Case: Director of Prisons vs.

Ang Cho Kio

G.R. No.: L-30001
Date: June 23, 1970

FACTS:
Respondent Ang Cho Kio aka Ang Ming Huy had been charged, tried and
convicted of various offenses committed in the Philippines and was sentenced to suffer
penalties.

He filed a petition for habeas corpus which the CFI of Rizal denied. The CA
affirmed the decision but recommended that Ang may be allowed to leave the country
on the first available transportation abroad.

The Solicitor General filed a motion for reconsideration praying for the deletion of
the recommendation. The Solicitor General maintains that the recommendation is not a
part of the decision and was uncalled for; that it gives the decision a political
complexion, because courts are not empowered to make such a recommendation, nor
is it inherent or incidental in the exercise of judicial powers. He also contends that
allowing convicted aliens to leave the country is an act of the state exercises solely in
the discretion of the Chief Executive. It is urged that the act of sending an undesirable
alien out of the country is political in character, and the courts should not interfere with,
nor attempt to influence, the political acts of the President.

ISSUE:

Whether the courts of justice may interfere in the exercise by the President, thru his
Executive Secretary, of his administrative power of recommitment.

RULING:

No. The only question to be resolved by the Court of Appeals was whether, or
not, the Court of First Instance of Rizal, had rightly dismissed the petition of Ang Cho
Kio for habeas corpus. The Court of Appeals was not called upon to review any
sentence imposed upon Ang Cho Kio.

The recommitment to prison of Ang Cho Kio was done in the exercise by the
President of the Philippines of his power pursuant to the provision of Section 64 of the
Revised Administrative Code, and the courts should not interfere with the exercise of
that power.

The recommendatory power of the courts in this jurisdiction are limited to those
expressly provided in the law — and such law is the provision of Section 5 of the
Revised Penal Code as follows:
 Whenever a court has knowledge of any act which it may deem proper to
repress and which is not punishable by law, it shall render the proper decision,
and shall report to the Chief Executive, through the Department of Justice, the
reasons which induce the court to believe that said act should be made the
subject of penal legislation.

In the same way the court shall submit to the Chief Executive, through the
Department of Justice such statement as may be deemed proper, without
suspending the execution of the sentence, when a strict enforcement of the
provisions of this Code would result in the imposition of a clearly excessive
penalty, taking into consideration the degree of malice and the injury caused by
the offense.

The Court of Appeals was not called upon to review any sentence that was imposed on
Ang Cho Kio. It was simply called upon to determine whether Ang Cho Kio was illegally
confined, or not, in the insular penitentiary under the Director of Prisons.