of state immunity cannot be extended to commercial,
private and proprietary acts Uure gestionis ). Sovereign immunity serves as a bar for the foreign sovereign to be subjected to the trial process. Since the Philippines adheres to the restrictive Supported both by local jurisprudence, as well s theory, it is crucial to ascertain the legal nature of the international law (which forms part of the Philippine act involved - whether the entity claiming immunity legal structure), the doctrine should not be reversed performs governmental, as opposed to proprietary, in this particular case. functions. As held in United States of America v. Ruiz SOVEREIGN IMMUNITY IN PHILIPPINE LAW The restrictive application of State immunity is Sovereign immunity in Philippine law has been proper only when the proceedings arise out of lengthily discussed by the Court in China National commercial transactions of the foreign sovereign, its Machinery & Equipment Corp. v. Hon. Santamaria in commercial activities or economic affairs. Stated the following manner: differently, a State may be said to have descended to the level of an individual and can thus be deemed to have tacitly given its consent to b e sued only This Court explained the doctrine of sovereign immunity in Holy See v. Rosario, to wit: when it enters into business contracts. It does not apply where the contract relates to the exercise of its soverdgn functions.1 (Emphases supplied. Citations There are two conflicting concepts of sovereign omitted) immunity, each widely held and firmly established. According to the classical or absolute theory, a sovereign cannot, without its consent, be made a From the Philippine perspective, what determines its respondent in the courts of another sovereign. ability to impose its law upon the foreign entity would be the act of the foreign entity - on whether the act According to the newer or restrictive theory, the is an aspect of its sovereign function or a private act. immunity of the sovereign is recognized only with regard to public acts or acts jurc imperii of a state, but not with regard to private acts or acts jure In this case, the two Naval Officers were acting gestionis. pursuant to their function as the commanding officers of a warship, traversing Philippine waters under the authority of the Visiting Forces Agreement xxxx (VFA). While the events beg the question of what the warship was doing in that area, when it should have The restrictive theory came about because of the been headed towards Indonesia, its presence in entry of sovereign states into purely commercial Philippine waters is not wholly unexplainable. The activities remotely connected with the discharge of VFA is a treaty, and it has been affirmed as valid by governmental functions. This is particularly true with this Court in Bayan v. Zamora,2 and affirmed in Lim respect to the Communist states which took control v. Executive Secretary3 and Nicolas v. Romulo.4 It of nationalized business activities and international has, in the past, been used to justify the presence of trading. United States Armed Forces in the Philippines. In this respect therefore, acts done pursuant to the VF In JUSMAG v. National Labor Relations A take the nature of governmental acts, since both Commission, this Court affirmed the Philippines' the United States and Philippine governments adherence to the restrictive theory as follows: recognize the VFA as a treaty with corresponding obligations, and the presence of these two Naval The doctrine of state immunity from suit has Officers and the warship in Philippine waters fell undergone further metamorphosis. The view under this legal regime. evolved that the existence of a contract docs not, per se, mean that sovereign states may, at all times, be From this, the applicability of sovereign immunity sued in local comis. The complexity of relationships cannot be denied as to the presence of the warship between sovereign states, brought about by their and its officers in Pbilippine waters. This does not, increasing commercial activities, mothered a more however, put an end to the discussion, because restrictive application of the doctrine. even if immunity is applicable to their presence, the specific act of hitting the Tubbataha Reef and xxxx causing damage thereto is a presumably tortuous act. Can these kinds of acts also be covered by the As it stands now, the application of the doctrine of principle of sovereign immunity? immunity from suit has been restricted to sovereign or governmental activities (jure imperii). The mantle