Philconsa vs GPH, G.R. No.

218406, November 29, 2016

FACTS:
 On September 1993, President Ramos issued Executive Order No. 125, creating the
Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process and calling for the
comprehensive, integrated and holistic peace process with Muslim rebels in
Mindanao.
 On February 2001, President Arroyo issued Executive Order No. 3, which amended
E.O. No.125, provided for the initiated of negotiations between the Government
Peace Negotiating Panel and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. The negotiation
culminated with the preparation of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral
Domain (MOA-AD). But in the case of Province of North Cotabato v. Government
of the Republic of the Philippines Peace Panel on Ancestral Domain, the Supreme
Court declared the MOA-AD unconstitutional.
 On July 2010, President Aquino III resumed peace negotiations with the MILF. This
resulted in the preliminary peace agreement called the Framework Agreement on the
Bangsamoro (FAB). FAB called for the creation of the an autonomous political
entity called the Bangsamoro to replace the ARMM.
 After further negotiations in Malaysia, President Aquino III issued E.O. No. 120,
creating the Bangsamoro Transition Commission to draft that proposed Bangsamoro
Basic Law, recommend to Congress or to the people proposed amendments to the
1987 Constitution.
 On March 2014, the Comprehensive Bangsamoro Agreement, an integration of the
FAB and the negotiations in Malaysia, was signed by both representatives of the
Philippine government and MILF.
 On September 2014, a draft of the Bangsamoro Basic Law, called House Bill No.
4994, was presented by President Aquino III to the 16 th Congress. A Senate version,
or Senate Bill No. 2894, was also presented, but the Congress adjourned without
passing any of the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law.
 Petitions were filed assailing the the constitutionality of the CAB.

ISSUE:
Whether or not there is a an actual case or controversy in the present petitions to declare
the CAB unconstitutional?

RATIO:
 The Supreme Court DISMISSED the petitions on the ground of prematurity.
 The Court held that the power of judicial review is limited to actual cases or
controversies. This assures that the courts will not intrude into areas specifically
confined to other branches of the government.
 The Court defined an actual case or controversy as a conflict of legal rights or claims
ripe for judicial resolution and not merely hypothetical or abstract disputes.
 The Court defined the the requirement of ripreness as when an act being challenged
has an adverse effect to the individual or entity challenging it.
 The Court distinguished differences between its ruling in the Province of North
Cotabato v. GRP, where it struck down the MOA-AD as unconstitutional, and the
CAB which the petitioners argue is just a disguised MOA-AD. The Court said that
unlike the CAB, the MOA-AD was poised to be signed by the government and the
MILF in the presence of the representatives of a foreign state, it was only the timed
issuance of a temporary restraining order that prevented its provisions from being
executory. The CAB mandates the enactment of a law, the Bangsamoro Basic Law,
first before it can be made to take effect, unlike the MOA-AD which did not have the
same process. The MOA-AD’s provisions would have immediately let its
consequences known, but the CAB is subject to the scrutiny of Congress, which can
either pass it, amend it, or reject it altogether.
 The Court held that it has no power to declare a proposed bill constitutional or
unconstitutional since it will have the effect of giving an advisory opinion on a
proposed act of Congress.
 The Court ruled that until there is a Bangsamoro Basic Law passed by Congress,
there is no actual case or controversy that requires the Court to exercise its power of
judicial review.