Co Kim Cham v.

Valdez Tan
Keh, GR L-5 (Case Digest)
Posted onSeptember 1, 2015 by hendelson
Focus Topics: De Facto Governemnt; Government; Elements; State
FACTS
Co Kim Cham had a pending civil case initiated during the Japanese occupation with
the CFI of Manila. After the liberation of the Manila and the American occupation,
respondent Judge Dizon refused to continue hearings, saying that a proclamation
issued by General Douglas MacArthur had invalidated and nullified all judicial
proceedings and judgments of the courts of the defunct Republic of the Philippines.

ISSUES
I. Whether or not the judicial acts and proceedings made under Japanese occupation
were valid and remained valid even after the American occupation.

II. Whether or not it was the intention of the Commander in Chief of the American
Forces to annul and void thereby all judgments and judicial proceedings of the courts
established in the Philippines during the Japanese military occupation.

III. Whether or not the courts of the Commonwealth have jurisdiction to continue now
the proceedings in actions pending in the courts at the time the Philippine Islands were
reoccupied or liberated by the American and Filipino forces

HELD
I
AFFIRMATIVE. [A]ll acts and proceedings of the legislative, executive, and judicial
departments of a de facto government are good and valid. If [the governments
established in these Islands under the names of the Philippine Executive Commission
and Republic of the Philippines during the Japanese military occupation or regime
were de facto governments], the judicial acts and proceedings of those governments
remain good and valid even after the liberation or reoccupation of the Philippines by
the American and Filipino forces.
The governments by the Philippine Executive Commission and the Republic of the
Philippines during the Japanese military occupation being de facto governments, it
necessarily follows that the judicial acts and proceedings of the courts of justice of
those governments, which are not of a political complexion, were good and valid, and,
by virtue of the well-known principle of postliminy in international law, remained
good and valid after the liberation or reoccupation of the Philippines by the American
and Filipino forces under the leadership of General Douglas MacArthur.

II
NEGATIVE. The phrase “processes of any other government” is broad and may refer
not only to the judicial processes, but also to administrative or legislative, as well as
constitutional, processes of the Republic of the Philippines or other governmental
agencies established in the Islands during the Japanese occupation.
[I]t should be presumed that it was not, and could not have been, the intention of
General Douglas MacArthur, in using the phrase “processes of any other government”
in said proclamation, to refer to judicial processes, in violation of said principles of
international law.

[T]he legislative power of a commander in chief of military forces who liberates or

reoccupies his own territory which has been occupied by an enemy, during the
military and before the restoration of the civil regime, is as broad as that of the
commander in chief of the military forces of invasion and occupation, it is to be
presumed that General Douglas MacArthur, who was acting as an agent or a
representative of the Government and the President of the United States, constitutional
commander in chief of the United States Army, did not intend to act against the
principles of the law of nations asserted by the Supreme Court of the United States
from the early period of its existence, applied by the Presidents of the United States,
and later embodied in the Hague Conventions of 1907.

III
AFFIRMATIVE. Although in theory the authority the authority of the local civil and
judicial administration is suspended as a matter of course as soon as military
occupation takes place, in practice the invader does not usually take the administration
of justice into his own hands, but continues the ordinary courts or tribunals to
administer the laws of the country which he is enjoined, unless absolutely prevented,
to respect.
[I]n the Executive Order of President McKinley to the Secretary of War, “in practice,
they (the municipal laws) are not usually abrogated but are allowed to remain in force
and to be administered by the ordinary tribunals substantially as they were before the
occupation. This enlightened practice is, so far as possible, to be adhered to on the
present occasion.”
From a theoretical point of view it may be said that the conqueror is armed with the
right to substitute his arbitrary will for all preexisting forms of government,
legislative, executive and judicial. From the stand-point of actual practice such
arbitrary will is restrained by the provision of the law of nations which compels the
conqueror to continue local laws and institution so far as military necessity will
permit.