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^{SEPARATE OPINION}

ROMERO, J.:

"Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul."

These words vividly inscribed just beneath Mark Twain's bust at the Hall of Fame veritably speaks about the creativity and dynamism which ought to characterize our perspective of things. Its instructs us to broaden our horizon that we may not be held captive by ignorance. Free and robust thinking is the imperative.

But there are times when one has to render fealty to certain fundamental precepts and I believe that this occasion presents an opportunity to do so. Thus, as I join the majority and cast my vote today for the denial of the instant petition, may I just be allowed to reiterate jurisprudential postulates which I have long embraced, not for the sake of "loyalty to petrified opinion" but to stress consistency in doctrine in the hope that all future disputes of this nature may be similarly resolved in this manner.

This is not actually the first time that the Court has been invited to resolve a matter originating from the internal processes undertaken by a co-equal branch of government, more particularly the Senate in this case. Earlier, in the landmark case of Tolentino v. Secretary of Finance, et al.,¹ we were confronted, among other things, by the issue of whether a significant tax measures namely, Republic Act No. 7716 (Expanded Value-Added Tax Law), went through the legislative mill in keeping with the constitutionally-mandated procedure for the passage of bills. Speaking through Justice Vicente V. Mendoza, the majority upheld the tax measure's validity, relying on the enrolled bill theory and the view that the Court is not the appropriate forum to enforce internal legislative rules supposedly violated when the bill was being passed by the Congress. I took a different view, however, from the majority because of what I felt was a sweeping reliance on said doctrines without giving due regard to the peculiar facts of the case. I underscored that these principles may not be applied where the internal legislative rules would breach the Constitution which this Court has a solemn duty to uphold. It was my position then that the introduction of several provisions in the Bicameral Committee Report violated the constitutional proscription against any amendment to a bill upon the last reading thereof and which this Court, in the exercise of its judicial power, can properly inquire into without running afoul of the principle of separation of powers.

Last year,² Arroyo, et al. v. de Venecia, et al.³ presented an opportunity for me to clarify my position further. In that case, Congressman Joker Arroyo filed a petition before the Court complaining that during a session by the House of Representatives, he was effectively prevented from raising the question of quorum which to him tainted the validity of Republic Act No. 8240 or the so-called "sin-taxes" law. The Court, speaking again through Justice Mendoza, dismissed Mr. Arroyo's petition, arguing in the main that courts are denied the power to inquire into allegations that, in enacting a law, a House of Congress failed to comply with its own rules, in the absence of showing that there was a violation of a constitutional provision or the rights of private individuals. Concurring with the majority opinion, I discerned a need to explain my position then because of possible misinterpretation. I was very emphatic that I did not abandon my position in Tolentino, the facts as presented in Arroyo being radically different from the former. In keeping with my view that judicial review is permissible only to uphold the Constitution, I pointed out that the legislative rules allegedly violated were purely internal and had no direct or reasonable nexus to the requirements and proscriptions of the Constitution in the passage of a bill which would otherwise warrant the Court's intervention.

In the instant case, at the risk of being repetitious, I again take a similar stand as the ones I made in the two cited cases.

Although this case involves the question of who is the rightful occupant of a Senate "office" and does not deal with the passage of a bill or the observance of internal rules for the Senate's conduct of its business, the same ground as I previously invoked may justify the Court's refusal to pry into the procedures of the Senate. There is to me no constitutional breach which has been made and ergo, there is nothing for this Court to uphold. The interpretation placed by petitioners on Section 16 (1), Article VI of the 1987 Constitution clearly does not find support in the text thereof. Expressium facit cessare tacitum. What is expressed puts an end to that which is implied. The majority vote required for the election of a Senate President and a Speaker of the House of Representatives speaks only of such number or quantity of votes for an aspirant to be lawfully elected as such. There is here no declaration that by so electing, each of the two Houses of Congress is thereby divided into camps called the "majority" and the minority." In fact, the "offices" of Majority Floor Leader and Minority Floor Leader are not explicitly provided for as constitutional offices. As pointed out by my esteemed colleague, Justice Artemio V. Panganiban, who penned the herein majority opinion, even on the theory that under paragraph 2, Section 16 (1) of Article VI of the Constitution, each House shall choose such other officers as it may deem necessary, still "the method of choosing who will be such officers is merely a derivative of the exercise of the prerogative conferred by the aforequoted constitutional provision." With the prerogative being, therefore, bestowed upon the Senate, whatever differences the parties may have against each other must be settled in their own turf and the Court, conscious as it is of its constitutionally-delineated powers, will not take a perilous move to overstep the same.

Endnotes:

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¹ 235 SCRA 630.

² August 14, 1997.

³ G.R. No. 127255; 277 SCRA 268 (1997).