Mabanag vs.

Vito
[GR L-1123, 5 March 1947]
En Banc, Tuason (J): 3 concur, 1 concur in separate
opinion, 2 dissent in separate opinions, 1 filed separate
opinion
Facts: Three senators and eight representatives had been
proclaimed by a majority vote of the Commission on
Elections as having been elected senators and
representatives in the elections held on 23 April 1946. The
three senators were suspended by the Senate shortly after
the opening of the first session of Congress following the
elections, on account of alleged irregularities in their
election. The eight representatives since their election had
not been allowed to sit in the lower House, except to take
part in the election of the Speaker, for the same reason,
although they had not been formally suspended. A
resolution for their suspension had been introduced in the
House of Representatives, but that resolution had not been
acted upon definitely by the House when the petition for
prohibition was filed. As a consequence these three
senators and eight representatives did not take part in the
passage of the congressional resolution, designated
"Resolution of both houses proposing an amendment to the
Constitution of the Philippines to be appended as an
ordinance thereto," nor was their membership reckoned
within the computation of the necessary three-fourths vote
which is required in proposing an amendment to the
Constitution. If these members of Congress had been
counted, the affirmative votes in favor of the proposed
amendment would have been short of the necessary three-
fourths vote in either branch of Congress. The petition for
prohibition sought to prevent the enforcement of said
congressional resolution, as it is allegedly contrary to the
Constitution. The members of the Commission on
Elections, the Treasurer of the Philippines, the Auditor
General, and the Director of the Bureau of Printing are
made defendants. Eight senators, 17 representatives, and
the presidents of the Democratic Alliance, the Popular
Front and the Philippine Youth Party.
Issue: Whether the Court may inquire upon the
irregularities in the approval of the resolution proposing an
amendment to the Constitution.
Held: The sc held that the sc has no jurisdiction to inquire
to the validity of the resolution proposing amendment to
the constitution. It is a doctrine too well established to need
citation of authorities, that political questions are not within
the province of the judiciary, except to the extent that
power to deal with such questions has been conferred upon
the courts by express constitutional or statutory provision.
This doctrine is predicated on the principle of the
separation of powers, a principle also too well known to
require elucidation or citation of authorities. The difficulty
lies in determining what matters fall within the meaning of
political question. The term is not susceptible of exact
definition, and precedents and authorities are not always in
full harmony as to the scope of the restrictions, on this
ground, on the courts to meddle with the actions of the
political departments of the government. If a political
question conclusively binds the judges out of respect to the
political departments, a duly certified law or resolution also
binds the judges under the "enrolled bill rule- once a bill passes a
legislative body and is signed into law, the courts assume that all rules of procedure in the
" born of that respect. If
enactment process were properly followed
ratification of an amendment is a political question, a
proposal which leads to ratification has to be a political
question. The two steps complement each other in a scheme
intended to achieve a single objective. It is to be noted that
the amendatory process as provided in section I of Article
XV of the Philippine Constitution "consists of (only) two
distinct parts: proposal and ratification." There is no logic
in attaching political character to one and withholding that
character from the other. Proposal to amend the
Constitution is a highly political function performed by the
Congress in its sovereign legislative capacity and
committed to its charge by the Constitution itself. The
exercise of this power is even in dependent of any
intervention by the Chief Executive. If on grounds of
expediency scrupulous attention of the judiciary be needed
to safeguard public interest, there is less reason for judicial
inquiry into the validity of a proposal then into that of a
ratification.