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What the Supreme Court says

about love
'The heart has reasons of its own which reason does not know,' says one ruling

ON LOVE. Supreme Court decisions teach lessons on love and justice.

MANILA, Philippines – In America 50 years ago, you could not love someone whose skin color
was different from yours. But love fights.

Some of the cases brought to the Supreme Court have been a testament to that – love strives,
if not to triumph, then at least to be just.

In 1992, the Supreme Court awarded damages to a young woman's parents who sued the
parents of their daughter’s boyfriend for civil damages. The young couple died in "what
appears from all indications was a crime committed by their minor son."

In that decision, Justice Florenz Regalado said:

“One of the ironic verities of life, it has been said, is that sorrow is sometimes a touchstone of
love.”

There are the real deaths, then there are the presumptive deaths. In Philippine civil code, if a
spouse disappears "and there is danger of death," then the other party can presume him or her
to be dead and can remarry.

In 1998, Jerry Cantor left wife Maria Fe in their home and never returned. Even after 4 years,
the Supreme Court did not allow for Jerry to be presumed dead, therefore prohibiting Maria Fe
from moving on.

Justice Marvic Leonen said in his dissent:

“She bore the indignity of being left behind. She suffered the indifference of her husband. Such
indifference was not momentary. She anguished through years of never hearing from him. The
absence of a few days between spouses may be tolerable, required by necessity. The absence
of months may test one’s patience. But the absence of years of someone who made the
solemn promise to stand by his partner in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, is
intolerable. The waiting is as painful to the spirit as the endless search for a person that
probably did not want to be found or could no longer be found.”

Justice Leonen also dissented when the Supreme Court ruled that despite decades of
separation, it is the wife who has the right to bury her husband, and not the common-law
partner that he has been with until his death.

“The law reaches into much of our lives while we live. It constitutes and frames most of our
actions. But at the same time, the law also grants us the autonomy or the space to define who
we are. Upon our death, the law does not cease to respect our earned autonomy. Rather, it
gives space for us to speak through the agency of she who may have sat at our bedside as we
suffered through a lingering illness.

I am of the view that it is that love and caring which should be rewarded with the honor of
putting us in that place where we mark our physical presence for the last time and where we
will be eternally remembered.”

There is also injustice in sex, as the Supreme Court declared in Tsoi vs Court of Appeals. The
High Court declared null and void a marriage based on the complaint of the wife that they
were not having sex.

Justice Justo Torres Jr said:


“Love is useless unless it is shared with another. Indeed, no man is an island, the cruelest act
of a partner in marriage is to say "I could not have cared less." This is so because an ungiven
self is an unfulfilled self. The egoist has nothing but himself. In the natural order, it is sexual
intimacy which brings spouses wholeness and oneness. Sexual intimacy is a gift and a
participation in the mystery of creation. It is a function which enlivens the hope of procreation
and ensures the continuation of family relations.”

Love, we learn, needs to fulfill obligations. In Antonio vs Reyes, the Supreme Court
acknowledged that the wife was still in love with her husband. Nevertheless, they still voided
the marriage after finding that the wife was "psychologically incapacitated to comply with the
essential obligations of marriage."

Justice Dante Tinga said:

“Marriage, in legal contemplation, is more than the legitimatization of a desire of people in


love to live together.”

Love is also something you decide to work hard for, said Dr Nedy Lorenzo Tayag in his expert
testimony as a clinical psychologist in the annulment case of Rumbaua vs Rumbaua.

“Individuals who are in love had the power to let love grow or let love die – it is a choice one
had to face when love is not the love he/she expected.”

Chief Justice Hilario Davide has an advice for those who find themselves in the legal and
moral dilemma of falling in love outside marriage:

“If he really loved her, then the noblest thing he could have done was to walk away.”

In that case, Davide and the Supreme Court disbarred the lawyer for committing bigamy.

Is a love that is lawful a just love? Ask the woman in Figueroa vs Barranco who tried to bar her
ex-boyfriend from taking his lawyer’s oath after he left her and their child, and married another
woman. She did not prevail.

Justice Flerida Ruth Romero said:

“We cannot castigate a man for seeking out the partner of his dreams, for marriage is a sacred
and perpetual bond which should be entered into because of love, not for any other reason.”

If a woman left her husband and their children, is that a ground for annulment? Not in Matudan
vs People as the Supreme Court remained very conservative in its definition of what
constitutes annulment.

Justice Leonen pleaded the court to be more open minded in his dissent:

“Parties should not be forced to stay in unhappy or otherwise broken marriages in the guise of
protecting the family. This avoids the reality that people fall out of love. There is always the
possibility that human love is not forever.”

To borrow from American jurisprudence, the US Supreme Court in 1967 invalidated all laws
that prohibited interracial marriages. They said in Loving vs Virginia:

The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to
the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.

In Obergefell vs Hodges that legalized same-sex marriage in all US states, their Supreme Court
said:

“Marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these
men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect
it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to
be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They
ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.”
That landmark ruling proves that love can win, despite odds.

Justice Florenz Regalado left us with this poignant lesson in love when he awarded back
wages to a 30-year-old teacher who was fired for marrying her 16-year-old student.

“If the two eventually fell in love, despite the disparity in their ages and academic levels, this
only lends substance to the truism that the heart has reasons of its own which reason does
not know.”

2 Supreme Court cases loom


over Suarez's minority
leadership
The blocs of ex-majority leader Rodolfo Fariñas and Marikina 2nd District Representative Miro
Quimbo plan to file separate cases questioning the minority leadership of Quezon 3rd District
Representative Danilo Suarez

MINORITY LEADER. Quezon 3rd District Representative Danilo Suarez gestures as he speaks at the plenary for
the first time since being retained as the House minority leader on August 7, 2018. Photo by Darren Langit/Rappler

MANILA, Philippines – Minutes after his controversial election as minority leader, Quezon 3rd
District Representative Danilo Suarez is already facing two potential Supreme Court (SC)
cases questioning his post.

On Tuesday, August 7, former House majority leader and Ilocos Norte 1st District
Representative Rodolfo Fariñas and Marikina 2nd District Representative Miro Quimbo each
told Rappler their respective blocs are drafting cases questioning Suarez's minority
leadership.

After two weeks of debates, Suarez was retained as the minority leader through a vote of ayes
and nays on Tuesday.

This is despite Suarez campaigning and voting for Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo during
the House coup that unseated Davao del Norte 1st District Representative Pantaleon Alvarez.
Suarez was also the minority leader under Alvarez.

Two other legislators had contested the minority leadership: Quimbo for the Liberal Party (LP)-
Makabayan-Magnificent 7 alliance and Arts, Business, and Science Professionals
Representative Eugene de Vera for the Alvarez-Fariñas bloc.

How is Fariñas going to argue before the SC? Asked to confirm if he would push through
with his plan to file a case before the SC against Suarez, Fariñas replied in the affirmative.

"We will as soon as we have all the annexes, like the journals, etcetera, which must be
certified true copies," said Fariñas in a Viber message.

He said the "strongest point" of their case is Suarez's victory in the Baguilat vs Alvarez case,
where the SC sustained Fariñas' position.

In 2016, the so-called "Magnificent 7" bloc of Ifugao Representative Teddy Baguilat Jr also
contested Suarez's designation as minority leader before the High Court.

In past Congresses, the lawmaker who got the second highest votes in the speakership race
automatically became the minority leader. At the time, Alvarez got 251 votes, Baguilat got 8
votes, and Suarez only got 7 votes as he voted for Alvarez.
Baguilat's allies argued he should have been declared as the minority leader. But the Alvarez-
led majority bloc changed the rules and the minority bloc became mandated to choose their
leader in a separate election. All those who did not vote for Alvarez automatically became part
of the minority.

Suarez was elected minority leader in 2016.

This was upheld by the SC, which said it did not find any abuse of discretion on the part of the
then-majority bloc to change the House rules.

Fariñas had argued De Vera is the minority leader because he was Suarez's deputy and he was
the only one from the "old" minority bloc who did not participate in the vote for Arroyo as
speaker.

The 13 members of the Alvarez-Farinas bloc elected De Vera as their minority leader on August
2.

"Since the SC has ruled that the group then headed by Suarez was the duly constituted
minority; hence, that group subsists as the minority in the HOR (House of Representatives).
But in the election of Speaker GMA, Rep Suarez and 13 others voted for her and, consequently,
are now members of the majority," said Fariñas.

"Since Rep De Vera is the highest and only officer of the minority as held in the Baguilat case,
we applied to him and he had accepted us in the minority. Thereafter, we elected him as the
minority leader," he added.

How is Quimbo going to argue before the SC? Quimbo's bloc is also going to cite the
Baguilat vs Alvarez case, but they have a different interpretation from Fariñas.

For Quimbo, the House had reorganized itself during the election of Arroyo as speaker.

Citing Section 8, Rule 2 of the House rules, Quimbo had argued that all those who vote in favor
of Arroyo formed the new majority. All those who voted no or abstained from voting are now
part of the minority, which will have to elect their new leader.

The 12 lawmakers who abstained from voting for Arroyo were all from the LP like Quimbo. The
7 no votes of the left-leaning Makabayan lawmakers were not recorded. The LP and Makabayan
blocs later formed an alliance together with the "Magnificent 7" independent minority bloc,
which consists of 5 LP members as well as Magdalo Representative Gary Alejano and Akbayan
Representative Tom Villarin.

All together, the LP, Makabayan, and "Magnificent 7" legislators have 25 members as of
Tuesday. They already elected Quimbo as their minority leader on July 25.

"Yes, [we will file a case with the SC]. We wanted the issue to ripen. You cannot file a case
before the Supreme Court unless there is a justiciable issue. So we had to wait until they made
a categorical statement. I think they even made it worse for themselves by the manner by
which they declared Congressman Suarez as the minority leader," said Quimbo.

He said his bloc is using "the most elementary interpretation" of the House rules.

"The basis is very simple – the House rules! And the most elementary interpretation is that
when you vote for the winning Speaker, you are part of the majority because you are part of
the 50% plus one which is the requirement," said Quimbo.

"They can come up with all the legal gobbledygooks, but it's just meant to really confuse. And
we're certain the Supreme Court would sustain us," he added.

Is Suarez threatened? No, he is not.

Suarez told Rappler he won the Baguilat vs Alvarez case last year and he is confident he would
win against the Quimbo-led and De Vera-led blocs, too.
"Yes, I am confident. I think the ruling will be the same," Suarez said.

"I am not threatened. But I'm just sad they had to take that recourse again," he added.

Suarez said he is "happy" that his minority leadership has been retained and he thanked all his
colleagues for giving him "their trust and confidence." – Rappler.com

Draft charter downgrades


Supreme Court
Creating mini supreme courts has never been advanced as solutions because it is contrary to
the idea of One Supreme Court

Vicente V. Mendoza
Published 7:47 PM, August 04, 2018
Updated 7:47 PM, August 04, 2018

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Arguably the most renowned court in the world today is the Supreme Court of the United
States. Its importance lies in the fact that it stands at the top in a hierarchy of state and
federal courts, while its prestige owes to the fact that it has the power to determine the
constitutional validity of the acts of the other departments of the government, legislative and
executive.

The Constitution of the United States vests “the judicial power of the United States . . . in one
Supreme Court and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and
establish.” The Constitution does not speak of “a Supreme Court,” but of “one Supreme Court,”
and “inferior courts” to emphasize the intention to make it the highest and the most important
court.

The U.S. Supreme Court owes its prestige from the fact that it possesses the power of judicial
review, by virtue of which it has the power to pass upon the validity of the acts of the other
departments of the government.

Although not expressly granted by the U.S. Constitution, the Supreme Court, by declaring in its
1803 decision in Marbury v. Madison that it is “emphatically the province and the duty” of
courts to say what the law is, established their power to declare acts of the other branches
contrary to the Constitution to be void.

This declaration had far reaching significance. Although for decades since its organization the
U. S. Supreme Court was only “occasionally involved” in important political events in the early
days of the American Republic, it soon became a significant branch of the American
government. Since then, hardly had a political question arisen which was not sooner or later
decided as a judicial question, as the French writer Alexis de Tocqueville observed in his travel
to America.

Repudiation of one Supreme Court

We have patterned our Supreme Court after that of the United States.

Although it cannot be quite compared with its American counterpart, our Court has
nevertheless captured some of the influence of that Court.

We have adopted the concept of One Supreme Court in our Constitutions from the 1935
document to the present one. On this ground the Supreme Court invalidated a law disqualifying
from the consideration of treason cases members of the Court who had served during the war
and temporarily replacing them with lower courts judges.

Now this idea of One Supreme Court is compromised in the proposed Constitution by the
creation of 3 special courts in addition to a Federal Supreme Court: a Federal Constitutional
Court, a Federal Administrative Court, and a Federal Electoral Court.

What was done is to strip the Supreme Court of its jurisdiction over some cases and transfer it
to the special courts.

Under the proposed Constitution, “disputes or matter” involving constitutional questions and
petitions for the writ of habeas corpus, writ of amparo, writ of habeas data, and writ of
kalikasan are cognizable by the Federal Constitutional Court.

Appeals from the decisions of the Federal Commission on Human Rights, Federal Commission
on Audit, Federal Ombudsman Commission, and Federal Competition Commission and other
administrative and regulatory agencies are placed under the jurisdiction of a Federal
Administrative Court. Electoral cases relating to the elections, returns, and qualifications of
the President, Vice President, Members of Congress, as well as elective regional, provincial,
city, municipal and barangay officials are placed under the jurisdiction of a Federal Electoral
Court.

The Federal Supreme Court is but a shadow of the present Supreme Court.

Its jurisdiction is limited to appeals from the decisions and orders of lower courts not
cognizable by the special courts, cases involving questions of jurisdiction and errors or
questions of law, or the legality of any tax, impost, assessments, or toll or any penalty imposed
in relation to it, cases involving conflicts between the Federal Government and the federated
regions, those involving ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and petitions for
certiorari, prohibition and mandamus, and quo warranto.

The purpose for the creation of additional courts is said to be to solve the backlog of cases in
the present Court.

This is a problem that has been with the Supreme Court since 1946. Attempts to solve it have
been by increasing the membership of the Court from 11 as provided in the 1935 Constitution
to fifteen as provided in the 1973 and 1987 Constitutions and/or allowing the Court to sit in
divisions.

Mini supreme courts

But creating mini supreme courts, however great the apprehension that a crowded docket may
impair its essential function may have been, has never been advanced as solutions because it
is contrary to the Idea of One Supreme Court.

Instead of additional supreme courts, attention should be paid to the method of work of the
Supreme Court.

Only cases of general importance should be heard and decided by it. For this purpose appeals
from the decisions of lower courts to the Supreme Court should be limited to petitions for
review on certiorari of questions of law or questions of fact and law, leaving ordinary appeals
on questions of fact to such appellate tribunal as may be created by law.

The difference between these modes of appellate review is that jurisdiction under certiorari is
discretionary enabling the Court to select the cases it will review, while jurisdiction under
ordinary appeal is obligatory. Although review by certiorari is provided in the 1997 Rules of
Court, this mode of review can be made more effective not only by limiting review to questions
of law and mixed questions of fact and law as at present done in practice, but also by
screening them before they are placed in the regular docket of the Court.

Limited jurisdiction

Indeed, it is the power of judicial review which has enabled the Supreme Court to play an
important role in our system of government.

It is a power which constitutes a significant intervention into the political process. As Bishop
Hoadly said in his Sermon to the King of England on March 31, 1717:“Whoever hath an absolute
authority to interpret any written or spoken laws, it is hewho is truly the lawgiver, to all intents
and purpose, and not the person who first spoke or wrote them.” In truth, only self-restraint
stands between timidity and interventionism.

This power is most effective in the hands of the courts because it is exercised in the course of
doing their regular business of deciding ordinary cases. It makes them powerful institution. It
is this aspect of the American Court’s function that we have sought to endow our own
Supreme Court with. It has somehow made them more than a regular court.

A special court of limited jurisdiction, like the Constitutional Court, to which this role is given,
is not likely to wield the same influence in government that the present Supreme Court does,
not only because its doctrines are not evolved in the ordinary course of business but also
because of the type of cases that are likely come before it. Under Article IX, Section 11, the
Federal Constitutional Court is given exclusive and original jurisdiction over “disputes
involving the constitutionality of a law” as well as “disputes or matter involving questions of
constitutionality.” This means that even ejectment cases, which involve questions of the
constitutionality of a law or a constitutional question, can be brought only in the Federal
Constitutional.

In addition, most likely the proposed Constitutional Court will be swamped with requests for
advisory opinions on pending legislation and executive action.

The proposed Constitution provides that its opinions will not bar private parties from
questioning the validity of laws declared valid by the Constitutional Court. Its authority will
certainly suffer if it can repudiate its opinions and flip-flop in the decision of actual cases and
controversies. The result will be the impoverishment of the judicial process.

On the other hand, the Federal Supreme Court may be relieved of its heavy caseload, but it will
become an ordinary court and its status as a coequal and coordinate branch of government
will be undermined. It will become a mere shadow of its original self.

Constitutional courts, such as the Verfassungsgerichtshop in Austria, were instituted in


Europe because the ordinary courts did not have power “to say what the law is.” As their only
function was to apply the law, it became necessary to establish special courts with power to
interpret the constitution. Constitutional questions were referred to them and the cases in
which the constitutional questions were raised had to await their resolution before the
ordinary court could proceed. There is no reason to have a special Constitutional Court with
exclusive to decide constitutional cases such as that proposed in the draft constitution.

'Demandable' rights

Three categories of rights are placed under the Bill of Rights in the proposed Constitution:
Civil and political rights, social and economic rights, and environmental and economic rights.
Its drafters, following some European writers, refer to the three categories as first, second,
and third generation rights, respectively.
Article III, Section 1 provides that, The rights under this article are demandable against the
State and non-state actors and their enforcement shall be consistent with international
standards.

By declaring these rights to be “demandable against the State,” the draft Constitution in effect
make them enforceable in the courts, because under Article IX, Section 1 it is “the duty of the
courts of justice to settle actual controversies involving rights which are legally demandable
and enforceable.”

Political questions are excluded from the constitutional grant of power to the courts because
their resolution is committed to the other branches of the government or there are no
“judicially manageable or discoverable standards” for resolving them.

There is no question that civil and political rights can be enforced in courts in proper cases.
But the judicial enforcement of social and economic rights and environmental and ecological
rights are problematical.

For example, can an action be filed in the Federal Constitutional Court to demand from the
government “adequate food” based on the right of every person under Section 26(a) to
“Adequate food”? Or, can a citizen bring an action against the government to demand that
Manila Bay be cleaned up because under Section 28(a) he has a right to a “healthful
environment and balanced ecology, clean air, clean water, clean soil, and clean surroundings”?

Indeed, social and economic eights are different from the civil and political rights because
they require the positive furnishing of resources which courts obviously cannot do. In
contrast, actions for the enforcement of civil and political rights, all cast in the negative as
“don’ts, involve the redress of wrongs which courts are eminently suited to hear and decide.

After declaring that rights under Article III, Section 1 to be “demandable against the State and
no-state actors,” that provision states that “their enforcement shall be consistent with
international standards.” This is vague. Does the phrase “in accordance with international
standards” mean standards for resolving issues otherwise political by non-judicial method,
such as by simply referring complaints for violations of Environmental and Ecological Rights to
appropriate agencies of the executive department for compliance perhaps by the of writ of
kalikasan?

The International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights does not provide for the
judicial enforcement of these rights, doubtless because those who wrote them were aware
that these rights are not justiciable. Instead the Covenant relies for the enforcement of these
rights on the good faith of states parties to the treaty.

The attempt to enforce these rights by court action can only cause frustration of expectations
because of the declaration in Article III, Section 1 that the rights are “demandable against the
State and [even] non-state actors.”

In the present Constitution some of the so-called second and third generation rights are found
elsewhere than the Bill of Rights, obviously because the drafters of the 1987 Constitution were
aware of the non-justiciable character of these rights. For example the right to a balanced and
healthful ecology is found in the Article II (Declaration of Principles and State Policies), in
which it is declared to be not a right of the people but a duty of the state to protect and
promote.

I think provisions for so-called second and third generation rights can best be located in the
Proposed Constitution elsewhere than in the Bill of Rights. – Rappler.com

The author is a retired justice of the Philippines’ Supreme Court and a faculty member of the
UP College of Law
Filed under:Philippine Constitution Rappler Thought LeadersSupreme Court of the PhilippinesVicente
Mendozadraft constitutionCharter change
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PHILIPPINES
SC approves rule that bars
subjects of complaints from
leaving PH
The Supreme Court approves a Precautionary Hold Departure Order (PHDO) for crimes where
the minimum penalty is at least 6 years and one day

Lian Buan
@lianbuan

Published 8:18 PM, August 07, 2018


Updated 8:18 PM, August 07, 2018

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PHDO. The Supreme Court approves the Rule of the Precautionary Hold Departure Order (PHDO). Photo by LeAnne
Jazul/Rappler

MANILA, Philippines – The Supreme Court (SC) has approved a mechanism that will bar
individuals facing a complaint in major crimes from leaving the country.

Voting 11-1, the SC en banc on Tuesday, August 7, introduced the Precautionary Hold Departure
Order (PHDO).

Associate Justice Marvic Leonen was the lone dissent.

What is a PHDO? In the current system, a Hold Departure Order (HDO) can be issued only by
courts after the person has formally been charged there.
The PHDO will allow prosecutors to prevent the subject of a complaint from fleeing the
country even before the formal filing of charges.

A PHDO applies only to cases “involving crimes where the minimum penalty prescribed by law
is at least six years and one day.”

Like the usual HDO, the PHDO also has to be issued by the court whose jurisdiction covers the
place where the crime was committed. If the specifics are unknown, the issuing court can be
anywhere from within the judicial region where the crime was committed.

“The judge in a PHDO application must also determine that there is a high probability that the
subject will depart from the Philippines to evade arrest and prosecution of crime against him
or her,” SC Spokesman Theodore Te explained in a news conference on Tuesday.

Te added: “The preliminary finding of probable cause is solely based on the complaint and is
for the sole purpose of issuing the PHDO and shall be without prejudice to the resolution by
the prosecutor of any criminal complaint during the preliminary investigation.”

The PHDO is valid until the court lifts it.

Like a warrant of arrest for bailable offenses, the person can pay a bond and apply for the
PHDO to be lifted.

Why the need for a PHDO? The PHDO was triggered by the legal controversy from 2011
when former justice secretary Leila de Lima issued an HDO against former president Gloria
Macapagal Arroyo.

The SC stopped the HDO, but De Lima succeeded in preventing Arroyo from leaving the
country in an airport ruckus that made headlines then.

Seven years later, in April 2018, the SC voided De Lima’s HDO against Arroyo, saying that it
violated her constitutional right to travel.

De Lima’s legal basis then was Department of Justice (DOJ) Circular No. 41 signed by
former justice secretary Alberto Agra, which empowered justice secretaries to issue HDOs and
Watchlist Orders.

The SC declared the circular unconstitutional.

What the DOJ does now is issue an Immigration Lookout Bulletin Order (ILBO) which alerts
immigration authorities about the movement of certain personalities, but does not prevent
them from leaving the country.

The PHDO will bridge that gap. – Rappler.com

Supreme Court: LGU shares


shall be sourced from all
national taxes
The SC ruling effectively increases the portion of local government units from the national
wealth, but law professor Lyssa Grace Pagano says the 20-80 sharing under Federalism is
better

LOCAL GOVERNMENT SHARES. The Supreme Court ruled that the "just share" of the local government units or
LGUs shall be sourced from "all national taxes" and not just "national internal revenue taxes."
MANILA, Philippines – The Supreme Court (SC) announced on Wednesday, July 4, its ruling that
the “just share” of local government units shall be sourced from “all national taxes and not
only national internal revenue taxes.”

The SC ruled on a 6-year-old petition filed by then representative now Batangas Governor
Hermilando Mandanas. Mandanas had wanted to stop in 2012 the Aquino administration’s
Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) saying it was below the “just share” of local government
units (LGUs).

“The Court, voting 10-3, interpreted the basis for the ‘just share’ of local government units
under Section 6, Article X of the 1987 Constitution as being based on all national taxes and not
only national internal revenue taxes, as provided in Section 284 of the Local Government
Code,” the SC said.

Acting Chief Justice Antonio Carpio, Associate Justices Teresita Leonardo De Castro,
Presbitero Velasco Jr, Diosdado Peralta, Lucas Bersamin, Mariano Del Castillo, Estela Perlas
Bernabe, Noel Tijam, Samuel Martires and Alexander Gesmundo voted in the majority.

Associate Justices Marvic Leonen, Benjamin Caguioa and Andres Reyes Jr dissented.
Associate Justice Francis Jardeleza did not take part.

Increase in allotment

Mandanas said in his petition that from 1992 to 2012, the national government did not release
P500 billion worth of “just shares” from national taxes. The SC announcement did not mention
whether there was a ruling in this aspect; a full copy of the decision is yet to be released.

But in essence, the SC’s interpretation of where the LGU’s “just shares” should come from
would increase what they would be getting.

Under the local government code, the LGUs shall get 40% of national wealth. This is a long
standing dispute because the setup only takes 40% from Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR)
collections.

University of the East Law Professor Lyssa Grace Pagano said that by expanding the source of
the allotment, LGU’s would now be able to get a cut from franchise fees and customs duties
which the government did not share with them before.

Every year, the national government passes the General Appropriations Act (GAA) which
provides for the IRA for that same year. In the 2018 GAA, the LGUs will get P522.7 billion under
the IRA.

Senator Ralph Recto, who wants to push for bigger cuts for LGUs, said that if customs duties
were included, the IRA in 2018 would have been P644 billion.

That’s how big a money is at stake.

Is federalism better?

Recto said increasing the LGU shares can be done without a charter change. "Measures like
these abound in Senate and at the House, we can fast track the approval. Instead of arguing
over Charter Change, let's unite first over IRA change," Recto earlier said.

But Pagano, who has been holding dialogues with LGUs all over the country during this
proposed transition to federalism, said the increase provided by the new Supreme Court ruling
is “not as significant as it would be under federalism.”

“The ruling of the Supreme Court is a welcome ruling for LGUs. However, in the proposed
sharing (20-80) under federalism, the share of the states would still be higher,” Pagano said.

A 20-80 sharing in favor of regional governments is one of the proposals for a federal
government.
Pagano said that under this setup, the sharing would be reversed. If at present, the national
government is releasing shares of national wealth to LGUs, under the 20-80 federal setup, the
LGUs would be generating its own revenues and remitting 20% of it to the national
government.

“That’s why Mindanao is pushing for federalism, because they are supposed to generate their
own revenues, unlike now that they just have a share in the national wealth. In Mindanao, they
see that they have more resources but that they are subsidizing other regions,” Pagano said.

“What is important in federalism is the autonomy of LGUs to utilize those funds and
resources,” she added. – Rappler.com

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