SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

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SEPARATE OPINION

VITUG, J.:

The only real issue before the Court, I would take it, is whether or not private respondent can validly ask for copies of pertinent documents while the application for extradition against him is still undergoing process by the Executive Department.

There is, I agree with the majority, a right of access to such extradition documents conformably with the provisions of Article III, Section 7, of the Philippine Constitution.¹ The constitutional right to free access to information of public concern is circumscribed only by the fact that the desired information is not among the species exempted by law from the operation of the constitutional guaranty and that the exercise of the right conforms with such reasonable conditions as may be prescribed by law. New

There is no hornbook rule to determine whether or not an information is of public concern. The term "public concern" eludes exactitude, and it can easily embrace a broad spectrum of matters which the public may want to know either because the subject thereof can affect their lives or simply because it arouses concern.²cräläwvirtualibräry

I am not convinced that there is something so viciously wrong with, as to deny, the request of private respondent to be furnished with copies of the extradition documents.

I add. The constitutional right to due process secures to everyone an opportunity to be heard, presupposing foreknowledge of what he may be up against, and to submit any evidence that he may wish to proffer in an effort to clear himself. This right is two-pronged - substantive and procedural due process - founded, in the first instance, on Constitutional or statutory provisions, and in the second instance, on accepted rules of procedures.³ Substantive due process looks into the extrinsic and intrinsic validity of the law that figures to interfere with the right of a person to his life, liberty and property. Procedural due process --- the more litigated of the two --- focuses on the rules that are established in order to ensure meaningful adjudication in the enforcement and implementation of the law. Like "public concern," the term due process does not admit of any restrictive definition. Justice Frankfurter has viewed this flexible concept, aptly I believe, as being " compounded by history, reason, the past course of decisions, and stout confidence in the democratic faith."⁴ The framers of our own Constitution, it would seem, have deliberately intended to make it malleable to the ever-changing milieu of society. Hitherto, it is dynamic and resilient adaptable to every situation calling for its applications that makes it appropriate to accept an enlarged concept of the term as and when there is a possibility that the right of an individual to life, liberty and property might be diffused.⁵ Verily, whenever there is an imminent threat to the life, liberty or property of any person in any proceeding conducted by or under the auspices of the State, his right to due process of law, when demanded, must not be ignored.

A danger to the liberty of the extraditee, the private respondent, is real. Article 9 of the Extradition Treaty between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the Government of the United States of America provides that in case of urgency, a Contracting Party may request the provisional arrest of the person prior to the presentation of the request for extradition. I see implicit in this provision that even after the request for extradition is made and before a petition for extradition is filed with the court, the possibility of an arrest being made on the basis of a mere evaluation by the Executive on the request for extradition by the foreign State cannot totally be discounted.

The conclusion reached by the majority, I hasten to add, does not mean that the Executive Department should be impeded in its evaluation of the extradition request. The right of the extraditee to be furnished, upon request, with a copy of the relevant documents and to file his comment thereon is not necessarily anathema to the proceedings duly mandated by the treaty to be made.

I vote to deny the petition.

¹ Sec 7. The right of the people to information of public concern shall be recognized. Access to official records, and to documents, and papers pertaining to official acts, transactions, or decisions, as well as to government research data used as basis for policy development, shall be afforded the citizen, subject to such limitations as may be provided by law.

² Legaspi v. Civil Service Commission, 150 SCRA 530; Valmonte v. Belmonte, Jr., 170 SCRA 256.

³ Aniag, Jr. v. Commission on Elections, 237 SCRA 424; Tupas vs. Court of Appeals, 193 SCRA 597.

⁴ Abraham, Henry J., Some Basic Guidelines of "Due Process of Law," The Lawyers Review, Vol. IX, 30 April 1995, p.1.

⁵ Cruz, Isagani A. Constitutional Law. 1995 Ed. pp. 94-95.