Tañada v. Cuenco

Tañada v. Cuenco

G.R. No. L-10520 February 28, 1957

Concepcion, J.

Facts:

                Petitioner Lorenzo M. Tañada is a member of the Senate of the Philippines, and President of the Citizens Party, whereas petitioner Diosdado Macapagal, a member of the House of Representatives of the Philippines, was one of the official candidates of the Liberal Party for the Senate, at the General elections held in November, 1955, in which Pacita Madrigal Warns, Lorenzo Sumulong, Quintin Paredes, Francisco Rodrigo, Pedro Sabido, Claro M. Recto, Domocao Alonto and Decoroso Rosales, were proclaimed elected. Subsequently, the elections of this Senators-elect-who eventually assumed their respective seats in the Senate-was contested by petitioner Macapagal, together with Camilo Osias, Geronima Pecson, Macario Peralta, Enrique Magalona, Pio Pedrosa and William Chiongbian-who had, also, run for the Senate, in said election-in Senate Electoral Case No. 4, now pending before the Senate Electoral Tribunal.

The Senate, in its session of February 22, 1956, upon nomination of Senator Cipriano Primicias, on behalf of the Nacionalista Party, chose Senators Jose P. Laurel, Fernando Lopez and Cipriano Primicias, as members of the Senate Electoral Tribunal. Upon nomination of petitioner Senator Tañada, on behalf of the Citizens Party, said petitioner was next chosen by the Senate as member of said Tribunal. Then, upon nomination of Senator Primicias on behalf of the Committee on Rules of the Senate, and over the objections of Senators Tañada and Sumulong, the Senate choose respondents Senators Mariano J. Cuenco and Francisco A. Delgado as members of the same Electoral Tribunal. Subsequently, the Chairman of the latter appointed: (1) Alfredo Cruz and Catalina Cayetano, as technical assistant and private secretary, respectively, to Senator Cuenco, as supposed member of the Senate Electoral Tribunal, upon his recommendation of said respondent; and (2) Manuel Serapio and Placido Reyes, as technical assistant and private secretary, respectively to Senator Delgado, as supposed member of said Electoral Tribunal, and upon his recommendation.

Soon, thereafter, Senator Lorenzo M. Tañada and Congressman Diosdado Macapagal instituted the case at bar against Senators Cuenco and Delgado, and said Alfredo Cruz, Catalina Cayetano, Manuel Serapio and Placido Reyes, as well as Fernando Hipolito, in his capacity as Cashier and Disbursing Officer of the Senate Electoral Tribunal. Petitioners allege that on February 22, 1956, as well as at present, the Senate consists of 23 Senators who belong to the Nacionalista Party, and one (1) Senator-namely, petitioner, Lorenzo M. Tañada-belonging to the Citizens Party; that the Committee on Rules for the Senate, in nominating Senators Cuenco and Delgado, and the Senate, in choosing these respondents, as members of the Senate Electoral Tribunal, had “acted absolutely without power or color of authority and in clear violation .. of Article VI, Section 11 of the Constitution”; that “in assuming membership in the Senate Electoral Tribunal, by taking the corresponding oath of office therefor”, said respondents had “acted absolutely without color of appointment or authority and are unlawfully, and in violation of the Constitution, usurping, intruding into and exercising the powers of members of the Senate Electoral Tribunal”; that, consequently, the appointments of respondents, Cruz, Cayetano, Serapio and Reyes, as technical assistants and private secretaries to Senators Cuenco and Delgado-who caused said appointments to be made-as members of the Senate Electoral Tribunal, are unlawful and void; and that Senators Cuenco and Delgado “are threatening and are about to take cognizance of Electoral Case No. 4 of the Senate Electoral Tribunal, as alleged members thereof, in nullification of the rights of petitioner Lorenzo M. Tañada, both as a Senator belonging to the Citizens Party and as representative of the Citizens Party in the Senate Electoral Tribunal, and in deprivation of the constitutional rights of petitioner Diosdado Macapagal and his co-protestants to have their election protest tried and decided-by an Electoral Tribunal composed of not more than three (3) senators chosen by the Senate upon nomination of the party having the largest number of votes in the Senate and not more than the (3) Senators upon nomination of the Party having the second largest number of votes therein, together, three (3) Justice of the Supreme Court to be designated by the Chief Justice, instead of by an Electoral Tribunal packed with five members belonging to the Nacionalista Party, which is the rival party of the Liberal Party, to which the Petitioner Diosdado Macapagal and his co-protestants in Electoral Case No. 4 belong, the said five (5) Nacionalista Senators having been nominated and chosen in the manner alleged hereinabove”.

Issue:

                whether the case at bar raises merely a political question, not one justiciable in nature

Held:

                No. The phrase political question is frequently used to designate all questions that lie outside the scope of the judicial questions, which under the constitution, are to be decided by the people in their sovereign capacity, or in regard to which full discretionary authority has been delegated to the legislative or executive branch of the government. What is generally meant, when it is, said that a question is political, and not judicial, is that it is a matter which, is to be exercised by the people in their primary political capacity, or that it has been specifically delegated to some other department or particular officer of the government, with discretionary power to act.

                Legislature may in its discretion determine whether it will pass a law or submit a proposed constitutional amendment to the people. The courts have no judicial control over such matters, not merely because they involve political question, but because they are matters which the people have by the Constitution delegated to the Legislature. The Governor may exercise the powers delegated to him, free from judicial control, so long as he observes the laws and acts within the limits of the power conferred. His discretionary acts cannot be controllable, not primarily because they are of a political nature, but because the Constitution and laws have placed the particular matter under his control. But every officer under a constitutional government must act according to law and subject him to the restraining and controlling power of the people, acting through the courts, as well as through the executive or the Legislature.

In short, the term “political question” connotes, in legal parlance, what it means in ordinary parlance, namely, a question of policy. It refers to “those questions which, under the Constitution, are to be decided by the people in their sovereign capacity, or in regard to which full discretionary authority has been delegated to the Legislature or executive branch of the Government.” It is concerned with issues dependent upon the wisdom, not legality, of a particular measure.

Such is not the nature of the question for determination in the present case. Here, we are called upon to decide whether the election of Senators Cuenco and Delgado, by the Senate, as members of the Senate Electoral Tribunal, upon nomination by Senator Primicias-a member and spokesman of the party having the largest number of votes in the Senate-on behalf of its Committee on Rules, contravenes the constitutional mandate that said members of the Senate Electoral Tribunal shall be chosen “upon nomination .. of the party having the second largest number of votes” in the Senate, and hence, is null and void. This is not a political question. The Senate is not clothed with “full discretionary authority” in the choice of members of the Senate Electoral Tribunal. The exercise of its power thereon is subject to constitutional limitations which are claimed to be mandatory in nature. It is clearly within the legitimate prove of the judicial department to pass upon the validity the proceedings in connection therewith.

Issue:

                Is the election of Senators Cuenco and Delgado, by the Senate, as members of the Electoral Tribunal, valid and lawful?

(Petitioners maintain that the nomination and election of Senators Cuenco and Delgado-who belong to the Nacionalista Party-as members of the Senate Electoral Tribunal, are null and void and have been made without power or color of authority, for, after the nomination by said party, and the election by the Senate, of Senators Laurel, Lopez and Primicias, as members of said Tribunal, the other Senators, who shall be members thereof, must necessarily be nominated by the party having the second largest number of votes in the Senate, and such party is, admittedly, the Citizens Party, to which Senator Tañada belongs and which he represents.)

Held:

                No. The main objective of the framers of our Constitution in providing for the establishment, first, of an Electoral Commission, 8 and then 9 of one Electoral Tribunal for each House of Congress, was to insure the exercise of judicial impartiality in the disposition of election contests affecting members of the lawmaking body. To achieve this purpose, two devices were resorted to, namely: (a) the party having the largest number of votes, and the party having the second largest number of votes, in the National Assembly or in each House of Congress, were given the same number of representatives in the Electoral Commission or Tribunal, so that they may realize that partisan considerations could not control the adjudication of said cases, and thus be induced to act with greater impartiality; and (b) the Supreme Court was given in said body the same number of representatives as each one of said political parties, so that the influence of the former may be decisive and endow said Commission or Tribunal with judicial temper.

                The framers intended to prevent the majority party from controlling the Electoral Tribunals, and that the structure thereof is founded upon the equilibrium between the majority and the minority parties therein, with the Justices of the Supreme Court, who are members of said Tribunals, holding the resulting balance of power. The procedure prescribed in said provision for the selection of members of the Electoral Tribunals is vital to the role they are called upon to play. it constitutes the essence of said Tribunals. Hence, compliance with said procedure is mandatory, and acts performed in violation thereof are null and void.

It is true that the application of the foregoing criterion would limit the membership of the Senate Electoral Tribunal, in the case at bar, to seven (7), instead of nine (9), members; but, it is conceded that the present composition of the Senate was not foreseen by the framers of our Constitution. Furthermore, the spirit of the law prevails over its letter, and the solution herein adopted maintains the spirit of the Constitution, for partisan considerations cannot be decisive in a tribunal consisting of three (3) Justices of the Supreme Court, three (3) members nominated by the majority party and either one (1) or two (2) members nominated by the party having the second largest number of votes in the House concerned.

Upon the other hand, what would be the result of respondents’ contention if upheld? Owing to the fact that the Citizens Party has only one member in the Upper House, Senator Tañada felt he should nominate, for the Senate Electoral Tribunal, only said member of the Citizens Party. The same is, thus, numerically handicapped, vis-a-vis the majority party, in said Tribunal. Obviously, Senator Tañada did not nominate other two Senators, because, otherwise, he would worsen the already disadvantageous position, therein, of the Citizens Party. Indeed, by the aforementioned nomination and election of Senators Cuenco and Delgado, if the same were sanctioned, the Nacionalista Party would have five (5) members in the Senate Electoral Tribunal, as against one (1) member of the Citizens Party and three members of the Supreme Court. With the absolute majority thereby attained by the majority party in said Tribunal, the philosophy underlying the same would be entirely upset. The equilibrium between the political parties therein would be destroyed. What is worst, the decisive moderating role of the Justices of the Supreme Court would be wiped out, and, in lieu thereof, the door would be thrown wide open for the predominance of political considerations in the determination of election protests pending before said Tribunal, which is precisely what the fathers of our Constitution earnestly strove to forestall.

                In view of the foregoing, we hold that the Senate may not elect, as members of the Senate Electoral Tribunal, those Senators who have not been nominated by the political parties specified in the Constitution; that the party having the largest number of votes in the Senate may nominate not more than three (3) members thereof to said Electoral Tribunal; that the party having the second largest number of votes in the Senate has the exclusive right to nominate the other three (3) Senators who shall sit as members in the Electoral Tribunal; that neither these three (3) Senators, nor any of them, may be nominated by a person or party other than the one having the second largest number of votes in the Senate or its representative therein; that the Committee on Rules for the Senate has no standing to validly make such nomination and that the nomination of Senators Cuenco and Delgado by Senator Primicias, and the election of said respondents by the Senate, as members of said Tribunal, are null and void ab initio.