SUBJECT TOPIC DIGEST MAKER

Consti 1 Political Questions Niel Fuentes

Saturnino v Bermudez
Per Cu

Docket Number: G.R. No. 76180 Oct. 24, 1986

Petitioner(s): Saturnino
Respondent(s): Bermudez
FACTS
• Petition for declaratory relief impleading no respondents.
• Petitioner, as a lawyer, raises a question regarding Art. 18, Sec. 5 of the proposed 1986 Constitution
claiming that the provision is not clear as to whom it refers to.
• Petitioner asks who among the present incumbent President Cory Aquino and Vice Pres. Salvador
Laurel and the elected President Ferdinand Marcos and Vice President Arturo Tolentino is being
referred to in the said provision.
• Petition is dismissed for lack of jurisdiction and for lack of cause of action.
• SC also has no jurisdiction over petitions for declaratory relief. Incumbent pres. and vp are also immune
from suits.
• Legitimacy of the Aquino government is not a justiciable matter.
• It is the people that made the judgment and have accepted the government of Pres. Cory Aquino.
ISSUES and RATIONALE
DISPOSITION
• Therefore, the is no question that Pres. Aquino and Vice-Pres. Salvador Laurel are the incumbent and
legitimate President and Vice President of the Philippines.
CONCURRING/DISSENTING OPINION
Melencio-Herrera, J., Concurring
• Court has no original jurisdiction over petitions for declaratory relief.
• Petition should be addressed to other departments of govt constitutionally burdened with the task of
making that declaration.
Cruz, J., concurring:
• Dismiss the petition on the ground that the constitution we are asked to interpret has not yet been ratified
and is therefore not yet effective.
REVIEW NOTES
SUBJECT TOPIC DIGEST MAKER
Consti 1 Political Questions Niel Fuentes

Tanada v Cuenco
Concepcion, J. CONCURRING/DISSENTING OPINION
Paras, J., dissenting:
Docket Number: G.R. No. L-10520 Feb. 28, 1957 • In view of the failure or unwillingness of Sen. Tanada of CP to nominate 2 other members of the SET,
Petitioner(s): Lorenzo Tanada and Diosdado Macapagal the Senate was justified, in obedience to the constitutional mandate, to choose said members.
Labrador, J., Dissenting.
Respondent(s): Mariano Cuenco, Francisco Delgado, Alfredo Cruz, Catalina Cayetano,
Manuel Serapio, Placido Reyes, Fernando Hipolito
FACTS REVIEW NOTES
• After the 1955 nat’l elections, the membership in the Senate was majority occupied by the Nacionalista
Party (NP). The only opposition senator was Lorenzo Tanada, who belonged to the Citizen’s Party (CP).
• Tanada was chosen by the Senate together with respondents Cuenco and Delgado to be part of the SET
when Diosdado Macapagal was contesting his loss before the said tribunal.
• SET composition (9 members):
o 3 justices of the SC
o 3 senators from the majority party
o 3 senators from the minority party
• Since there was only 1 minority senator, the other 2 SET seats reserved for minority members were
filled in by the Nacionalista Party.
• Tanada and Macapagal assailed this because he deemed that if the 2 remaining seats were filled up by
the NP senators, then they would be unfairly biased against him.
• Respondents Cuenco and Delgado contend that the SC is w/o power to choose the members of the SET
since it is vested in the Senate alone.
• Therefore, the rightful remedy for Tanada and Macapagal was not to raise the issue before judicial
courts but rather leave it before the bar of public opinion.

ISSUES and RATIONALE

• W/N the present case raises merely a political question and not justiciable in nature.
o No. The SC ruled that the issue is a justiciable question.
o The political question doctrine is used to designate all questions that lie outside the scope of
judicial questions.
▪ Questions, which are to be decided by the people in their sovereign capacity
▪ Concerned with issues dependent upon the wisdom, not legality, of a particular
measure.
o In this case, the issue at bar is not a political question. SC is not being asked by Tanada to
decide upon the official acts of Senate.
o The issue is being raised by Tanada to assail the validity of the appointment of 5 members of
the NP in the SET – which is a judicial question.
o SET is a separate and independent body from the Senate w/c does not perform legislative acts.
o Tanada, when he raised the present issue, did not question the character of Cuenco and
Delgado, he just raised the issue regarding the principle involved in the present case.
DISPOSITION
• Respondent Senators Cuenco and Delgado are declared to have not been duly elected as members of the
SET.
• 7 seats occupied in the SET with 3 members from the SC, 3 members from the majority Senate and 1
member from the minority house in the senate is better than having the 9 seats occupied and 5 of those
seats are occupied by the NP since this would be disadvantageous.