FACTS:
On 24 Nov.
2009, the day after the Maguindanao Massacre, then Pres. Arroyo issued
Proclamation 1946, placing “the Provinces of Maguindanao and Sultan Kudarat and
the City of Cotabato under a state of emergency.” She directed the AFP and the
PNP “to undertake such measures as may be allowed by the Constitution and by
law to prevent and suppress all incidents of lawless violence” in the named
places.
Three days
later, she also issued AO 273 “transferring” supervision of the ARMM from the
Office of the President to the DILG. She subsequently issued AO 273-A, which
amended the former AO (the term “transfer” used in AO 273 was amended to
“delegate”, referring to the supervision of the ARMM by the DILG).
Claiming
that the President’s issuances encroached on the ARMM’s autonomy, petitioners
Datu Zaldy Uy Ampatuan, Ansaruddin Adiong, and Regie Sahali-Generale, all ARMM
officials, filed this petition for prohibition under Rule 65. The alleged that
the President’s proclamation and orders encroached on the ARMM’s autonomy as
these issuances empowered the DILG Secretary to take over ARMM’s operations and
to seize the regional government’s powers. They also claimed that the President
had no factual basis for declaring a state of emergency, especially in the
Province of Sultan Kudarat and the City of Cotabato, where no critical violent
incidents occurred. The deployment of troops and the taking over of the ARMM
constitutes an invalid exercise of the President’s emergency powers.
Petitioners asked that Proclamation 1946 as well as AOs 273 and 273-A be
declared unconstitutional.
ISSUE/HELD:
1. Whether Proclamation 1946 and AOs 273 and 273-A violate the principle
of local autonomy under Sec. 16 Art. X of the Constitution and Sec. 1 Art. V of
RA 9054 (The Expanded ARMM Act)
NO. The
DILG Secretary did not take over control of the powers of the ARMM. After law
enforcement agents took the respondent Governor of ARMM into custody for
alleged complicity in the Maguindanao Massacre, the ARMM Vice‐Governor, petitioner Adiong, assumed the
vacated post on 10 Dec. 2009 pursuant to the rule on succession found in Sec.
12 Art.VII of RA 9054. In turn, Acting Governor Adiong named the then Speaker
of the ARMM Regional Assembly, petitioner Sahali‐Generale,
Acting ARMM Vice-Governor. The DILG Secretary therefore did not take over the
administration or the operations of the ARMM.
2. Whether or not President Arroyo invalidly
exercised emergency powers when she called out the AFP and the PNP to prevent
and suppress all incidents of lawless violence in Maguindanao, Sultan Kudarat,
and Cotabato City
The
deployment is not by itself an exercise of emergency powers as understood under
Section 23 (2), Article VI of the Constitution, which provides:
SECTION
23. x x x (2) In times of war or other national emergency, the Congress may, by
law, authorize the President, for a limited period and subject to such
restrictions as it may prescribe, to exercise powers necessary and proper to
carry out a declared national policy. Unless sooner withdrawn by resolution of
the Congress, such powers shall cease upon the next adjournment thereof.
The President did not proclaim a national
emergency, only a state of emergency in the three places mentioned. And she did not act pursuant to any law
enacted by Congress that authorized her to exercise extraordinary powers. The calling out of the armed forces to
prevent or suppress lawless violence in such places is a power that the
Constitution directly vests in the President.
She did not need a congressional authority to exercise the same.
3. Whether or not the President had factual bases for her actions.
The President’s call on the armed forces to
prevent or suppress lawless violence springs from the power vested in her under
Section 18, Article VII of the Constitution, which provides:
Section
18. The President shall be the Commander-in-Chief of all armed forces of the
Philippines and whenever it becomes necessary, he may call out such armed
forces to prevent or suppress lawless violence, invasion or rebellion. x x x
While it is true that the Court may inquire
into the factual bases for the President’s exercise of the above power,
it would generally defer to her judgment on the matter. As the Court acknowledged in Integrated Bar
of the Philippines v. Hon. Zamora, it is clearly to the President that the
Constitution entrusts the determination of the need for calling out the armed
forces to prevent and suppress lawless violence. Unless it is shown that such determination
was attended by grave abuse of discretion, the Court will accord respect to the
President’s judgment. Thus, the Court said:
If the
petitioner fails, by way of proof, to support the assertion that the President
acted without factual basis, then this Court cannot undertake an independent
investigation beyond the pleadings. The factual necessity of calling out
the armed forces is not easily quantifiable and cannot be objectively
established since matters considered for satisfying the same is a combination
of several factors which are not always accessible to the courts. Besides the
absence of textual standards that the court may use to judge necessity,
information necessary to arrive at such judgment might also prove unmanageable
for the courts. Certain pertinent
information might be difficult to verify, or wholly unavailable to the
courts. In many instances, the evidence upon which the President might
decide that there is a need to call out the armed forces may be of a nature not
constituting technical proof.
On the
other hand, the President, as Commander-in-Chief has a vast intelligence
network to gather information, some of which may be classified as highly
confidential or affecting the security of the state. In the exercise of the
power to call, on-the-spot decisions may be imperatively necessary in emergency
situations to avert great loss of human lives and mass destruction of property.
Indeed, the decision to call out the military to prevent or suppress lawless
violence must be done swiftly and decisively if it were to have any effect at
all. x x x.
Here, petitioners failed to show that the
declaration of a state of emergency in the Provinces of Maguindanao, Sultan
Kudarat and Cotabato City, as well as the President’s exercise of the “calling
out” power had no factual basis. They simply alleged that, since not all areas
under the ARMM were placed under a state of emergency, it follows that the
takeover of the entire ARMM by the DILG Secretary had no basis too.
The imminence of violence and anarchy at the
time the President issued Proclamation 1946 was too grave to ignore and she had
to act to prevent further bloodshed and hostilities in the places
mentioned. Progress reports also
indicated that there was movement in these places of both high-powered firearms
and armed men sympathetic to the two clans.
Thus, to pacify the people’s fears and stabilize the situation, the
President had to take preventive action.
She called out the armed forces to control the proliferation of loose
firearms and dismantle the armed groups that continuously threatened the peace
and security in the affected places.
Since petitioners are not able to demonstrate
that the proclamation of state of emergency in the subject places and the
calling out of the armed forces to prevent or suppress lawless violence there
have clearly no factual bases, the Court must respect the President’s
actions. (Ampatuan vs. Puno, G.R. No. 190259, June 7, 2011)
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