Professional Documents
Culture Documents
L-5279
October 31, 1955
PHILIPPINE ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES,
ETC., petitioner,
vs.
SECRETARY OF EDUCATION and the BOARD OF TEXTBOOKS,
respondents.
Manuel C. Briones, Vicente G. Sinco, Manuel V. Gallego and Enrique
M. Fernando for petitioner.
Office of the Solicitor General Pompeyo Diaz and Assistant Solicitor
General Francisco Carreon for respondents.
FACTS:
ISSUE:
Whether or not Act No. 2706 as amended by Act no. 3075 and
Commonwealth Act no. 180 may be declared void and
unconstitutional?
RATIO DECIDENTI:
The Petitioner suffered no wrong under the terms of law and
needs no relief in the form they seek to obtain. Moreover, there is no
justiciable controversy presented before the court. It is an
established principle that to entitle a private individual immediately
in danger of sustaining a direct injury and it is not sufficient that he
has merely invoke the judicial power to determined the validity of
executive and legislative action he must show that he has sustained
common interest to all members of the public. Furthermore, the
power of the courts to declare a law unconstitutional arises only
when the interest of litigant require the use of judicial authority for
their protection against actual interference. As such, Judicial Power is
limited to the decision of actual cases and controversies and the
authority to pass on the validity of statutes is incidental to the
decisions of such cases where conflicting claims under the
constitution and under the legislative act assailed as contrary to the
constitution but it is legitimate only in the last resort and it must be
necessary to determined a real and vital controversy between
litigants. Thus, actions like this are brought for a positive purpose to
obtain actual positive relief and the court does not sit to adjudicate a
mere academic question to satisfy scholarly interest therein. The
court however, finds the defendant position to be sufficiently