9.

GO KIM CHAN VS VALDEZ

FACTS:
The respondent judge refused to take cognizance of and continue the proceedings in said case on the
ground that the proclamation issued by General Douglas MacArthur had the effect of invalidating and
nullifying all judicial proceedings and judgements of the court of the Philippines under the Philippine Executive
Commission and the Republic of the Ph established during the Japanese military occupation, and that, the
lower courts have no jurisdiction to take cognizance of and continue judicial proceedings pending in the courts
of the defunct Republic of the Philippines in the absence of an enabling law granting such authority. And,
respondent contends that the gov’t established in the Ph during the Japanese occupation were no de
facto governments.
The Imperial Japanese Forces occupied the City of Manila, and proclaimed that "the Military
Administration under law over the districts occupied by the Army" in "so far as the Military Administration
permits, all the laws now in force in the Commonwealth, as well as executive and judicial institutions, shall
continue to be effective for the time being as in the past…"

ISSUE: W/N the judicial acts and proceedings of the courts established in the Philippines under the Japanese
occupation remained good and valid even after the American Occupation.
RULING: YES
The governments by the Ph Executive Commission and the Republic of the Ph 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 (POSTLIMINIUM) in international law, remained good
and valid after the liberation or reoccupation of the Ph by the American and Filipino forces under the
leadership of General Douglas MacArthur.

According to the Principle of Postliminy, the fact that a territory which has been occupied by an enemy
comes again into the power of its legitimate government of sovereignty, "does not, except in a very few
cases, wipe out the effects of acts done by an invader, which for one reason or another it is within his
competence to do. Thus judicial acts done under his control, when they are not of a political complexion,
administrative acts so done, to the extent that they take effect during the continuance of his control, and
the various acts done during the same time by private persons under the sanction of municipal law, remain
good. Were it otherwise, the whole social life of a community would be paralyzed by an invasion; and as
between the state and the individuals the evil would be scarcely less, — it would be hard for example that
payment of taxes made under duress should be ignored, and it would be contrary to the general interest that
the sentences passed upon criminals should be annulled by the disappearance of the intrusive government.
And when the occupation and the abandonment have been each an incident of the same war as in the
present case, postliminy applies, even though the occupant has acted as conqueror and for the time
substituted his own sovereignty as the Japanese intended to do apparently in granting independence to the
Ph and establishing the so-called Rep of the Ph.

That not only judicial but also legislative acts of de facto governments, which are not of a political
complexion, are and remain valid after reoccupation of a territory occupied by a belligerent occupant which
declares null and void all laws, regulations and processes of the gov’ts established in the Ph during the
Japanese occupation, for it would not have been necessary for said proclamation to abrogate them if they
were invalid ab initio.