
respective proceedings, the importance of the opinion is in its statement that "the lack of
provision for declaring the ineligibility of candidates, however, cannot be supplied by a mere
rule". Justice Mendoza lectured in Romualdez-Marcos that:

Three reasons may be cited to explain the absence of an authorized proceeding for
determining before election the qualifications of a candidate.
First is the fact that unless a candidate wins and is proclaimed elected, there is no necessity
for determining his eligibility for the office. In contrast, whether an individual should be
disqualified as a candidate for acts constituting election offenses (e.g., vote buying, over
spending, commission of prohibited acts) is a prejudicial question which should be
determined lest he wins because of the very acts for which his disqualification is being
sought. That is why it is provided that if the grounds for disqualification are established, a
candidate will not be voted for; if he has been voted for, the votes in his favor will not be
counted; and if for some reason he has been voted for and he has won, either he will not be
proclaimed or his proclamation will be set aside.

Second is the fact that the determination of a candidates' eligibility, e.g., his citizenship or,
as in this case, his domicile, may take a long time to make, extending beyond the beginning
of the term of the office. This is amply demonstrated in the companion case (G.R. No.
120265, Agapito A. Aquino v. COMELEC) where the determination of Aquino's residence was
still pending in the COMELEC even after the elections of May 8, 1995. This is contrary to the
summary character proceedings relating to certificates of candidacy. That is why the law
makes the receipt of certificates of candidacy a ministerial duty of the COMELEC and its
officers. The law is satisfied if candidates state in their certificates of candidacy that they are
eligible for the position which they seek to fill, leaving the determination of their
qualifications to be made after the election and only in the event they are elected. Only in
cases involving charges of false representations made in certificates of candidacy is the
COMELEC given jurisdiction.

Third is the policy underlying the prohibition against pre-proclamation cases in elections for
President, Vice President, Senators and members of the House of Representatives. (R.A. No.
7166, § 15) The purpose is to preserve the prerogatives of the House of Representatives
Electoral Tribunal and the other Tribunals as "sole judges" under the Constitution of the
election, returns and qualifications of members of Congress of the President and Vice
President, as the case may be.

8. Police power of LGUs

Police power is lodged primarily in the National Legislature. It however, may delegate this
power to the President and administrative boards as well as the lawmaking bodies of
municipal corporations or local government units. Once delegated, the agents can exercise
only such legislative powers as are conferred on them by the national lawmaking
body.(MMDA v Bel-Air Village)

The general welfare clause is the delegation in statutory form of the police power of the
State to LGUs. Through this, LGUs may prescribe regulations to protect the lives, health, and
property of their constituents and maintain peace and order within their respective
territorial jurisdictions. Local government units exercise police power through their
respective legislative bodies. (Roble v Villaflor)