Republic of the Philippines SUPREME COURT Manila ... - Columba.us

egarded as the votes cast in the plebiscite. Thereupon, a motion was filed with the
Supreme Court praying that the holding of the referendum be suspended. When the
motion was being heard before the Supreme Court, the Minister of Justice delivered to
the Court a proclamation of the President declaring that the new Constitution was already
in force because the overwhelming majority of the votes cast in the referendum favored
the Constitution. Immediately after the departure of the Minister of Justice, I proceeded
to the session room where the case was being heard. I then informed the Court and the
parties the presidential proclamation declaring that the 1973 Constitution had been
ratified by the people and is now in force.
A number of other cases were filed to declare the presidential proclamation null and void.
The main defense put up by the government was that the issue was a political question
and that the court had no jurisdiction to entertain the case.
x x x
The government said that in a referendum held from January 10 to January 15, the vast
majority ratified the draft of the Constitution. Note that all members of the Supreme
Court were residents of Manila, but none of them had been notified of any referendum in
their respective places of residence, much less did they participate in the alleged
referendum. None of them saw any referendum proceeding.
In the Philippines, even local gossips spread like wild fire. So, a majority of the members
of the Court felt that there had been no referendum.
Second, a referendum cannot substitute for a plebiscite. There is a big difference
between a referendum and a plebiscite. But another group of justices upheld the
defense that the issue was a political question. Whereupon, they dismissed the case.
This is not the only major case in which the plea of "political question" was set up.
There have been a number of other cases in the past.
x x x The defense of the political question was rejected because the issue was clearly
justiciable.
x x x
x x x When your Committee on the Judiciary began to perform its functions, it faced the
following questions: What is judicial power? What is a political question?
The Supreme Court, like all other courts, has one main function: to settle actual
controversies involving conflicts of rights which are demandable and enforceable. There
are rights which are guaranteed by law but cannot be enforced by a judiciary party. In a
decided case, a husband complained that his wife was unwilling to perform her duties as
a wife. The Court said: "We can tell your wife what her duties as such are and that she is
bound to comply with them, but we cannot force her physically to discharge her main
marital duty to her husband. There are some rights guaranteed by law, but they are so