G.R. No.

L-25024 March 30, 1970

TEODORO C. SANTIAGO, JR. Minor, Represented by his mother, Mrs. Angelita C. Santiago, petitioner-
appellant,
vs.
MISS JUANITA BAUTISTA, ROSALINDA ALPAS, REBECCA MATUGAS, MILKITA INAMAC, ROMEO AGUSTIN,
AIDA CAMINO, LUNA SARMAGO, AURORA LORENA, SOLEDAD FRANCISCO and MR. FLOR
MARCELO, respondents-appellees.

Facts:

 Teodoro C. Santiago, Jr. is a sixth grader at the Sero Elementary School in Cotabato City scheduled to be
graduated on May 21st, 1965 with the honor rank of third place, which is disputed.

 the teachers of the school had been made respondents as they compose the "Committee on the Rating of
Student for Honor", whose grave abuse of official discretion is the subject of suit, while the other defendants
were included as Principal, District Supervisor and Academic Supervisor of the school

 Teodoro Santiago, Jr. had been a consistent honor pupil from Grade I to Grade V of the Sero Elementary
School, while Patricia Liñgat (second place in the disputed ranking in Grade VI) had never been a close rival
of petitioner before, except in Grade V wherein she ranked third

 Santiago, Jr. had been prejudiced, while his closest rival had been so much benefited, by the circumstance
that the latter, Socorro Medina, was coached and tutored during the summer vacation of 1964 by Mrs. Alpas
who became the teacher of both pupils in English in Grade VI, resulting in the far lead Medina obtained over
the other pupil

Issue:
Further, they argue in favor of the questioned order of dismissal upon the additional ground that the "committee on the
ratings of students for honor" whose actions are here condemned by the appellant is not  the "tribunal, board or officer
exercising judicial functions" against which an action for certiorari may lie under Section 1 of Rule 65.

Held:

 In this jurisdiction certiorari  is a special civil action instituted against 'any tribunal, board, or officer exercising
judicial functions.' (Section 1, Rule 67.)

 A judicial function is an act performed by virtue of judicial powers; the exercise of a judicial function is the
doing of something in the nature of the action of the court (34 C.J. 1182).

 In order that a special civil action of certiorari may be invoked in this jurisdiction the following circumstances
must exist:

o There must be a specific controversy involving the rights of persons or property and said controversy
is brought before a tribunal, board, or officer for hearing and determination of their respective rights
and obligations.

o the tribunal, board or officer before whom the controversy is brought must have the power and
authority to pronounce judgment and render a decision on the controversy construing and applying
the laws to that end.

o the tribunal, board, or officer must pertain to that branch of the sovereign power which belongs to the
judiciary, or at least, which does not belong to the legislative or executive department.
G.R. No. 132601 January 19, 1999

LEO ECHEGARAY, petitioner,
vs.
SECRETARY OF JUSTICE, ET AL., respondents.

Facts:
LEO ECHEGARAY is guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crime of RAPE as charged in the complaint, he is hereby
sentenced to suffer the penalty of DEATH, as provided for under RA. No. 7659. Supreme Court issued a temporary
restraining order (TRO) staying the execution of the petitioner Echegaray. The Secretary of Justice assailed the
issuance of TRO alleging that the Supreme Court lost its jurisdiction over the case after the decision became final and
executory.

ISSUE:
Whether or not the Court losses its jurisdiction on a case after the decision became final and executory.

Held: NO.

 The Supreme Court does not lose its jurisdiction over a case with a final judgment. The Court is not changing
even a comma of its final Decision.

 The finality of a judgment does not mean that the Court has lost all its powers nor the case.

 By the finality of the judgment, the court loses is its jurisdiction to amend, modify or alter the same.

 Even after the judgment has become final the court retains its jurisdiction to execute and enforce it.

 There is a difference between the jurisdiction of the court to execute its judgment and its jurisdiction to amend,
modify or alter the same.

 The former continues even after the judgment has become final for the purpose of enforcement of judgment;
the latter terminates when the judgment becomes final.

 For after the judgment has become final facts and circumstances may transpire which can render the
execution unjust or impossible
G.R. No. L-36142 March 31, 1973

JOSUE JAVELLANA, petitioner,
vs.
THE EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, THE SECRETARY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE, THE SECRETARY OF JUSTICE,
AND THE SECRETARY OF FINANCE, respondents.

Facts

 January 20, 1973, Josue Javellana filed a prohibition case against the Executive Secretary and the
Secretaries of National Defense, Justice, and Finance, to restrain said respondents "and their subordinates or
agents from implementing any of the provisions of the propose Constitution not found in the present
Constitution" — referring to 1935.

 Javellana alleged that the President had announced "the immediate implementation of the New Constitution,
thru his Cabinet, respondents including," and that the latter "are acting without, or in excess of jurisdiction in
implementing the said proposed Constitution" upon the ground: "that the President, as Commander-in-Chief of
the Armed Forces of the Philippines, is without authority to create the Citizens Assemblies"; that the same
"are without power to approve the proposed Constitution ..."; "that the President is without power to proclaim
the ratification by the Filipino people of the proposed Constitution"; and "that the election held to ratify the
proposed Constitution was not a free election, hence null and void."

Issue:
W/N the validity of Proclamation No. 1102 is a justiciable question

Held:

 Yes

 the issue of the validity of Proclamation No. 1102 presents a justiciable and non-political question

 One of the principal bases of the non-justiciability of so-called political questions is the principle of separation
of powers — characteristic of the Presidential system of government — the functions of which are classified or
divided, by reason of their nature, into three (3) categories, namely: 1) those involving the making of laws,
which are allocated to the legislative department; 2) those concerned mainly with the enforcement of such
laws and of judicial decisions applying and/or interpreting the same, which belong to the executive
department; and 3) those dealing with the settlement of disputes, controversies or conflicts involving rights,
duties or prerogatives that are legally demandable and enforceable, which are apportioned to courts of justice.

 Whether a constitutional amendment has been properly adopted according to an existing constitution is a
judicial question as it is the absolute duty of the judiciary to determine whether the constitution has been
amended in the manner required by the constitution.

 ADDITIONAL INFO ONLY: "Political question", a question of policy, refers to "those questions which, under
the Constitution, are to be decided by the people in their sovereign capacity, or in regard to which full
discretionary authority has been delegated to the Legislature or executive branch of the government." It is
concerned with issues dependent upon the wisdom, not legality, of a particular measure."
G.R. No. L-45081             July 15, 1936

JOSE A. ANGARA, petitioner,
vs.
THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION, PEDRO YNSUA, MIGUEL CASTILLO, and DIONISIO C. MAYOR, respondents.

FACTS:

 In the elections of September 17, 1935, the petitioner, Jose A. Angara, and the respondents, Pedro Ynsua,
Miguel Castillo and Dionisio Mayor, were candidates voted for the position of member of the National
Assembly for the first district of the Province of Tayabas;

 Jose A. Angara, instituted an issuance of a writ of prohibition to restrain and prohibit the Electoral
Commission, one of the respondents, from taking further cognizance of the protest filed by Pedro Ynsua,
another respondent, against the election of said petitioner as member of the National Assembly for the first
assembly district of the Province of Tayabas.

ISSUE:
W/N the Supreme Court has jurisdiction over the Electoral Commission

HELD:

 Yes

 In the case at bar, there is an actual controversy involving as it does a conflict of a grave constitutional nature
between the National Assembly on the one hand, and the Electoral Commission on the other.

 The Electoral Commission, as we shall have occasion to refer hereafter, is a constitutional organ, created for
a specific purpose, namely to determine all contests relating to the election, returns, and qualifications of the
members of the National Assembly.

 Although the Electoral Commission may not be interfered with, when and while acting within the limits of its
authority, it does not follow that it is beyond the reach of the constitutional mechanism adopted by the people
and that it is not subject to constitutional restrictions.

 The Electoral Commission is not a separate department of the government, and even if it were, conflicting
claims of authority under the fundamental law between department powers and agencies of the government
are necessarily determined by the judiciary in justifiable and appropriate cases.

 The Court has jurisdiction over the Electoral Commission and the subject matter of the present controversy for
the purpose of determining the character, scope, and extent of the constitutional grant to the Electoral
Commission as "the sole judge of all contests relating to the election, returns and qualifications of the
members of the National Assembly."

 The Constitution itself has provided for the instrumentality of the judiciary as the rational way. And when the
judiciary mediates to allocate constitutional boundaries, it does not assert any superiority over the other
departments; it does not in reality nullify or invalidate an act of the legislature, but only asserts the solemn and
sacred obligation assigned to it by the Constitution to determine conflicting claims of authority under the
Constitution and to establish for the parties in an actual controversy the rights which that instrument secures
and guarantees to them. This is in truth all that is involved in what is termed "judicial supremacy" which
properly is the power of judicial review under the Constitution. 
G.R. No. L-35546 September 17, 1974

IN THE MATTER OF THE PETITION FOR HABEAS  CORPUS OF BENIGNO S. AQUINO, JR., RAMON MITRA,
JR., FRANCISCO RODRIGO, AND NAPOLEON RAMA, petitioners,
vs.
HON JUAN PONCE ENRILE, SECRETARY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE; GEN. ROMEO ESPINO, CHIEF OF STAFF,
ARMED FORCES OF THE PHILIPPINES; AND GEN. FIDEL V. RAMOS, CHIEF, PHILIPPINE
CONSTABULARY, respondents.

FACTS:

 These cases are all petitions for habeas corpus, the petitioners having been arrested and detained by the
military by virtue of the President's Proclamation No. 1081, dated September 21, 1972.

 The petitioners were arrested and held pursuant to General Order No. 2 of the President (September 22,
1972), "for being participants or for having given aid and comfort in the conspiracy to seize political and state
power in the country and to take over the Government by force ..."

 This is not the decision of the Court in the sense that a decision represents a consensus of the required
majority of its members not only on the judgment itself but also on the rationalization of the issues and the
conclusions arrived at.

 In the case of Aquino, formal charges of murder, subversion, and illegal possession of firearms were lodged
against him with a Military Commission on August 11, 1973; and on the following August 23 he challenged the
jurisdiction of said Commission as well as his continued detention by virtue of those charges in a petition
for certiorari and prohibition filed in this Court (G.R. No.
L-37364).

Issues

 The first major issue raised by the parties is whether this Court may inquire into the validity of Proclamation
No. 1081.

 Stated more concretely, is the existence of conditions claimed to justify the exercise of the power to declare
martial law subject to judicial inquiry? Is the question political or justiciable in character?

Held:

 Without need of receiving evidence as in an ordinary adversary court proceeding, that a state of rebellion
existed in the country when Proclamation No. 1081 was issued.

 the question of validity of Proclamation No. 1081 has been foreclosed by the transitory provision of the 1973
Constitution [Art. XVII, Sec. 3(2)] that "all proclamations, orders, decrees, instructions, and acts promulgated,
issued, or done by the incumbent President shall be part of the law of the land and shall remain valid, legal,
binding and effective even after ... the ratification of this Constitution ..." To be sure, there is an attempt in
these cases to resuscitate the issue of the effectivity of the new Constitution.

 same in effect validated, in the constitutional sense, all "such proclamations, decrees, instructions, and acts
promulgated, issued, or done by the incumbent President." All that she concedes is that the transitory
provision merely gives them "the imprimatur of a law but not of a constitutional mandate," and as such
therefore "are subject to judicial review when proper under the Constitution.

 the political-or-justiciable question controversy indeed, any inquiry by this Court in the present cases into the
constitutional sufficiency of the factual bases for the proclamation of martial law — has become moot and
purposeless as a consequence of the general referendum of July 27-28, 1973. Whatever may be the nature of
the exercise of that power by the President in the beginning — whether or not purely political and therefore
non-justiciable — this Court is precluded from applying its judicial yardstick to the act of the sovereign.

 The power to detain persons even without charges for acts related to the situation which justifies the
proclamation of martial law, such as the existence of a state of rebellion, necessarily implies the power to
impose upon the released detainees conditions or restrictions which are germane to and necessary to carry
out the purposes of the proclamation.
[G.R. No. L-66088. January 25, 1984.]

ALEX G. ALMARIO, ISAGANI M. JUNGCO, ESTANISLAO L. CESA, JR., DORINTINO FLORESTA, FIDELA Y.
VARGAS, ET AL., Petitioners, v. HON. MANUEL ALBA and THE COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS, Respondents.

FACTS:

 Petitioners herein seek to enjoin the submission on January 27, 1984 of Question Nos. 3 and 4, which cover
Resolution Nos. 105 and 113, to the people for ratification or rejection on the ground that there has been no
fair and proper submission following the doctrine laid down in Tolentino v. COMELEC (41 SCRA 707).

 The petitioners do not seek to prohibit the holding of the plebiscite but only ask for more time for the people to
study the meaning and implications of Resolution Nos. 105 and 113 until the nature and effect of the
proposals are fairly and properly submitted to the electorate.

ISSUES:
W/N Questions 3 and 4 can be presented to the people on a later date.

<?>w/n question 3 and 4 is a political question<?>

HELD:

 More important, however, is that the necessity, expediency, and wisdom of the proposed
amendments are beyond the power of the courts to adjudicate.

 Precisely, whether or not "grant" of public land and "urban land reform" are unwise or
improvident or whether or not the proposed amendments are unnecessary is a matter
which only the people can decide. 

 The issue before us has nothing to do with the wisdom of the proposed amendments, their
desirability, or the danger of the power being abused. The issue is whether or not the
voters are aware of the wisdom, the desirability, or the dangers of abuse. The petitioners
have failed to make out a case that the average voter does not know the meaning of
"grant" of public land or of "urban land reform.” Thus, the question is political and therefore
beyond the competence and cognizance of this Court.

ISSUES
whether or not the proposed amendments are unnecessary is a matter
which only the people can decid