Posted on August 2, 2008 by asteroids08

FACTS: The petitioner are Ferdinand E. Marcos and his immediate family, while Raul Manglapus, Secretary of Foreign Affairs, the respondent. The call is about the request of Marcos family to the court to order the respondents to issue travel documents to Mr. Marcos and the immediate members of his family and to enjoin the implementation of the presidents decision to bar their return to the Philippines. ISSUE: Whether or not, in the exercise of the powers granted by the constitution, the President may prohibit the Marcoses from returning to the Philippines. RULING: Petition was dismissed. President did not arbitrarily or with grave of discretion in determining that return of former president Marcos and his family at the present time and under present circumstances poses a serious threat to national interest and welfare and in prohibiting their return to the Philippines. The request or demand of the Marcoses to be allowed to returned to the Philippines cannot be considered in the light solely of the constitutional provisions guaranteeing liberty of abode and the right to travel, subject to certain exceptions, it must be treated as a matter that is appropriately addressed to those residual unstated power of the president which are implicit in and correlative to the paramount duty residing in that office to safeguard and protect general welfare. In that context, such request or demand should submit to the exercise of a broader discretion on the part of the president to determine whether it must be granted or denied.