PACU VS SEC.
OF EDUC
G.R. No. 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:
The Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities made a
petition that Acts No. 2706 otherwise known as the “Act making
the Inspection and Recognition of private schools and colleges
obligatory for the Secretary of Public Instruction” and was
amended by Act No. 3075 and Commonwealth Act No. 180 be
declared unconstitutional on the grounds that 1) the act deprives
the owner of the school and colleges as well as teachers and
parents of liberty and property without due process of Law; 2) it
will also deprive the parents of their Natural Rights and duty to
rear their children for civic efficiency and 3) its provisions
conferred on the Secretary of Education unlimited powers and
discretion to prescribe rules and standards constitute towards
unlawful delegation of Legislative powers.
Section 1 of Act No. 2706
“It shall be the duty of the Secretary of Public Instruction to
maintain a general standard of efficiency in all private
schools and colleges of the Philippines so that the same shall
furnish adequate instruction to the public, in
accordance with the class and grade of instruction given in them,
and for this purpose said Secretary or his duly
authorized representative shall have authority to advise, inspect,
and regulate said schools and colleges in order to
determine the efficiency of instruction given in the same,”
The petitioner also complain that securing a permit to the Secretary
of Education before opening a school is not originally included in
the original Act 2706. And in support to the first proposition of the
petitioners they contended that the Constitution guaranteed the
right of a citizen to own and operate a school and any law
requiring previous governmental approval or permit before such
person could exercise the said right On the other hand, the
defendant Legal Representative submitted a memorandum
contending that 1) the matters presented no justiciable controversy
exhibiting unavoidable necessity of deciding the constitutional
question; 2) Petitioners are in estoppels to challenge the validity of
the said act and 3) the Act is constitutionally valid. Thus, the
petition for prohibition was dismissed by the court.
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 sustained
and state that the petitioner remedy is to challenge the regulation
not to invalidate the law because it needs no argument to show that
abuse by officials entrusted with the execution of the statute does
not per se demonstrate the unconstitutionality of such statute. On
this phase of the litigation the court conclude that there has been no
undue delegation of legislative power even if the petitioners
appended a list of circulars and memoranda issued by the
Department of Education they fail to indicate which of such
official documents was constitutionally objectionable for being
capricious or pain nuisance. Therefore, the court denied the
petition for prohibition