OCAMPO VS.

ENRIQUEZ
G.R. No. 225973
November 8, 2016

FACTS:
During the campaign period for the 2016 Presidential Election, then candidate Rodrigo R.
Duterte publicly announced that he would allow the burial former President Ferdinand E. Marcos at the
Libingan ng Mga Bayani ("LNMB"). Duterte won the May 9, 2016 elections. On August 7, 2016, Defense
Secretary Delfin N. Lorenzana issued a Memorandum to AFP Chief of Staff General Ricardo R. Visaya
regarding the interment of former President Ferdinand E. Marcos at the Libingan ng Mga Bayani. On
August 9, 2016, AFP Rear Admiral Ernesto C. Enriquez issued a directive to the Philippine Army on the
Funeral Honors and Service for President Marcos. Dissatisfied with the foregoing issuance, the
petitioners filed a Petition for Certiorari and Prohibition and Petition for Mandamus and Prohibition with
the Court.

ISSUE:
Whether or not President Duterte’s determination to have the remains of Marcos interred at
the LNMB poses a justiciable controversy.

RULING:
No. President Duterte’s determination to have the remains of Marcos interred at the LNMB did
not pose a justiciable controversy. The Court ruled that no question involving the constitutionality or
validity of a law or governmental act may be heard and decided by the Court unless the following
requisites for judicial inquiry are present: a) there must be an actual case or controversy calling for the
exercise of judicial power; b) the person challenging the act must have the standing to question the
validity of the subject act or issuance; c) the question of constitutionality must be raised at the earliest
opportunity; and d) the issue of constitutionality must be the very lis mota of the case. In the present
case, the absence of the first two requisites, which are the most essential, render the discussion of the
last two superfluous. An actual controversy is one which involves a conflict of legal rights, an assertion of
opposite legal claims, susceptible of judicial resolution as distinguished from a hypothetical or abstract
difference or dispute. Moreover, the limitation on the power of judicial review to actual cases and
controversies carries the assurance that the courts will not intrude into areas committed to the other
branches of the government. Those areas pertain to 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 legislative or executive branch of the government. As they are concerned with
questions of policy and issues dependent upon the wisdom, not legality of a particular measure, political
questions used to be beyond the ambit of judicial review. The Court agrees with the OSG that President
Duterte’s decision to have the remains of Marcos interred at the LNMB involves political question that is
not a justiciable controversy. In the exercise of his power under the Constitution and E.O. 292, President
Duterte decided a question of policy based on his wisdom that it shall promote national healing and
forgiveness. There being no taint of grave abuse in the exercise of such discretion, President Duterte’s
decision on political question is outside the ambit of judicial review.