EN BANC
G.R. No. 171396 – DAVID et al. v. ARROYO, etc., et al. and
related cases (G.R. Nos. 171409, 171483, 171485, 171400, 171424 and 171489)
Promulgated
on:
May 3, 2006
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CONCURRING OPINION
PANGANIBAN, CJ:
I was hoping
until the last moment of our deliberations on these consolidated cases that the
Court would be unanimous in its Decision.
After all, during the last two weeks, it decided with one voice two
equally contentious and nationally significant controversies involving
Executive Order No. 464[1]
and the so-called Calibrated Preemptive Response policy.[2]
However, the
distinguished Mr. Justice Dante O. Tinga’s Dissenting
Opinion has made that hope an impossibility. I now write, not only to express my full
concurrence in the thorough and elegantly written ponencia
of the esteemed Mme. Justice Angelina Sandoval-Gutierrez, but more urgently to
express a little comment on Justice Tinga’s Dissenting
Opinion (DO).
The Dissent dismisses all the Petitions, grants no
reliefs to petitioners, and finds nothing wrong with
PP 1017. It labels the PP a harmless
pronouncement -- “an utter superfluity” -- and denounces the ponencia as an “immodest show of brawn” that “has
imprudently placed the Court in the business of defanging
paper tigers.”
Under this line of
thinking, it would be perfectly legal for the President to reissue PP 1017
under its present language and nuance. I
respectfully disagree.
Let us face it. Even Justice Tinga
concedes that under PP 1017, the police -- “to some minds” -- “may have flirted
with power.” With due respect, this is a
masterful understatement. PP 1017 may be
a paper tiger, but -- to borrow the colorful words of an erstwhile Asian leader
-- it has nuclear teeth that must indeed be defanged.
Some of those who
drafted PP 1017 may be testing the outer limits of presidential prerogatives
and the perseverance of this Court in safeguarding the people’s constitutionally
enshrined liberty. They are playing with
fire, and unless prudently restrained, they may one day wittingly or
unwittingly burn down the country.
History will never forget, much less forgive, this Court if it allows
such misadventure and refuses to strike down abuse at its inception. Worse, our people will surely condemn the misuse
of legal hocus pocus to justify this trifling with constitutional
sanctities.
And even for those who deeply care for the
President, it is timely and wise for this Court to set down the parameters of
power and to make known, politely but firmly, its dogged determination to
perform its constitutional duty at all times and against all odds. Perhaps this country would never have had to
experience the wrenching pain of dictatorship; and a past President would not
have fallen into the precipice of authoritarianism, if the Supreme Court then had
the moral courage to remind him steadfastly of his mortality and the
inevitable historical damnation of despots and tyrants. Let not this Court fall into that same rut.
ARTEMIO V. PANGANIBAN
Chief Justice