THE Supreme Court (SC) has denied the petition for certiorari and prohibition filed by the Senate in 2021 challenging the constitutionality of the memorandum issued by former President Rodrigo Duterte that barred executive officials from attending the investigation being conducted at the time by the Senate blue ribbon committee.
In the decision penned by Associate Justice Amy Lazaro-Javier, the High Court held that the Senate petition failed to meet the requisites for a petition for certiorari to prosper.
Under Rule 65, Section 1 of the Rules of Court, the requirements for a petition for certiorari are the following: the writ is directed against a tribunal, board, or officer exercising judicial or quasi-judicial functions who acted without or in excess of jurisdiction; who acted with grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction; and there is no appeal or any plain, speedy, and adequate remedy in the course of law to stop the implementation of the questioned act.
Citing the third requirement under Rule 65, Section 1 of the Rules of Court, the SC said that the resolution of the Senate petition does not hinge on the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of Duterte’s memorandum.
It pointed out that the challenged presidential order could have been addressed by the Senate by referencing to its powers stated under its own Rules of Procedures governing the conduct of investigation in aid of legislation.
In 2021, the Senate blue ribbon committee, then chaired by former senator Richard Gordon, initiated an investigation into the budget utilization of the Department of Health (DOH) following a Commission on Audit (COA) finding that was a deficiency of P67.3 billion in public funds intended for the government’s coronavirus disease (COVID-19) response.
The committee hearings tackled the DOH’s underutilization of its 2020 budget, the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines by local government units; unspent funds, misstatements, irregularities, and other deficiencies of the DOH; and payment claims issues between the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) and private hospitals.
The probe also delved into the questionable transactions of the Procurement Services of the Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM) with Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corp. for the supply of medical supplies.
However, executive officials led by then Health Secretary Francisco Duque III stopped attending the hearings after Duterte issued a memorandum dated October 4, 2021 directing all officials and employees of the executive department to cease from attending the Senate blue ribbon committee investigation.
In issuing the assailed memorandum, Malacañang said that the committee hearings have allegedly turned into a preliminary investigation of sorts meant to identify persons supposedly liable for irregularities that existing statutes have already defined and punished.
It said the Senate committee overstepped the mandates of other branches of government.
The Senate challenged the legal basis of Duterte’s memorandum before the SC, arguing it is an obstruction of its constitutional function to conduct investigations in aid of legislation. It asked the High Court to issue a status quo order and a temporary restraining order to stop the enforcement of the memorandum.
In denying the Senate’s petition, the High Court said the Senate plea failed to meet the third requisite under Rule 65, Section 1 of the Rules of Court.
It pointed out that the Senate blue ribbon committee itself has a remedy within its office to resolve the jurisdictional challenge raised by Malacañang in the assailed memorandum.
The en banc noted that under Section 3 of the Senate Rules of Procedure governing legislative inquiries, if the jurisdiction of the committee is challenged on any ground, the said issue must first be resolved by the committee before proceeding with any inquiry.
“Undeniably, therefore, the Blue Ribbon Committee of the Senate has a remedy within its office to resolve the jurisdictional challenge raised by the President. We consequently defer to the remedy found within the Senate’s own lofty jurisdiction,” said the SC ruling, dated July 5, 2022 but only made public on October 19, 2023.
And since the committee did not exercise its power to resolve the challenge raised by Malacañang, the SC ruled there was no actual case or controversy ripe for its judicial adjudication.
“There is no immediate or threatened injury to the power of the Senate because it has yet to exercise the same. Hence, we still cannot tell whether this power, despite its proper exercise, has been disobeyed by the President as a result of his memorandum,” it said.
“Unless and until the Senate has resolved with finality the jurisdictional challenge of the President, there can be no actual case or controversy to speak of yet,” it added.
The SC also distinguished the petition from its 2006 decision in Senate v. Ermita, referring to the executive order issued by then President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo requiring all heads of executive departments to secure the consent of the President prior to attending hearings of the Senate and the House of Representatives.
When Arroyo’s order was challenged before the SC, the magistrates ruled then that “any executive issuance tending to unduly limit disclosures of information in such investigations necessarily deprives the people of information which, being presumed to be in aid of legislation, is presumed to be a matter of public concern and the citizens are thereby denied access to information which they can use in formulating their own opinions on the matter before Congress – opinions which they can then communicate to their representatives and other government officials through the various legal means allowed by their freedom of expression.”
Unlike the petition against Duterte’s order, the SC declared that the petition against Arroyo’s order involved a challenge on the ground of executive privilege and a blanket prohibition that did not reject any subject inquiry as one in aid of legislation.
“The instant case, on the other hand, presents a direct jurisdictional challenge to the Senate blue ribbon committee’s inquiry and its characterization as one being in aid of legislation,” it said.
Senior Associate Justice Marvic Leonen and Associate Justice Alfredo Benjamin Caguiao dissented from the majority decision.
In a Viber message, former Senate President Vicente Sotto III said the SC decision strengthened the Senate’s independence as a co-equal branch of the Executive.
“It’s decision only buttressed the independence of the Senate as a co-equal branch of the Executive by declaring that the Senate rules should be followed in resolving matters within the committee’s jurisdiction,” said Sotto, who was the head of the upper house when the petition was filed with the SC.
Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri has yet to issue a statement on the matter. — With Raymond Africa
