SANTIAGO JAVIER RANADA and OSWALDO D.
AGCAOILI,
petitioners,
vs.
THE SENATE OF THE REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES,
REPRESENTED BY THE SENATE PRESIDENT THE
HONORABLE MANUEL VILLAR, respondents.
G.R. No. 179275 December 23, 2008
FACTS:
During the hype of Arroyo administration, a new controversy arises. During the
2007 election the conversation of President Arroyo and the herein petitioner
Virgilio Garciliano, COMELEC regional director, regarding the desire of the
president to have a favourable outcome in terms of his senatoriables. Such
conversation was recorded and was played during the house of representative
investigation. Because of such turn of events, a petition was filed before the court
praying that such playing of the illegally seized communication was in violation of
RA 4200 or the anti-wire tapping law. Also such petition for injunction prays that
the Senate committee be prevented from further conducting such investigation for
the basic reason that there was no proper publication of the senate rules,
empowering them to make such investigation of the unlawfully seized documents.
ISSUE:
Whether or not there was proper publication of the rules as to empower the senate
to further proceed with their investigation?
HELD:
No, the Supreme Court mentioned the following:
The Senate cannot be allowed to continue with the conduct of the questioned
legislative inquiry without duly published rules of procedure, in clear derogation of
the constitutional requirement.
Section 21, Article VI of the 1987 Constitution explicitly provides that "the Senate
or the House of Representatives, or any of its respective committees may conduct
inquiries in aid of legislation in accordance with its duly published rules of
procedure." The requisite of publication of the rules is intended to satisfy the basic
requirements of due process. Publication is indeed imperative, for it will be the
height of injustice to punish or otherwise burden a citizen for the transgression of a
law or rule of which he had no notice whatsoever, not even a constructive one.
What constitutes publication is set forth in Article 2 of the Civil Code, which
provides that "laws shall take effect after 15 days following the completion of their
publication either in the Official Gazette, or in a newspaper of general circulation
in the Philippines."
Respondents justify their non-observance of the constitutionally mandated
publication by arguing that the rules have never been amended since 1995 and,
despite that, they are published in booklet form available to anyone for free, and
accessible to the public at the Senate’s internet web page.
The Court does not agree. The absence of any amendment to the rules cannot
justify the Senate’s defiance of the clear and unambiguous language of Section 21,
Article VI of the Constitution. The organic law instructs, without more, that the
Senate or its committees may conduct inquiries in aid of legislation only in
accordance with duly published rules of procedure, and does not make any
distinction whether or not these rules have undergone amendments or revision. The
constitutional mandate to publish the said rules prevails over any custom, practice
or tradition followed by the Senate.
The invocation by the respondents of the provisions of R.A. No. 8792,otherwise
known as the Electronic Commerce Act of 2000, to support their claim of valid
publication through the internet is all the more incorrect. R.A. 8792 considers an
electronic data message or an electronic document as the functional equivalent of a
written document only for evidentiary purposes. In other words, the law merely
recognizes the admissibility in evidence (for their being the original) of electronic
data messages and/or electronic documents. It does not make the internet a medium
for publishing laws, rules and regulations.
Given this discussion, the respondent Senate Committees, therefore, could not, in
violation of the Constitution, use its unpublished rules in the legislative inquiry
subject of these consolidated cases. The conduct of inquiries in aid of legislation
by the Senate has to be deferred until it shall have caused the publication of the
rules, because it can do so only "in accordance with its duly published rules of
procedure."
Indeed the inquiry to be conducted by the senate in aid of legislation cannot
proceed for the reason that the rules that they will observe was not properly
published as provided by the Fundamental Law of the land. Such inquiry if
allowed without observance of the required publication will put a person’s life,
liberty and property at stake without due process of law. Also, the further assertion
of the senate that they already published such rules through their web page, in
observance of the RA 8792 or the Electronic Commerce Act was only viewed by
the court as matter of evidence and still does not conform with what the
constitution propounded.
In this regard the high court granted the petition for injunction preventing the
senate to conduct such inquiry in aid of legislation.
