Philippine Supreme Court Jurisprudence


Philippine Supreme Court Jurisprudence > Year 2019 > September 2019 Decisions > G.R. No. 184389 - ALLAN MADRILEJOS, ALLAN HERNANDEZ, GLENDA GIL, AND LISA GOKONGWEI-CHENG, PETITIONERS, v. LOURDES GATDULA, AGNES LOPEZ, HILARION BUBAN, AND THE OFFICE OF THE CITY PROSECUTOR OF MANILA, RESPONDENTS:




G.R. No. 184389 - ALLAN MADRILEJOS, ALLAN HERNANDEZ, GLENDA GIL, AND LISA GOKONGWEI-CHENG, PETITIONERS, v. LOURDES GATDULA, AGNES LOPEZ, HILARION BUBAN, AND THE OFFICE OF THE CITY PROSECUTOR OF MANILA, RESPONDENTS

PHILIPPINE SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

EN BANC

G.R. No. 184389, September 24, 2019

ALLAN MADRILEJOS, ALLAN HERNANDEZ, GLENDA GIL, AND LISA GOKONGWEI-CHENG, PETITIONERS, v. LOURDES GATDULA, AGNES LOPEZ, HILARION BUBAN, AND THE OFFICE OF THE CITY PROSECUTOR OF MANILA, RESPONDENTS.

D E C I S I O N

JARDELEZA, J.:

This is a petition for prohibition with prayer for the issuance of a preliminary injunction and/or temporary restraining order,1 seeking to prevent respondents from carrying out the preliminary investigation of the criminal complaint entitled Abante, et al. v. Asumbrado, et al., docketed as I.S. No. 08G-12234, on the ground that Ordinance No. 7780 is unconstitutional.

On July 7, 2008, 12 pastors and preachers from various churches filed a joint complaint-affidavit2 against the officers and publishers of seven men's magazines and tabloids. The complainants alleged that sometime during the period of September 2007 to July 2008, the identified magazines and tabloids, which were printed, published, distributed, circulated, and/or sold in the City of Manila, contained material which were "clearly scandalous, obscene, and pornographic within the meaning and in violation of Articles 200 and 201 of the Revised Penal Code and Ordinance No. 7780 of the City of Manila."3

Articles 200 and 201 of the Revised Penal Code (RPC) provide:

Art. 200. Grave scandal. � The penalties of arresto mayor and public censure shall be imposed upon any person who shall offend against decency or good customs by any highly scandalous conduct not expressly falling within any other article of this Code.

Art. 201. Immoral doctrines, obscene publications and exhibitions, and indecent shows. � The penalty of prision mayor or a fine ranging from six thousand to twelve thousand pesos, or both such imprisonment and fine, shall be imposed upon:

1. Those who shall publicly expound or proclaim doctrines openly contrary to public morals;

2.(a) The authors of obscene literature, published with their knowledge in any form; the editors publishing such literature; and the owners/operators of the establishment selling the same;

(b) Those who, in theaters, fairs, cinematographs or any other place, exhibit indecent or immoral plays, scenes, acts or shows, it being understood that the obscene literature or indecent or immoral plays, scenes or shows, whether live or in film, which are prescribed by virtue hereof, shall include those which: (1) glorify criminals or condone crimes; (2) serve no other purpose but to satisfy the market for violence, lust or pornography; (3) offend any race or religion; (4) tend to abet traffic in and use of prohibited drugs; and (5) are contrary to law, public order, morals, and good customs, established policies, lawful orders, decrees and edicts;

3. Those who shall sell, give away or exhibit films, prints, engravings, sculptures, or literature which are offensive to morals.

The pertinent portions of Ordinance No. 7780,4 on the other hand, read as follows:

Sec. 2. Definition of Terms: As used in this ordinance, the terms:

A. Obscene shall refer to any material or act that is indecent, erotic, lewd or offensive, or contrary to morals, good customs or religious beliefs, principles or doctrines, or to any material or act that tends to corrupt or deprive the human mind, or is calculated to excite impure imagination or arouse prurient interest, or is unfit to be seen or heard, or which violates the proprieties of language or behavior, regardless of the motive of the printer, publisher, seller, distributor, performer or author of such act or material, such as but not limited to:

1. Printing, showing, depicting or describing sexual acts;

2. Printing, showing, depicting or describing children in sexual acts;

3. Printing, showing, depicting or describing completely nude human bodies; and

4. Printing, showing, depicting or describing the human sexual organs or the female breasts.

B. Pornographic or pornography shall refer to such objects or subjects of photography, movies, music records, video and VHS tapes, laser discs, billboards, television, magazines, newspapers, tabloids, comics and live shows calculated to excite or stimulate sexual drive or impure imagination, regardless of motive of the author thereof, such as, but not limited to the following:

1. Performing live sexual acts in whatever form;

2. Those other than live performances showing, depicting or describing sexual acts;

3. Those showing, depicting or describing children in sex acts;

4. Those showing, depicting or describing completely nude human body, or showing, depicting or describing the human sexual organs or the female breasts.

C. Materials shall refer to magazines, newspapers, tabloids, comics, writings, photographs, drawings, paintings, billboards, decals, movies, music records, video and VHS tapes, laser discs, and similar matters.

Sec. 3. Prohibited Acts The printing, publishing, distribution, circulation, sale and exhibition of obscene and pornographic acts and materials and the production, public showing and viewing of video and VHS tapes, laser discs, theatrical or stage and other live performances and private showing for public consumption, whether for free or for a fee, of pornographic pictures as herein defined are hereby prohibited within the City of Manila and accordingly penalized as provided herein.

Sec. 4. Penalty Clause: any person violating this ordinance shall be punished as follows:

  1. For printing, publishing, distribution or circulation of obscene or pornographic materials; the production or showing of obscene movies, television shows, stage and other live performances; for producing or renting obscene vidoes and VHS tapes, laser discs, for viewing obscene movies, television shows, videos and VHS tapes, laser discs or stage and other live performances; and for performing obscene act on stage and other live performances � imprisonment of one (1) year or fine of five thousand pesos (P5,000.00), or both, at the discretion of the court.
  2. For the selling of obscene or pornographic materials � imprisonment of not less than six (6) months nor more than one (1) year or a fine of not less than one (1) thousand (P1,000.00), nor more than three thousand (P3,000.00) pesos.

Provided, that in case the offender is a juridical person, the President and the members of the board of directors, shall be held criminally liable; Provided, further, that in case of conviction, all pertinent permits and licenses issued by the City of Government to the offender shall be confiscated in favor of the City Government for destruction; Provided, furthermore, that in case the offender is a minor and unemancipated and unable to pay the fine, his parents or guardian shall be liable to pay such fine; provided, finally, that this ordinance shall not apply to materials printed, distributed, exhibited, sold, filmed, rented, viewed, or produced by reason of or in connection with or in furtherance of science and scientific research and medical or medically related art, profession, and for educational purposes (Emphasis supplied; underscoring in the original.)

Among those charged were petitioners Allan Madrilejos (Madrilejos), Allan Hernandez (Hernandez), and Glenda Gil (Gil), Editor-in-Chief, Managing Editor, and Circulation Manager, respectively, of For Him Magazine Philippines (FHM Philippines), with Lance Y. Gokongwei and Lisa Gokongwei-Cheng, Chairman and President, respectively, of Summit Publishing, FHM Philippines' publisher.5

On July 24, 2008, the Office of the City Prosecutor of Manila (OCP Manila) issued a subpoena requiring petitioners to submit, within 10 days from notice, their counter-affidavit, among others, and appear before the proper authorities to testify under oath or answer clarificatory questions.6 On August 14, 2008, petitioners appeared before respondent Lourdes Gatdula (Gatdula). They were informed of the creation of a panel of prosecutors, composed of respondent Gatdula with co-respondents Agnes Lopez (Lopez) and Hilarion Buban (Buban), to conduct the preliminary investigation in the case. When petitioners requested for additional time within which to study the complaint and prepare their respective counter-affidavits, preliminary investigation was again reset to August 28, 2008.

Instead of filing their respective counter-affidavits, however, petitioners, prior to the August 28, 2008 hearing, filed an urgent motion for bill of particulars. According to petitioners: the joint complaint-affidavit failed to apprise them of the specific acts they allegedly committed as to enable them to adequately and properly prepare their counter-affidavits; since all seven publishers were charged in the same case, it would appear that they were being charged as conspirators; yet, the specific acts supposedly committed by petitioners in all the other publications were not indicated in the joint complaint-affidavit with such particularity as to allow them to know and understand the accusations against them.7 This was opposed by complainants.8

Meanwhile, on September 24, 2008, and pending the resolution of their urgent motion for bill of particulars, petitioners filed the present action "on the ground that Ordinance No. 7780 is invalid on its face for being patently offensive to their constitutional right to free speech and expression, repugnant to due process and privacy rights, and violative of the constitutionally established principle of separation of church and state."9

In their comment, respondents urged the Court to dismiss the petition on the grounds that: (1) the petition does not allege that the OCP Manila is conducting the preliminary investigation proceedings without or in excess of its jurisdiction; (2) criminal prosecutions cannot be enjoined; (3) petitioners are not the proper parties to challenge the validity of Ordinance No. 7780; and (4) Ordinance No. 7780 enjoys the presumption of constitutionality.10

On November 11, 2013, petitioners informed the Court that the OCP Manila had already issued a Resolution dated June 25, 2013, which dismissed the charges for violation of Article 200 of the RPC and Ordinance No. 7780 but nevertheless ordered the filing of criminal informations for violation of Article 201(3) of the RPC. The pertinent portion of the Resolution reads as follows:

x x x x

If the act or acts of the offender are punished under another article of the Revised Penal Code, Article 200 is not applicable. Considering that the subject matter of the complaint is the obscene publication under Article 201 of the Revised Penal Code, [petitioners] should not be liable for Grave Scandal; hence, the complaint for Grave Scandal should be dismissed.

On the other hand, considering that the subject matter covered by the city ordinance of Manila is likewise the printing, publication, sale, distribution and exhibition of obscene and pornographic acts and materials, it is already absorbed in Article 201 of the Revised Penal Code and the complaint for violation of the city ordinance should likewise be dismissed.

x x x x

Any person who has something to do with the printing, publication, circulation and sale of the obscene publications should be made liable. Hence, except for respondents Eugenio Lopez III, who was charged being the Chairman of the Board of ABS-CBN Publishing, Inc., Ernesto M. Lopez, being the President of the said publishing company, Lance Y. Gokongwei and Lisa Y. Gokongwei-Cheng, being the Chairman of the Board and President, respectively of Summit Publishing, their actual knowledge, consent, and/or participation in the obscene publications not having been clearly established by the evidence, said respondents should not be made liable thereto. However, all the other respondents being persons responsible for the publication, circulation and sale of the subject obscene publications should be made liable thereto.

All the other respondents, either being the Editor-in-Chief, Managing Director, General Manager or Circulation Manager of their respective publishing companies should be made liable for Violation of Section 201 paragraph 2(a) of the Revised Penal Code.

x x x x11

The criminal case against petitioners for violation of Article 201(3) was docketed as Criminal Case No. 13-30084 and assigned to Branch 16 of the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Manila.

Despite the dismissal of the charge for violation of Ordinance No. 7780, petitioners did not move to withdraw the present action, adamant that the Ordinance "violates the constitutional guarantees to free speech and expression, violates the right to due process, and offends privacy rights."12 On April 26, 2016 and upon petitioners' motion, Criminal Case No. 13-30084 was ordered dismissed with prejudice.13

We dismiss the petition on the following grounds:

(1) The dismissal of the criminal charges against petitioners for violation of the provisions of Ordinance No. 778014 has rendered this case moot and academic; and

(2) Ordinance No. 7780, an anti-obscenity law, cannot be facially attacked on the ground of overbreadth because obscenity is unprotected speech.

I

In light of the dismissal with prejudice of all criminal charges against petitioners, this case has clearly been rendered moot and academic. A moot and academic case is one that ceases to present a justiciable controversy by virtue of supervening events, so that a declaration thereon would be of no practical use or value. Generally, courts decline jurisdiction over such case or dismiss it on ground of mootness.15 This pronouncement traces its current roots from the express constitutional rule under paragraph 2 of Section 1, Article VIII of the 1987 Constitution that "[j]udicial power includes the duty of the courts of justice to settle actual controversies involving rights which are legally demandable and enforceable x x x."16 Judicial power, in other words, must be based on an actual justiciable controversy at whose core is the existence of a case involving rights which are legally demandable and enforceable. Without this feature, courts have no jurisdiction to act.17

True, exceptions to the general principle on moot and academic have been developed and recognized through the years. At present, courts will decide cases, otherwise moot and academic, if it feels that: (a) there is a grave violation of the Constitution; (b) the situation is of exceptional character and paramount public interest is involved; (c) the constitutional issue raised requires formulation of controlling principles to guide the bench, the bar, and the public; and (d) the case is capable of repetition yet evading review.18 Further discussion will bear out that none of these exceptions obtains here.

It has been advanced that a ruling, however, on the merits of the petition must still be had under the fourth exception to the doctrine on mootness since the Ordinance remains valid within the City of Manila, and as such, the dismissal of the criminal charges against petitioners does not mean that no other person will be charged or penalized under it. This is not, however, how the exception applies.

The "capable of repetition, yet evading review" exception to the mootness doctrine was first laid down by the United States (US) Supreme Court in the 1911 case of Southern Pacific Terminal Co. v. Interstate Commerce Commission.19 There, a challenge was made against an Order of the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) prohibiting the terminal from granting a particular shipper preferential wharfage charges. By the time the US Supreme Court was ready to decide the case, the cease and desist order, which had a validity period of only two years, had already expired. In rejecting the motion to dismiss the case on the ground of mootness, the Court held that:

In the case at bar the order of the Commission may to some extent (the exact extent it is unnecessary to define) be the basis of further proceedings. But there is a broader consideration. The question involved in the orders of the Interstate Commerce Commission are usually continuing (as are manifestly those in the case at bar), and these considerations ought not to be, as they might be, defeated, by short-term orders, capable of repetition, yet evading review, and at one time the government, and at another time the carriers, have their rights determined by the Commission without a chance of redress.

Southern Pacific Terminal Co. was first cited in Our jurisdiction in the 1997 case of Alunan III v. Mirasol.20 There, the Court held that the question of "whether the COMELEC can validly vest in the DILG the control and supervision of SK (Sangguniang Kabataan) elections is likely to arise in connection with every SK election and yet the question may not be decided before the date of such elections."21Alunan cited, among other cases,22Roe v. Wade,23 where the petitioner, a pregnant woman, brought suit in 1970 to challenge the anti-abortion statutes of Texas and Georgia on the ground that she had a constitutional right to terminate her pregnancy. Though the case was not decided until three years later, long after the termination of petitioner's 1970 pregnancy, the US Supreme Court refused to dismiss the case as moot:

[W]hen, as here, pregnancy is a significant fact in the litigation, the normal 266-day human gestation period is so short that the pregnancy will come to term before the usual appellate process is complete. If that termination makes a case moot, pregnancy litigation seldom will survive much beyond the trial stage, and appellate review will be effectively denied. Our law should not be that rigid. Pregnancy often comes more than once to the same woman, and in the general population, if man is to survive, it will always be with us. Pregnancy provides a classic justification for a conclusion of nonmootness. It truly could be "capable of repetition, yet evading review."24

Over the years, however, the US Supreme Court has increasingly limited the application of the "capable of repetition, yet evading review" exception. Beginning in the 1975 case of Sosna v. Iowa,25 a class action challenging the Iowa durational residency requirement for divorce, the US Supreme Court held:

In Southern Pacific Terminal Co. v. ICC, 219 U. S. 498 (1911), where a challenged ICC order had expired, and in Moore v. Ogilvie, 394 U. S. 814 (1969), where petitioners sought to be certified as candidates in an election that had already been held, the Court expressed its concern that the defendants in those cases could be expected again to act contrary to the rights asserted by the particular named plaintiffs involved, and in each case the controversy was held not to be moot because the questions presented were "capable of repetition, yet evading review.'' That situation is not presented in appellant's case, for the durational residency requirement enforced by Iowa does not at this time bar her from the Iowa courts. Unless we were to speculate that she may move from Iowa, only to return and later seek a divorce within one year from her return, the concerns that prompted this Court's holdings in Southern Pacific and Moore do not govern appellant's situation. But even though appellees in this proceeding might not again enforce the Iowa durational residency requirement against appellant, it is clear that they will enforce it against those persons in the class that appellant sought to represent and that the District Court certified. In this sense the case before us is one in which state officials will undoubtedly continue to enforce the challenged statute and yet, because of the passage of time, no single challenger will remain subject to its restrictions for the period necessary to see such a lawsuit to its conclusion.26 (Emphasis and underscoring supplied.)

In the subsequent case of Weinstein, et al. v. Bradford,27 the US Supreme Court rejected a plea to resolve an issue alleged to be "capable of repetition, yet evading review."28 The Court found that the suit did not involve a class action�as in fact the District Court refused Bradford's earlier motion to have it declared as such�and that there is no demonstrated probability that Bradford will again be subjected to the parole system. Thus, following Sosna, "the capable of repetition, yet evading review" exception was limited to the situation where two elements must concur:

(1) the challenged action was in its duration too short to be fully litigated prior to its cessation or expiration, and (2) there was a reasonable expectation that the same complaining party would be subjected to the same action again. The instant case, not a class action, clearly does not satisfy the latter element. While petitioners will continue to administer the North Carolina parole system with respect to those who at any given moment are subject to their jurisdiction, there is no demonstrated probability that respondent will again be among that number.29 (Emphasis supplied.)

The requirement that these two elements must concur has continuously been reiterated in a number of later US cases.30

We would also adopt the two-requirement rule in this jurisdiction, beginning with Justice Brion's Concurring and Dissenting Opinion in the En Banc Decision in Province of North Cotabato v. Government of the Republic of the Philippines Peace Panel on Ancestral Domain (GRP)31 Dissenting, Justice Brion wrote:

Finally, let me clarify that the likelihood that a matter will be repeated does not mean that there will be no meaningful opportunity for judicial review so that an exception to mootness should be recognized. For a case to dodge dismissal for mootness under the "capable of repetition yet evading review" exception, two requisites must be satisfied: (1) the duration of the challenged action must be too short to be fully litigated prior to its cessation or expiration; and (2) there must be reasonable expectation that the same complaining party will be subjected to the same action again.

The time constraint that justified Roe v. Wade, to be sure, does not inherently exist under the circumstances of the present petition so that judicial review will be evaded in a future litigation. As this Court has shown in this case, we can respond as fast as the circumstances require. I see nothing that would bar us from making a concrete ruling in the future should the exercise of our judicial power, particularly the exercise of the power of judicial review, be justified.32 (Citations omitted.)

Two years later, the Court En Banc would categorically adopt th two-requirement rule in Pormento v. Estrada,33 to wit:

While there are exceptions to this rule, none of the exceptions applies in this case. What may most probably come to mind is the "capable of repetition yet evading review" exception. However, the said exception applies only where the following two circumstances concur: (1) the challenged action is in its duration too short to be fully litigated prior to its cessation or expiration and (2) there is a reasonable expectation that the same complaining party would be subjected to the same action again. The second of these requirements is absent in this case. It is highly speculative and hypothetical that petitioner would be subjected to the same action again. It is highly doubtful if he can demonstrate a substantial likelihood that he will "suffer a harm" alleged in his petition.34 (Emphasis supplied.)

This ruling in Pormento would be affirmed in the later cases of International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications, Inc. v. Greenpeace Southeast Asia (Philippines)35 and Philippine Association of Detective and Protective Agency Operators v. COMELEC.36

What has developed and prevailed over time, therefore, is a consensus that the "capable of repetition, yet evading review" exception to mootness is not meant to be applied literally. In the cases where the exception was correctly applied, time constraint was a significant factor. As the US Supreme Court would later caution in Murphy v. Hunt,37 a mere physical or theoretical possibility was never sufficient to satisfy the test stated in Weinstein.38 If this were true, virtually any matter of short duration would be reviewable.39 There must be a "reasonable expectation" or a "demonstrated probability" that the same controversy will recur involving the same complaining party.40

To employ the exception here would be to disregard the two-requirement rule laid down in Weinstein. The often cited cases of David v. Macapagal-Arroyo41 and Belgica v. Ochoa, Jr.42 also do not find application because the circumstances in these cases differ from the circumstances here.

First. David involved suits challenging Proclamation No. 1017 and General Order No. 5 issued by then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo declaring a state of national emergency and calling out the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) to prevent and suppress acts of terrorism and lawless violence in the country. Despite the lifting of said state of emergency one week later, the Court refused to dismiss the case and justified its assumption of jurisdiction over the matter as follows:

The "moot and academic" principle is not a magical formula that can automatically dissuade the courts in resolving a case. Courts will decide cases, otherwise moot and academic, if: first, there is a grave violation of the Constitution; second, the exceptional character of the situation and the paramount public interest is involved; third, when constitutional issue raised requires formulation of controlling principles to guide the bench, the bar, and the public; and fourth, the case is capable of repetition yet evading review.

All the foregoing exceptions are present here and justify this Court's assumption of jurisdiction over the instant petitions. Petitioners alleged that the issuance of PP 1017 and G.O. No. 5 violates the Constitution. There is no question that the issues being raised affect the public's interest, involving as they do the people's basic rights to freedom of expression, of assembly and of the press. Moreover, the Court has the duty to formulate guiding and controlling constitutional precepts, doctrines or rules. It has the symbolic function of educating the bench and the bar, and in the present petitions, the military and the police, on the extent of the protection given by constitutional guarantees. And lastly, respondents' contested actions are capable of repetition. Certainly, the petitions are subject to judicial review.43

As observed by Justice Brion, David properly applied the principle owing to the history of "emergencies" which had attended the administration of President Macapagal-Arroyo since she assumed office. Given such history, it was not far-fetched for the then President to again make a similar declaration in the future, or to possibly "act contrary to the rights asserted by the particular named plaintiffs involved."44

In Belgica, on the other hand, the Court rejected the view that th constitutionality issues related to the assailed Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) in the 2013 General Appropriations Act had been rendered moot and academic by the reforms undertaken by the Executive Department and former President Benigno Simeon S. Aquino III's declaration that he had already "abolished the PDAF."45 The Court held that the application of the "capable of repetition, yet evading review" exception was called for because the preparation and passage of the national budget is, by constitutional imprimatur, an affair of annual occurence:

The relevance of the issues before the Court does not cease with the passage of a PDAF free budget for 2014. The evolution of the "Pork Barrel System," by its multifarious iterations throughout the course of history, lends a semblance of truth to petitioners' claim that "the same dog will just resurface wearing a different collar." In Sanlakas v. Executive Secretary, the government had already backtracked on a previous course of action yet the Court used the "capable of repetition but evading review" exception in order "to prevent similar questions from re-emerging." The situation similarly holds true to these cases. Indeed, the myriad of issues underlying the manner in which certain public funds are spent, if not resolved at this most opportune time, are capable of repetition and hence, must not evade judicial review.46

In this case, it must be noted that petitioners' purpose in filing the present action was to stop the conduct of the preliminary investigation into their alleged violation of an unconstitutional statute�a process that concludes with an Order whether or not to indict petitioners. Relatedly, and as it happened in this case, such an Order, if and when issued, is not of such inherently short duration that it will lapse before petitioners are able to see it challenged before a higher prosecutorial authority (i.e., the Department of Justice) or the courts. In fact, and unless reversed by the Secretary of Justice or by the courts, an order to indict does not lapse. Thus, the time constraint that justified the application of the exception in Southern Pacific Terminal Co. (two-year validity of an ICC cease and desist order) and Roe (266-day human gestation period) does not exist here.47

Furthermore, when the criminal charges against petitioners were dismissed with prejudice, they can no longer be refiled without offending the constitutional proscription against double jeopardy. Petitioners have also failed to demonstrate a reasonable likelihood that they will once again be hailed before the OCP Manila for the same or another violation of Ordinance No. 7780.48 It should be noted that the OCP Manila did not even question the dismissal of the case. There is likewise no showing that the pastors and preachers who initiated the complaint here filed, or have threatened to file, new charges against petitioners, over new material published in FHM Philippines alleged to be obscene, after the case below was dismissed as early as July 19, 2016.49

II

Even granting, for the sake of argument, that petitioners' case has not been mooted by the dismissal of the charge for violation of Ordinance No. 7780 against them, they have still failed to establish a cause of action to warrant a ruling in their favor.

A

Petitioners challenge the constitutionality of Ordinance No. 7780, alleging that it defines the terms "obscene" and "pornography" in such a way that a very broad range of speech and expression are placed beyond the protection of the Constitution, thus violating the constitutional guarantee to free speech and expression.50 Specifically, petitioners take issue with the "expansive" language of Ordinance No. 7780 which, petitioners claim, paved the way for complainants, a group of pastors and preachers, to impose their view of what is "unfit to be seen or heard" and "violate[s] the proprieties of language and behavior."51

Petitioners' arguments are facial attacks against Ordinance No. 7780 on the ground of overbreadth. As will be shown, however, the overbreadth doctrine finds special and limited application only to free speech cases. The present petition does not involve a free speech case; it stemmed, rather, from an obscenity prosecution. As both this Court and the US Supreme Court have consistently held, obscenity is not protected speech. No court has recognized a fundamental right to create, sell, or distribute obscene material. Thus, a facial overbreadth challenge is improper as against an anti-obscenity statute.

Associate Justice Vicente V. Mendoza explained in his Separate Opinion in Estrada v. Sandiganbayan52 why a facial overbreadth challenge is limited to cases involving protected speech:

A facial challenge is allowed to be made to a vague statute and to one which is overbroad because of possible "chilling effect" upon protected speech. The theory is that "[w]hen statutes regulate or proscribe speech and no readily apparent construction suggests itself as a vehicle for rehabilitating the statutes in a single prosecution, the transcendent value to all society of constitutionally protected expression is deemed to justify allowing attacks on overly broad statutes with no requirement that the person making the attack demonstrate that his own conduct could not be regulated by a statute drawn with narrow specificity." The possible harm to society in permitting some unprotected speech to go unpunished is outweighed by the possibility that the protected speech of others may be deterred and perceived grievances left to fester because of possible inhibitory effects of overly broad statutes.

This rationale does not apply to penal statutes. Criminal statutes have general in terrorem effect resulting from their very existence, and, if facial challenge is allowed for this reason alone, the State may well be prevented from enacting laws against socially harmful conduct. In the area of criminal law, the law cannot take chances as in the area of free speech.

The overbreadth and vagueness doctrines then have special application only to free speech cases. They are inapt for testing the validity of penal statutes. As the US Supreme Court put it, in an opinion by Chief Justice Rehnquist, "we have not recognized an 'overbreadth' doctrine outside the limited context of the First Amendment." In Broadrick v. Oklahoma, the Court ruled that "claims of facial overbreadth have been entertained in cases involving statutes which, by their terms, seek to regulate only spoken words" and, again, that "overbreadth claims, if entertained at all, have been curtailed when invoked against ordinary criminal laws that are sought to be applied to protected conduct." For this reason, it has been held that "a facial challenge to a legislative Act is ... the most difficult challenge to mount successfully, since the challenger must establish that no set of circumstances exists under which the Act would be valid." x x x

In sum, the doctrines of strict scrutiny, overbreadth, and vagueness are analytical tools developed for testing "on their faces" statutes in free speech cases or, as they are called in American law, First Amendment cases. They cannot be made to do service when what is involved is a criminal statute. With respect to such statute, the established rule is that "one to whom application of a statute is constitutional will not be heard to attack the statute on the ground that impliedly it might also be taken as applying to other persons or other situations in which its application might be unconstitutional."53 x x x (Emphasis supplied.)

Justice Mendoza's Opinion has since become the controlling rule in cases where the validity of criminal statutes is challenged on the ground of vagueness or overbreadth. Quoting it at length, this Court in Romualdez v. Sandiganbayan54 held that:

[A]n "on-its-face" invalidation of criminal statutes would result in a mass acquittal of parties whose cases may not have even reached the courts. Such invalidation would constitute a departure from the usual requirement of "actual case and controversy" and permit decisions to be made in a sterile abstract context having no factual concreteness.

x x x x

For this reason, generally disfavored is an on-its-face invalidation of statutes, described as a "manifestly strong medicine" to be employed "sparingly and only as a last resort." In determining the constitutionality of a statute, therefore, its provisions that have allegedly been violated must be examined in the light of the conduct with which the defendant has been charged.55

In Romualdez v. Comelec,56 the Court again relied on the Opinion of Justice Mendoza in Estrada, reaffirming that it remains good law:

The rule established in our jurisdiction is, only statutes on free speech, religious freedom, and other fundamental rights may be facially challenged. Under no case may ordinary penal statutes be subjected to a facial challenge. The rationale is obvious. If a facial challenge to a penal statute is permitted, the prosecution of crimes maybe hampered. No prosecution would be possible. A strong criticism against employing a facial challenge in the case of penal statutes, if the same is allowed, would effectively go against the grain of the doctrinal requirement of an existing and concrete controversy before judicial power may be appropriately exercised. A facial challenge against a penal statute is, at best, amorphous and speculative. It would, essentially, force the court to consider third parties who are not before it.57

B

Ordinance No. 7780 is a local legislation which criminalizes obscenity. Obscenity is unprotected speech. This rule is doctrinal both her and in the US.

It was in 1942 when the US Supreme Court first held in the landmark case of Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire58 that the lewd and the obscene are not protected speech and therefore falls outside the protection of the First Amendment, thus:

Allowing the broadest scope to the language and purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment, it is well understood that the right of free speech is not absolute at all times and under all circumstances. There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or "fighting" words � those which, by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.

Beginning from Roth v. United States59 (implicit in the history of the First Amendment is the rejection of obscenity) to Miller v. California,60 (this much has been categorically settled by the Court, that obscene material is unprotected by the First Amendment), the US Supreme Court has invariably held that obscene materials do not come under the protection of the First Amendment. This doctrine continues to be valid to this day, as exemplified in the later case of New York v. Ferber,61 where the US Supreme Court noted that "[i]n Chaplinsky[,] x x x the Court laid the foundation for the excision of obscenity from the realm of constitutionally protected expression." In Ferber, the Court not only upheld the constitutionality of the child pornography statute of New York, it also allowed the States greater leeway in the regulation of pornographic depictions of children by essentially holding that the test for child pornography is lower than the obscenity standard enunciated in Miller.62

As earlier stated, this Court has long accepted Chaplinsky's analysis that obscenity is unprotected speech. In 1985, We held, in the case of Gonzalez v. Katigbak,63 that the law on freedom of expression frowns on obscenity and rightly so.64 The Court quoted with approval Roth v. United States,65 which, in turn, cited Chaplinsky:

All ideas having even the slightest redeeming social importance�unorthodox ideas, controversial ideas, even ideas hateful to the prevailing climate of opinion�have the full protection of the guaranties, unless excludable because they encroach upon the limited area of more important interests. But implicit in the history of the First Amendment is the rejection of obscenity as utterly without redeeming social importance. This rejection for that reason is mirrored in the universal judgment that obscenity should be restrained, reflected in the international agreement of over 50 nations, in the obscenity laws of all of the 48 States, and in the 20 obscenity laws enacted by the Congress from 1842 to 1956.66

In Pita v. Court of Appeals,67 the Court declared that "[u]ndoubtedly, 'immoral' lore or literature comes within the ambit of expression, although not its protection."68 In Soriano v. Laguardia,69 the Court reiterated that:

Indeed, as noted in Chaplinsky v. State of New Hampshire, "there are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech that are harmful, the prevention and punishment of which has never been thought to raise any Constitutional problems." In net effect, some forms of speech are not protected by the Constitution, meaning that restrictions on unprotected speech may be decreed without running afoul of the freedom of speech clause. A speech would fall under the unprotected type if the utterances involved are "no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step of truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality." Being of little or no value, there is, in dealing with or regulating them, no imperative call for the application of the clear and present danger rule or the balancing-of-interest test, they being essentially modes of weighing competing values, or, with like effect, determining which of the clashing interests should be advanced.

Petitioner asserts that his utterance in question is a protected form of speech.

The Court rules otherwise. It has been established in this jurisdiction that unprotected speech or low-value expression refers to libelous statements, obscenity or pornography, false or misleading advertisement, insulting or "fighting words," i.e., those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of peace and expression endangering national security.70 (Emphasis supplied.)

As this Court has recognized, laws that regulate or proscribe classes of speech falling beyond the ambit of constitutional protection cannot, therefore, be subject to facial invalidation because there is no "transcendent value to all society" that would justify such attack.71

This is not to suggest, however, that these laws are absolutely invulnerable to constitutional attack.

A litigant who stands charged under a law that regulates unprotected speech can still mount a challenge that a statute is unconstitutional as it is applied to him or her. In such a case, courts are left to examine the provisions of the law allegedly violated in light of the conduct with which the litigant has been charged.72 If the litigant prevails, the courts carve away the unconstitutional aspects of the law by invalidating its improper applications on a case to case basis.73

C

Under the circumstances, the proper recourse for petitioners would have been to go to trial to allow the RTC, as the trier of fact, to judicially determine whether the materials complained of as obscene were indeed proscribed under the language of Ordinance No. 7780. As part of their defense, petitioners can probably argue for the adoption of the Miller standards, which requires the trier of fact to ascertain:

(a) whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards" would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.74

Thereafter, petitioners can argue that, applying said standards to the specific material over which they were being prosecuted, they should be acquitted.

On the other hand, the trial court, assuming it adopts Miller, will then have to receive evidence and render opinion on such issues as to: (a) who is the "average" Filipino; (b) what is the "community" against which "contemporary standards" are to be measured; (c) whether the subject material appeals to the "prurient" interest; (d) whether the material depicts "patently offensive" sexual conduct; and (e) whether the material "taken as a whole" has serious value.

The decision of the RTC, whether or not in favor of petitioners, may then be brought up on appeal to the Court of Appeals (CA), whose decision may later on be brought to this Court for review. Such is the process observed by the US Supreme Court in all of the obscenity cases cited by the ponencia which led to the adoption of the Miller standards in the US. The cases, including Miller, all involved appellate review conducted with the benefit of a full record. To stress, none of those cases involved a facial attack of the challenged government regulation on the ground of overbreadth.

Hence, to grant the petition would be to declare Ordinance No. 7780 (and by implication Article 201[3] of the RPC)75 unconstitutional in a complete vacuum. To recall, petitioners were charged for selling or printing alleged obscene materials appearing in 14 pages from four different issues of their magazines. While allegedly marked as annexes of the joint complaint-affidavit, it does not even appear, however, that said pages were attached by petitioners as annexes to their petition. There would thus be no basis even for this Court to rule on the constitutionality of the Ordinance as applied to petitioners.

Indeed, the process We suggest here may take longer to resolve than a direct recourse to this Court on an overbreadth challenge. Nevertheless, such is the process required of Us by the Constitution. We must be mindful that the power of judicial review is not boundless; it is limited by the actual case and controversy requirement and the hierarchy of courts.

Equally important, under the separation of powers ordained by the Constitution, this Court is vested only with judicial power, legislative power being entrusted exclusively with the Congress. Were We to declare Ordinance No. 7780 unconstitutional in this case, and impose the Miller standards on Congress and the City of Manila, We may be faulted (and not without reason) for engaging in judicial legislation.

We stress at this point that the Court in Miller did not impose that the standards it laid down be legislated. On the contrary, the Court there was very careful not to overstep its judicial boundaries:

We emphasize that it is not our function to propose regulatory schemes for the States. That must await their concrete legislative efforts. It is possible, however, to give a few plain examples of what a state statute could define for regulation under part (b) of the standard announced in this opinion, supra:

(a) Patently offensive representations or descriptions of ultimate sexual acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated.

(b) Patently offensive representations or descriptions of masturbation, excretory functions, and lewd exhibition of the genitals.76 (Emphasis supplied.)

In fact, Miller explicitly held that the obscene conduct depicted or described in materials which is sought to be regulated "must be specifically defined by the applicable state law, as written or authoritatively construed." The Court in Miller, through Chief Justice Burger, added that it was not holding, "as Mr. Justice Brennan intimates, that all States other than Oregon must now enact new obscenity statutes. Other existing state statutes, as construed heretofore or hereafter, may well be adequate." Indeed, it does not appear that US Federal laws on obscenity have been amended subsequent to the promulgation of Miller to suit or reflect said Decision's exact language.77 Accordingly, whether a material is obscene or not is still for the Court to decide as it applies or construes a specific statute in a particular case.

Finally, the path followed by the Court in adopting the "actual malice" rule in libel law is instructive. In 1964, the US Supreme Court laid down its precedential ruling in the case of New York Times v. Sullivan.78 There, the US Court held that a public official may not successfully sue for libel unless the official can prove actual malice, which was defined as with knowledge that the statement was false or with reckless disregard as to whether or not it was true.

The Philippines eventually adopted the New York Times rule, but only after an actual case involving a criminal prosecution for libel is presented to the Court under the regular appeals process. Such an opportunity presented itself in 1999 when the Court, thru Associate Justice Vicente V. Mendoza,79 categorically adopted the New York Times rule as applied to the actual facts of the case and as part of the Decision's ratio decidendi. This is the proper precedent to follow if the Court were to consider adopting the Miller standard in our jurisdiction. Thus, and until the proper case presents itself, prudence dictates that the Court should exercise judicial restraint.

WHEREFORE, the petition is DISMISSED.

SO ORDERED.

Bersamin, C.J., On official business.
Peralta, Caguioa, A. Reyes, Jr., J. Reyes, Jr., Hernando, Lazaro-Javier, Inting, and Zalameda, JJ., concur.
Carpio, Acting C.J.,* I join the dissent of J. Marvic Leonen.
Perlas-Bernabe, J., Please see Dissenting Opinion.
Leonen, J., I dissent. see separate opinion.
Gesmundo, J., On official business.
Carandang, J., I join the dissent of J. MVF Leonen.




NOTICE OF JUDGMENT

Sirs/Mesdames:

Please take notice that on September 24, 2019 a Decision, copy attached herewith, was rendered by the Supreme Court in the above-entitled case, the original of which was received by this Office on January 14, 2020 at 9:50 a.m.

Very truly yours,

(SGD.) EDGAR O. ARICHETA
Clerk of Court

Endnotes:


* Acting Chief Justice Per Special Order No. 2703.

1Rollo, p. 4.

2Id. at 44.

3Id.

4Rollo, p. 39.

5Id. at 44-45.

6Id. at 50.

7Id. at 428.

8 Petitioners' motion was set for hearing on the next scheduled date for preliminary investigation, and on that date, counsel for complainants asked for time to file their comment or opposition. The hearing for the submission of counter-affidavits was thus reset to September 18, 2008, without prejudice to any ruling the panel may make on the pending incident; id. at 7; at the hearing of September 18, 2008, the motion for bill of particulars not having been resolved, the filing of the counter-affidavits was again reset to October 9, 2008; id. at 7-8, counsel for complainants then filed an opposition to the urgent motion for bill of particulars with counter motion, stating that except for respondents Gloria Galuno and Edwin Alcala, all the other respondents should be deemed to have waived their right to file their counter-affidavits for their failure to file them despite two opportunities to submit. The opposition also argued that the motion was dilatory and prohibited under the rules on preliminary investigation; id. at 428.

9Id. at 8.

10Id. at 352-368.

11Id. at 438-439.

12Id. at 422-423.

13Id. at 446.

14Id. at 39-41; charges for violation of Article 201(3) of the Revised Penal Code have also been dismissed with prejudice.

15David v. Macapagal-Arroyo, G.R. No. 171396, May 3, 2006, 489 SCRA 160, 213-214. Citations omitted.

16 Concurring and dissenting opinion of Justice Arturo Brion in The Province of North Cotabato v. The Government of the Republic of the Philippines Peace Panel on Ancestral Domain (GRP), G.R. No. 183591, October 14, 2008, 568 SCRA 402, 702.

17Id.

18David v. Macapagal-Arroyo, supra note 15 at 164. Citations omitted.

19 219 U.S. 498 (1911).

20 G.R. No. 108399, July 31, 1997, 276 SCRA 501.

21Id. at 509.

22 Also cited were Moore v. Ogilvie, 394 U.S. 814 (1969), which involved a challenge to signature requirement on nominating petitions which the US Supreme Court had yet to decide before the election was held, and Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U.S. 330 (1972), where the US Supreme Court decided merits of a challenge to durational residency requirement for voting even though Blumstein had in the meantime satisfied that requirement.

23 410 U.S. 113 (1973).

24Id. at 125.

25 419 U.S. 393 (1975).

26Id. at 399-400.

27 423 U.S. 147 (1975).

28Id. at 148; Bradford sued the members of the Parole Board claiming that he was constitutionally entitled to certain procedural rights in connection with the latter's consideration of his eligibility for parole. Petitioners Weinstein, et al. brought the case before the Supreme Court after the Court of Appeals ruled in Bradford's favor. At the time, however, Bradford had already been granted parole.

29Id. at 149.

30Murphy v. Hunt, 455 U.S. 478 (1982); Lewis v. Continental Bank Corp., 494 U.S. 472 (1990); Spencer v. Kemna, 523 U.S. 1 (1998); United States v. Seminole Nation, 316 U.S. 286 (1942); Hain v. Mullin, 327 F.3d 1177, 1180 (10th Cir. 2003).

31 G.R. No. 183591, October 14, 2008, 568 SCRA 402, 720. This case involved several suits filed to, among others, prohibit the scheduled signing of the Memorandum of Agreement on the Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) between the Government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The ponencia held that although certain developments (such as the non-signing of the MOA-AD and the eventual dissolution of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines [GRP] panel) have mooted the case, there was a "reasonable expectation that petitioners will again be subjected to the same problem in the future as respondents' actions are capable of repetition, in another or any form," hence, the exception to mootness applies.

32Id.

33 G.R. No. 191988, August 31, 2010, 629 SCRA 530.

34Id. at 533-534.

35 G.R. No. 209271, July 26, 2016, 798 SCRA 250, 287-288. The Court said:

At this point, the Court discerns that there are two (2) factors to be considered before a case is deemed one capable of repetition yet evading review: (1) the challenged action was in its duration too short to be fully litigated prior to its cessation or expiration; and (2) there was a reasonable expectation that the same complaining party would be subjected to the same action.

Here, respondents cannot claim that the duration of the subject field tests was too short to be fully litigated. It must be emphasized that the Biosafety Permits for the subject field tests were issued on March 16, 2010 and June 28, 2010, and were valid for two (2) years. However, as aptly pointed out by Justice Leonen, respondents filed their petition for Writ of Kalikasan only on April 26, 2012 just a few months before the Biosafety Permits expired and when the field testing activities were already over. Obviously, therefore, the cessation of the subject field tests before the case could be resolved was due to respondents' own inaction.

Moreover, the situation respondents complain of is not susceptible to repetition. As discussed above, DAO 08-2002 has already been superseded by JDC 01-2016. Hence, future applications for field testing will be governed by JDC 01-2016 which, as illustrated, adopts a regulatory framework that is substantially different from that of DAO 08-2002.

Therefore, it was improper for the Court to resolve the merits of the case which had become moot in view of the absence of any valid exceptions to the rule on mootness, and to thereupon rule on the objections against the validity and consequently nullify DAO 08-2002 under the premises of the precautionary principle.

36 G.R. No. 223505, October 3, 2017, 841 SCRA 524, 542-543. The Court said:

The present case falls within the fourth exception. For this exception to apply, the following factors must be present: (1) the challenged action is in its duration too short to be fully litigated prior to its cessation or expiration; and (2) there is a reasonable expectation that the same complaining party would be subjected to the same action.

The election period in 2016 was from January 10 until June 8, 2016, or a total of only 150 days. The petition was filed only on April 8, 2016. There was thus not enough time for the resolution of the controversy. Moreover, the COMELEC has consistently issued rules and regulations on the Gun Ban for previous elections in accordance with RA 7166: Resolution No. 8714 for the 2010 elections, Resolution No. 9561-A for the 2013 elections, and the assailed Resolution No. 10015 for the 2016 elections. Thus, the COMELEC is expected to promulgate similar rules in the next elections. Prudence accordingly dictates that the Court exercise its power of judicial review to finally settle this controversy.

37 455 U.S. 478 (1982).

38Id.

39Murphy v. Hunt, supra note 37.

40Id.

41Supra note 15.

42 G.R. No. 208566, November 19, 2013, 710 SCRA 1.

43David v. Macapagal-Arroyo, supra note 15 at 214-215.

44 See Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U.S. 393 (1975).

45International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications, Inc. v. Greenpeace Southeast Asia (Philippines), supra note 35 at 286.

46Belgica v. Ochoa, Jr., supra note 42 at 96.

47 See Concurring and Dissenting Opinion of Justice Brion in Province of North Cotabato v. The Government of the Republic of the Philippines Peace Panel on Ancestral Domain (GRP), G.R. No. 183591, October 14, 2008, 568 SCRA 402, 720.

48 See Spencer v. Kemna, 523 U.S. 1 (1998).

49 In his Manila Times column published on November 27, 2018 entitled "Porn tabloids are proliferating," Roberto Tiglao lamented about the easy availability and widespread circulation of pornographic publications very thinly disguised as tabloids in Metro Manila. Despite this, Mr. Tiglao observed that he has not found any case of anybody being convicted of pornography.

50Rollo, pp. 15-17.

51Id. at 18.

52 G.R. No. 148560, November 19, 2001, 369 SCRA 394.

53Id. at 441-442.

54 G.R. No. 152259, July 29, 2004, 435 SCRA 371.

55Id. at 383-384.

56 G.R. No. 167011, December 11, 2008, 573 SCRA 639.

57Id. at 645-646.

58 315 U.S. 568 (1942).

59 354 U.S. 476 (1957).

60 413 U.S. 15 (1973).

61 458 U.S. 747 (1982).

62 According to the Court, with respect to child pornography, "[t]he Miller formulation is adjusted in the following respects: a trier of fact need not find that the material appeals to the prurient interest of the average person; it is not required that sexual conduct portrayed be done so in a patently offensive manner; and the material at issue need not be considered as a whole." See also Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. 234 (2002), where the Court held that while pornography can generally be banned only if it is obscene under Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, "pornography depicting actual children can be proscribed whether or not the images are obscene because of the State's interest in protecting the children exploited by the production process."

63 G.R. No. L-69500, July 22, 1985, 137 SCRA 717.

64Id. at 725.

65Supra note 59.

66 In the same vein, the US Supreme Court in Beauharnais v. Illinois [343 U.S. 250, 254-257 (1952)] noted that "libel of an individual was a common-law crime, and thus criminal in the colonies. Indeed, at common law, truth or good motives was no defense. In the first decades after the adoption of the Constitution, this was changed by judicial decision, statute or constitution in most States, but nowhere was there any suggestion that the crime of libel be abolished. Today, every American jurisdiction�the forty-eight States, the District of Columbia, Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico�punish libels directed at individuals. Resort to epithets or personal abuse is not in any proper sense communication of information or opinion safeguarded by the Constitution, and its punishment as a criminal act would raise no question under that instrument."

67 G.R. No. 80806, October 5, 1989, 178 SCRA 362.

68Id. at 373.

69 G.R. No. 164785, April 29, 2009, 587 SCRA 79.

70Id. at 99-100.

71Samahan ng mga Progresibong Kabataan v. Quezon City, G.R. No. 225442, August 8, 2017, 835 SCRA 350.

72 See Romualdez v. Comelec, supra note 56.

73Southern Hemisphere Engagement Network, Inc. v. Anti-Terrorism Council, G.R. No. 178552, October 5, 2010, 632 SCRA 146, 188.

74Miller v. California, supra note 60 at 24.

75 The constitutionality of which was, notably, not questioned by petitioners.

76Miller v. California, supra note 60 at 25.

77i.e. 18 USC. �1460 and 18 USC. �1466 still read, respectively:

Possession with intent to sell, and sale, of obscene matter on Federal property

(a) Whoever, either�

(1) in the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, or on any land or building owned by, leased to, or otherwise used by or under the control of the Government of the United States; or

(2) in the Indian country as defined in section 1151 of this title, knowingly sells or possesses with intent to sell an obscene visual depiction shall be punished by a fine in accordance with the provisions of this title or imprisoned for not more than 2 years, or both.

(b) For the purposes of this section, the term "visual depiction" includes undeveloped film and videotape but does not include mere words.

Engaging in the business of selling or transferring obscene matter

(a) Whoever is engaged in the business of producing with intent to distribute or sell, or selling or transferring obscene matter, who knowingly receives or possesses with intent to distribute any obscene book, magazine, picture, paper, film, videotape, or phonograph or other audio recording, which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce, shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than 5 years or by a fine under this title, or both.

(b) As used in this section, the term "engaged in the business" means that the person who produces sells or transfers or offers to sell or transfer obscene matter devotes time, attention, or labor to such activities, as a regular course of trade or business, with the objective of earning a profit, although it is not necessary that the person make a profit or that the production, selling or transferring or offering to sell or transfer such material be the person's sole or principal business or source of income. The offering for sale of or to transfer, at one time, two or more copies of any obscene publication, or two or more of any obscene article, or a combined total of five or more such publications and articles, shall create a rebuttable presumption that the person so offering them is "engaged in the business" as defined in this subsection. 18 U.S. Code Title 18 - Crimes and Criminal Procedure (visited September 6, 2019).

78 376 U.S. 254 (1964).

79Vasquez v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 118971, September 15, 1999, 314 SCRA 460.





D I S S E N T I N G��O P I N I O N

PERLAS-BERNABE, J.:

I dissent. As will be discussed below, the present petition assailing the constitutionality of Manila Ordinance No. 7780 or the "Anti-Obscenity and Pornography [O]rdinance of the City of Manila"1 (Ordinance No. 7780) should not have been dismissed on the ground of mootness. Instead, the case should have been resolved by the Court on the merits and thereupon, decree the Ordinance's unconstitutionality based on the doctrine of overbreadth.

As background, the essential facts of this case are as follows: petitioners Allan Madrilejos, Allan Hernandez, Glenda Gil, and Lisa Gokongwei-Cheng (petitioners) were the respective editor-in-chief, managing editor, circulation manager, and president of Summit Publications, which publishes the FHM Magazine.2 In 2008, they were charged before the City Prosecutor's Office of Manila for violating3 Ordinance No. 7780, which proscribes the "printing, publishing, distribution, circulation, sale, and exhibition" as well as the "production, public showing[,] and viewing" of obscene and pornographic acts or materials.4 The case was docketed as I.S. No. 08G-12234.

Soon after, petitioners filed the instant petition for prohibition5 against the prosecutors, herein respondents Lourdes Gatdula, Agnes Lopez, and Hilarion Buban of the City Prosecutor's Office of Manila (respondents), assailing the constitutionality of Ordinance No. 7780 for being "patently offensive to [the] constitutional right to free speech and expression" and for violating "privacy rights," among others.6 They argue that the Ordinance's definitions of obscenity and pornography are unduly expansive as to disregard the guidelines prescribed in Miller v. California7 (Miller),8 to wit:

(a) whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards" would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, x x x (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law, and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

For their part, respondents reason that the adoption of the Miller test, which is a common law test, "takes away the civil law aspect of criminal law." They likewise submit that since our statutes do not define what is obscene, the Ordinance's definition of obscenity could very well be the contemporary community standard under the Miller test.9

The ponencia, however, did not delve into the substantive arguments of the parties but instead, took cognizance of the supervening dismissal of I.S. No. 08G-12234 by virtue of the prosecutor's Resolution dated June 25, 2013,10 which allegedly rendered moot and academic the present petition. According to the ponencia, "[p]etitioners' purpose in filing the present action was to stop the conduct of the preliminary investigation into their alleged violation of an unconstitutional statute � a process that concludes with an Order whether or not to indict petitioners."11 In any case, the ponencia observes that "[petitioners] have still failed to establish a cause of action to warrant a ruling in their favor[,]"12 holding that they cannot mount a facial challenge against the Ordinance on the ground of overbreadth because "[t]he present petition does not involve a free speech case [as] it stemmed, rather, from an obscenity prosecution."13

Respectfully, I disagree.

First and foremost, it is my humble opinion that this case is not mooted by the dismissal of I.S. No. 08G-12234 because the issue regarding the constitutionality of Ordinance No. 7780 is separate and distinct from the matter of petitioners' criminal prosecution. From the records, it is clear that petitioners not only questioned the legality of the criminal prosecution against them but also the validity of Ordinance No. 7780 itself, invoking their constitutional right to free speech and expression. Verily, the criminal prosecution could have very well been terminated but the alleged curtailment of their free speech rights � and even so, other persons similarly situated as them � still looms in the horizon because Ordinance No. 7780 remains valid and subsisting. Case law states that:

A case or issue is considered moot and academic when it ceases to present a justiciable controversy by virtue of supervening events, so that an adjudication of the case or a declaration on the issue would be of no practical value or use. In such instance, there is no actual substantial relief which a petitioner would be entitled to, and which would be negated by the dismissal of the petition. Courts generally decline jurisdiction over such case or dismiss it on the ground of mootness. This is because the judgment will not serve any useful purpose or have any practical legal effect because, in the nature of things, it cannot be enforced.14 (Emphases supplied)

To my mind, there is clearly still practical legal value to resolve the constitutionality issue with respect to Ordinance No. 7780 because nothing prevents the government from once more, prosecuting similar, future forms of expression based on the said ordinance's characterization of obscenity. Even more, the subsistence of the subject ordinance has the effect of chilling otherwise protected forms of free speech because of the impending threat of them being tagged under Ordinance No. 7780 as obscene. Therefore, the constitutionality issue persists as a live controversy that should not have evaded the Court's resolution on the merits on the ground of mootness.

Furthermore, contrary to the ponencia's view, I respectfully submit that the facial challenge against Ordinance No. 7780 on overbreadth grounds is proper. To be sure, "[t]he overbreadth doctrine x x x decrees that 'a governmental purpose may not be achieved by means which sweep unnecessarily broadly and thereby invade the area of protected freedoms[,]'15 and hence, a statute or ordinance may be declared as unconstitutional on this score. Jurisprudence illumines that "[b]y its nature, the overbreadth doctrine has to necessarily apply a facial type of invalidation in order to plot areas of protected speech, inevitably almost always under situations not before the court, that are impermissibly swept by the substantially overbroad regulation. Otherwise stated, a statute cannot be properly analyzed for being substantially overbroad if the court confines itself only to facts as applied to the litigants."16

The ponencia holds that a facial challenge on overbreadth grounds is only proper to analyze protected forms of speech; hence, it is improper to examine Ordinance No. 7780's constitutionality with the said lens because it punishes "obscenity" which is not protected speech.17

The ponencia's stance seems to gloss over the fact that what is being assailed is the ordinance's very characterization of obscenity. The Court is asked not to examine a material which is already determined to be obscene, but rather, to evaluate whether or not the very parameters used by the ordinance to determine obscenity itself is constitutionally valid. There is a whale of a difference between the parameters of obscenity from the obscene material itself. The former is the very issue in this case and not the latter, to which the ponencia's misdirected observation on overbreadth ought to apply. If a statute or ordinance foists unreasonable parameters for obscenity, then surely it will have the effect of sweeping unnecessarily and broadly areas of free speech which would have otherwise been deemed as protected under our Constitution. Accordingly, in this case, a facial challenge which assails Ordinance No. 7780's parameters of obscenity based on the overbreadth doctrine should apply.

That being said, and under the overbreadth framework, I express my agreement with the opinion of Associate Justice Marvic M.V.F. Leonen that Ordinance No. 7780 is unconstitutional. However, I find it opportune to clarify that Ordinance No. 7780 is regarded as constitutionally infirm not because it transgresses the Miller test per se, but because it violates substantive due process under an "overbreadth" analysis, which is one of the known methods of reviewing the constitutionality of an ordinance or a law.

To recount, petitioners argue that the Ordinance's definitions of obscenity and pornography are unduly expansive as to disregard the guidelines prescribed in Miller. In Fernando v. Court of Appeals,18 the Court observed that:

There is no perfect definition of "obscenity" but the latest word is that of Miller v. California which established basic guidelines, to wit: (a) whether to the average person, applying contemporary standards would find the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.19

As indicated above, the Miller test consists of three (3) parameters to determine whether or not a particular material is considered "obscene"; in consequence, if a material is considered obscene, then it can be the subject of government regulation without infringing on the author's freedom of speech and expression. Through these three (3) parameters, the Miller test aims to define into demonstrable criteria what may be properly considered as "obscene" under judicial standards, and in so doing, seeks to delimit the conceptual malleability of "obscenity." Practically speaking, a person's appreciation of obscenity may be based on his or her disposition, mores, or values. As such, Miller is a jurisprudental attempt to set a uniform benchmark for such a highly-subjective term.

Since Miller is a test to determine what is obscene or not, its proper application is to "zero-in" on the actual material. In this regard, Miller is not � strictly speaking � the test to determine the constitutionality of a particular ordinance or statute. However, this does not mean that the Miller parameters are completely taken out of the equation in constitutional entreaties related to free speech issues. Since Miller provides the prevailing proper standard to determine what is obscene, an obscenity regulation that fails to take into account Miller's three (3) parameters effectively foists an overbroad definition of obscenity and therefore, dangerously suppresses what should have been protected speech or expressions.

Ordinance No. 7780 provides:

Section 2. Definition of Terms. � As used in this ordinance, the terms:

A.
Obscene shall refer to any material or act that is indecent, erotic, lewd, or offensive, or contrary to morals, good customs, or religious beliefs, principles or doctrines, or to any material or act that tends to corrupt or deprive the human mind, or is calculated to excite impure imagination or arouse prurient interest, or is unfit to be seen or heard, or which violates the proprieties of language or behavior, regardless of the motive of the printer, publisher, seller, distributor, performer, or author of such act or material, such as but not limited to:
1. Printing, showing, depicting or describing sexual acts;
2. Printing, showing, depicting or describing children in sexual acts;
3. Printing, showing, depicting or describing completely nude human bodies; and
4. Printing, showing, depicting or describing the human sexual organs or the female breasts.
B.
Pornographic or pornography shall refer to such objects or subjects of photography, movies, music records, video and VHS tapes, laser discs, billboards, television, magazines, newspapers, tabloids, comics and live shows calculated to excite or stimulate sexual drive or impure imagination, regardless of motive of the author thereof, such as, but not limited to the following:
1. Performing live sexual acts in whatever form;
2. Those other than live performances showing, depicting or describing sexual acts;
3. Those showing, depicting or describing children in [sexual] acts;
4.
Those showing, depicting or describing completely nude human body, or showing, depicting or describing the human sexual organs or the female breasts.
C.
Materials shall refer to magazines, newspapers, tabloids, comics, writings, photographs, drawings, paintings, billboards, decals, movies, music records, video and VHS tapes, laser discs, and similar matters.

Section 3. Prohibited Acts. The printing, publishing, distribution, circulation, sale, and exhibition of obscene and pornographic acts and materials and the production, public showing and viewing of video and VHS tapes, laser discs, theatrical or stage and other live performances and private showing for public consumption whether for free or for a fee, of pornographic pictures as herein defined are hereby prohibited within the City of Manila and accordingly penalized as provided herein.

Section 4. Penalty Clause: any person violating this ordinance shall be punished as follows:

x x x x

Provided, that in case the offender is a juridical person, the President and the members of the board of directors, shall be held criminally liable; Provided, further, that in case of conviction, all pertinent permits and licenses issued by the City Government to the offender shall be confiscated in favor of the City Government for destruction; Provided, furthermore, that in case the offender is a minor and unemancipated and unable to pay the fine, his parents or guardian shall be liable to pay such fine, Provided, finally, that this ordinance shall not apply to materials printed, distributed, exhibited, sold, filmed, rented, viewed, or produced by reason of or in connection with or in furtherance of science and scientific research and medical or medically related art, profession, and for scientific and for educational purposes. (Emphases supplied)

Clearly, the assailed Ordinance failed to take the Miller's guidelines into account in defining and penalizing obscenity under the parameters set therein.

In particular, Miller's first guideline ("whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest") was exceeded, considering that Ordinance No. 7780 defines as obscene the mere depiction of "sexual acts" without looking at whether the dominant theme of the work has a tendency to excite lustful thoughts. While the phrase "act calculated to excite impure imagination or arouse prurient interest" appears in the Ordinance's definition of what is obscene, it is not the sole and definitive factor on what is obscene. Notably, such phrase is qualified by the conjunction "or", which means that it is an alternative to the other four phrases contained in the passage (i.e., any material or act that is (1) indecent, erotic, lewd, or offensive; (2) contrary to morals, good customs, or religious beliefs, principles or doctrines; (3) is unfit to be seen or heard; or (4) which violates the proprieties of language or behavior, regardless of the motive of the printer, publisher, seller, distributor, performer, or author of such act or material). As such, Ordinance No. 7780 is unduly expansive.

Hypothetically therefore, under the Ordinance's definition, a short section in a publication describing a sexual act would be sufficient to penalize the producer even though the effect of the work, taken as a whole, is not to excite the prurient interest. This depiction is protected expression under Miller. It bears noting that "sex and obscenity are not synonymous," such that the portrayal of sex, by itself, is not sufficient to deny a material of constitutional protection.20 However, Ordinance No. 7780 attempts to criminalize such portrayal without any regard as to whether or not the dominant theme of the material "appeals to the prurient interest" as required by Miller.

Miller's second guideline � that is, "whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct," was likewise ignored, since the Ordinance disallows even the mere showing of completely nude human bodies, as well as of sexual organs. As explained in Jenkins v. Georgia,21 the showing of nudity alone does not render a material patently offensive or obscene based on Miller's standards.

Finally, Miller's third guideline (i.e., whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value) was disregarded. While the Ordinance contains a proviso that it shall not apply to materials made or used for "science and scientific research and medical or medically related art, profession, and x x x educational purposes," this proviso does not include the full range of considerations in Miller such that those with serious literary, artistic, and political value are still considered obscene. It bears noting that the proviso exempts art only when it is medically related even though Miller does not contemplate such restrictive appreciation of a material's artistic value.

Accordingly, by failing to take into account the Miller guidelines, whether implicitly or explicitly, in its characterization of what is "obscene," the assailed Ordinance unduly sweeps towards protected forms of speech and expression in violation of Section 4,22 Article III of the Constitution. In Adiong v. Commission on Elections,23 the Court has held that "[a] statute is considered void for overbreadth when it offends the constitutional principle that a governmental purpose to control or prevent activities constitutionally subject to state regulations may not be achieved by means which sweep unnecessarily broadly and thereby invade the area of protected freedoms."24 To be sure, the "[o]verbreadth doctrine is a principle of judicial review that a law is invalid if it punishes constitutionally protected speech or conduct along with speech or conduct that the government may limit to further a compelling government interest. A statute that is broadly written which deters free expression can be struck down on its face because of its chilling effect even if it also prohibits acts that may legitimately be forbidden,"25 as in this case. Hence, Ordinance No. 7780 is void for being overbroad. Accordingly, the petition should have been granted.

Endnotes:


1 Entitled "AN ORDINANCE PROHIBITING AND PENALIZING THE PRINTING, PUBLICATION, SALE, DISTRIBUTION AND EXHIBITION OF OBSCENE AND PORNOGRAPHIC ACTS AND MATERIALS AND THE PRODUCTION, RENTAL, PUBLIC SHOWING AND VIEWING OF INDECENT AND IMMORAL MOVIES, TELEVISION SHOWS, MUSIC RECORDS, VIDEO AND VHS TAPES, LASER DISCS, THEATRICAL OR STAGE AND OTHER LIVE PERFORMANCES, EXCEPT THOSE REVIEWED BY THE MOVIE, TELEVISION REVIEW AND CLASSIFICATION BOARD (MTRCB)," enacted by the City Council of Manila on January 28, 1993 and approved by the City Mayor on February 19, 1993.

2 See rollo, pp. 4-5.

3 They were likewise charged with violations of Articles 200 (Grave scandal) and 201, Paragraph 2 (a) (Immoral doctrines, obscene publications, and exhibitions and indecent shows) of the Revised Penal Code (see id. at 6).

4 See Section 3 of Ordinance No. 7780.

The Ordinance defines obscene and pornography as follows:

Section 2. Definition of Terms � As used in this ordinance, the terms:

A.
Obscene shall refer to any material or act that is indecent, erotic, lewd or offensive or contrary to morals, good customs, or religious beliefs, principles or doctrines, or to any materials or act that tends to corrupt or deprive the human mind, or is calculated to excite impure imagination or arouse prurient interest, or is unfit to be seen or heard, or which violates the proprieties of language or behavior, regardless of the motive of the printer, publisher, seller, distributor, performer or author of such act or material, such as but not limited to:
1. Printing, showing, depicting or describing sexual acts;
2. Printing, showing, depicting or describing children in sexual acts;
3. Printing, showing, depicting or describing completely nude human bodies; and
4. Printing, showing, depicting or describing the human sexual organs or the female breasts.
B.
Pornographic or pornography shall refer to such objects or subjects of photography, movies, music records, video and VHS tapes, laser discs, billboards, television, magazines, newspapers, tabloids, comics and live shows calculated to excite or stimulate sexual drive or impure imagination, regardless of motive of the author thereof, such as, but not limited to the following:
1. Performing live sexual acts in whatever form;
2. Those other than live performances showing, depicting or describing sexual acts;
3. Those showing, depicting or describing children in [sexual] acts;
4. Those showing, depicting or describing completely nude human body, or showing, depicting or describing the human sexual organs or the female breasts.

5 With Prayer for the Issuance of a Preliminary Injunction &/or Temporary Restraining Order; rollo, pp. 3-35.

6 See rollo, p. 8; emphasis supplied.

7 413 U.S. 15 (1973).

8Rollo, pp. 15 and 18.

9 See id. at 364.

10 See id. at 438-439. See also ponencia, pp. 5-6.

11 See ponencia, p. 14.

12 See id. at 15.

13 Id.

14Pe�afrancia Sugar Mill, Inc. v. Sugar Regulatory Administration, 728 Phil. 535 (2014).

15 See Concurring in the Judgment Opinion of Mr. Justice Vicente V. Mendoza in Estrada v. Sandiganbayan, 421 Phil. 290, 430 (2001); citing NAACP v. Alabama, 377 U.S. 288, 307, 12 L. Ed. 2d 325, 338 [1958]; and Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U.S. 479, 5 L. Ed. 2d 231 (1960).

16Samahan ng mga Progresibong Kabataan v. Quezon City, G.R. No. 225442, August 8, 2017 835 SCRA 350, 400; emphasis and underscoring supplied.

17 See ponencia, p. 15.

18 539 Phil. 407 (2006).

19 Id. at 417.

20Roth v. United States, 354 US 476 (1957). See also Sable Communications v. FCC, 492 US 115 (1989): "Sexual expression, which is indecent but not obscene is protected by the First Amendment."

21 418 US 153 (1974).

22 Section 4. No law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech, of expression, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances.

23 G.R. No. 103956, March 31, 1992, 207 SCRA 712.

24 Id. at 719-720.

25 (last visited October 16, 2019); emphasis supplied.





DISSENTING OPINION

LEONEN, J.:

No law shall be passed abridging the freedom
of speech, of expression,� or of� the� press,� or
the right of the people peaceably to� assemble
and petition the� government� for� redress� of
grievances.1

No person shall be deprived of life, liberty,� or
property without due process of law, nor shall
any person be denied the equal� protection of
the laws.2

An ordinance with terms so broad and vague that it easily allows repeated prosecution, chilling both creative and political expression, is unconstitutional. It violates the fundamental tenets of both free expression and due process of law. Good intentions are never sufficient. Laws pertaining to restrictions of expression must be clearly articulated so that they could not provide any possibility for abuse.

"I know it when I see it[.]"3

This seemingly innocuous statement by Justice Potter Stewart, which is not even part of the majority opinion, has, for one reason or another, become the defining moment in determining whether an obscene or pornographic material can be considered a constitutionally-protected expression. This simple sentence, however harmless, has also placed a heavy burden on courts to determine with certainty what can be deemed immoral and offensive. Our jurisprudence, for one, has been inconsistent at best and hazy at worst.

In this jurisdiction, this Court has consistently struck down�from Gonzalez v. Katigbak4 (1985), to Pita v. Court of Appeals5 (1989), to Fernando v. Court of Appeals6 (2006), then to Soriano v. Laguardia7 (2009)�any attempt based on broad formulations in law to stifle creative speech in the form of text or image. Only a few weeks ago, in Nicolas-Lewis v. Commission on Elections,8 despite the case being clearly moot, this Court struck down, on the basis of a facial challenge of overbreadth, Section 36.89 of Republic Act No. 9189, as amended.10

The adoption of the guidelines in these cases provides demarcations of what is obscene and what is constitutionally-protected expression. Unlike in previous cases, however, this Court is not tasked with reviewing whether a certain material is considered obscene, but rather, whether a local ordinance goes beyond the guidelines mandated in previous jurisprudence. Any ordinance that goes beyond these guidelines will be considered censorship and will be struck down as unconstitutional.

In this case, an ordinance, not even a statute, clearly fails to follow the current canonical framework for determining whether there is obscenity beyond the pale of protected speech. As adopted in Soriano:

[T]he latest word is that of Miller v. California which established "basic guidelines," to wit: (a) whether to the average person, applying contemporary standards would find the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.11

An overbroad provision goes beyond punishing obscenity. It provides an uncontrolled, unbridled, and unregulated warrant to attack and prohibit protected creative speech. It chills the fundamental right of expression under Article III, Section 4 of the Constitution. This Court, being the sentinel of the Bill of Rights, should strike down such an ordinance without hesitation.

This case involves a Petition for Prohibition12 questioning the constitutionality of Manila Ordinance No. 7780, or the "Anti-Obscenity and Pornography Ordinance of the City of Manila."

On February 19, 1993, the City of Manila enacted Ordinance No. 7780,13 which prescribes criminal penalties for the printing, publishing, distribution, circulation, sale production, exhibition, showing, or viewing of obscene and pornographic materials. Its pertinent portions provide:

SEC. 2. Definition of Terms: As used in this ordinance, the terms:

A.
Obscene shall refer to any material or act that is indecent, erotic, lewd or offensive, or contrary to morals, good customs or religious beliefs, principles or doctrines, or to any material or act that tends to corrupt or depr[a]ve the human mind, or is calculated to excite impure imagination or arouse prurient interest, or is unfit to be seen or heard, or which violates the proprieties of language or behavior, regardless of the motive of the printer, publisher, seller, distributor, performer or author of such act or material, such as but not limited to:
1. Printing, showing, depicting or describing sexual acts;
2. Printing, showing, depicting or describing children in sexual acts;
3. Printing, showing, depicting or describing completely nude human bodies; and
4. Printing, showing, depicting or describing the human sexual organs or the female breasts.
B.
Pornographic or pornography shall refer to such objects or subjects of photography, movies, music records, video and VHS tapes, laser discs, billboards, television, magazines, newspapers, tabloids, comics and live shows calculated to excite or stimulate sexual drive or impure imagination, regardless of the motive of the author thereof, such as, but not limited to the following:
1. Performing live sexual acts in whatever form;
2. Those other than live performances showing, depicting or describing sexual acts;
3. Those showing, depicting or describing children in sex acts;
4.
Those showing, depicting, or describing completely nude human body, or showing, depicting or describing the human sexual organs or the female breasts.
Materials shall refer to magazines, newspapers, tabloids, comics, writings, photographs, drawings, paintings, billboards, decals, movies, music records, video and VHS tapes, laser discs, and similar matters.

SEC. 3. Prohibited Acts[:] The printing, publishing, distribution, circulation, sale and exhibition of obscene and pornographic acts and materials and the production, public showing and viewing of video and VHS tapes, laser discs, theatrical or stage and other live performances and private showing for public consumption, whether for free or for a fee, of pornographic pictures as herein defined are hereby prohibited within the City of Manila and accordingly penalized as provided herein.

SEC 4. Penalty Clause: Any person violating this ordinance shall be punished as follows:

1.
For the printing, publishing, distribution or circulation of obscene or pornographic materials; the production or showing of obscene movies, television shows, stage and other live performances; for producing or renting obscene video and VHS tapes, laser discs, for viewing obscene movies, television shows, video and VHS tapes, laser discs or stage and other live performances; and for performing obscene act on stage and other live performances � imprisonment of one (1) year or fine of five thousand (P5,000.00) pesos, or both, at the discretion of the court.
2.
For the selling of obscene or pornographic materials � imprisonment of not less than six (6) months nor more than one (1) year or a fine of not less than one thousand (P1,000.00) pesos, nor more than three thousand (P3,000.00) pesos.

Provided, that in case the offender is a juridical person, the President and the members of the board of directors, shall be held criminally liable; Provided, further, that in case of conviction, all pertinent permits and licenses issued by the City Government to the offender shall automatically be revoked and the obscene or pornographic materials shall be confiscated in favor of the City Government for destruction; Provided, furthermore, that in case the offender is a minor and unemancipated and unable to pay the fine, his parents or guardian shall be liable to pay such fine; Provided finally, that this ordinance shall not apply to materials printed, distributed, exhibited, sold, filmed, rented, viewed or produced by reason of or in connection with or in furtherance of science and scientific research and medical or medically related art, profession, and for educational purposes.14

On July 7, 2008, 12 pastors and preachers led by Pastor Bienvenido M. Abante, Jr. (Abante), then Manila's Sixth District Representative and the principal author of Ordinance No. 7780,15 filed a Joint Complaint-Affidavit16 before the Office of the City Prosecutor of Manila against officers and publishers of various magazines and tabloids. They claimed that these materials were in violation of Articles 20017 and 201(2)(a)18 of the Revised Penal Code, and Ordinance No. 7780.19

Among the periodicals questioned was FHM Magazine, published by Summit Publishing Company, Inc. (Summit Media). Allan Madrilejos (Madrilejos), Allen Hernandez (Hernandez), and Glenda Gil (Gil) were the magazine's editor-in-chief, managing editor, and circulation manager, respectively, while Lisa Gokongwei-Cheng (Gokongwei-Cheng) is Summit Media's president.20

The criminal case was docketed as I.S. No. 08G-12234 and was set for preliminary investigation.21 The Office of the City Prosecutor of Manila created a special panel of prosecutors composed of Lourdes Gatdula, Agnes Lopez, and Hilario Buban (Prosecutor Gatdula, et al.).22

On July 24, 2008, Prosecutor Gatdula, et al. subpoenaed23 Madrilejos, Hernandez, Gil, and Gokongwei-Cheng (Madrilejos, et al.) to appear and submit their counter-affidavits. Madrilejos, et al. moved that the preliminary investigation be reset to August 28, 2008 to give time to study the complaint. Later, they filed an Urgent Motion for Bill of Particulars, requesting for clarification on the extent of their alleged culpability for all the publications complained against since all the publications being complained of were charged in conspiracy with each other.24

On September 24, 2008, Madrilejos, et al. filed this Petition for Prohibition25 against Prosecutor Gatdula, et al. They seek to prevent the implementation of Ordinance No. 7780, claiming that it is invalid on its face for being patently offensive to the constitutional right to free speech and expression, repugnant to due process and privacy rights, and violative of the principle of separation of Church and State.

The Petition comes with a prayer for a temporary restraining order and/or writ of preliminary injunction. In applying for injunctive relief, petitioners submit that they "now face the spectacle of having to undergo the continuing ignominy of criminal prosecution for the legitimate exercise of their freedom of expression."26 They point out that "[e]ven presuming that certain protected speech may be regulated, there is already adequate legislation for the purpose in the form of Article 201 of the Revised Penal Code."27

Petitioners concede that writs of prohibition do not restrain the conduct of criminal prosecution. They submit, however, that this case falls under the exceptions enumerated in Venus v. Desierto,28 namely, "[w]here the prosecution is under an invalid law, ordinance[,] or regulation[.]"29

Petitioners argue that, as with Yu Cong Eng v. Trinidad,30 Ordinance No. 7780, which was enacted in 1993, has not yet been interpreted by the courts. In the interest of public welfare and the advancement of public policy, they contend that it is proper to have the validity of a given law determined at the start of a prosecution.31

Petitioners likewise claim that Ordinance No. 7780 provides a definition of "obscene" and "pornography" that disregards the doctrine in Miller v. California.32 They assert that the standards in the Ordinance are vague as it uses expansive language, which made it possible for the complaining pastors and preachers "to impose upon the public what, in their religious estimation, is 'unfit to be seen or heard' by the residents of Manila or what is violative of the 'proprieties of language or behavior.'"33 They argue that these pastors or preachers cannot be the "average person" referred to in Miller, who may be called upon to apply contemporary community standards to determine what is obscene.34

Petitioners also allege that FHM Magazine has a readership of about 1 million, 40% of whom are female. They argue that these readers, along with cultural groups or anti-religious sects, will protest that religious pastors and preachers will determine what are considered contemporary community standards. They claim that "it is not for ultra-conservatives or extreme liberalists to dictate upon society what they can or should not see or hear. Neither is it the place for militants, fanatics, radicals[,] or traditionalists to determine the same."35

Petitioners assert that according to the Miller test, "only sexual conduct, described in a 'patently offensive' manner is considered as obscene."36 They point out that Ordinance No. 7780 is unduly expansive in that it considers the mere printing, showing, depicting, or describing of sexual acts as obscene and pornographic.37 They allege that by this standard, the following works would be obscene and pornographic: (1) this Court's Decision in People v. Baligod;38 (2) the exhibit, "100 Nudes, 100 Years," featuring national artists' works; (3) Chapter 7, Verses 3 and 7 of the Song of Songs in the Bible, which describes female breasts; (4) and certain scenes in the movie, "Schindler's List."39

Petitioners argue that the allegedly obscene excerpts of FHM Magazine "cannot seriously be accused of lacking serious artistic value by any but the most prudish eyes."40 As an example, they point out that the cover page of FHM Erotica "carries the picture of a nude woman whose private parts are artistically covered by shadows."41 They allege that the pastors and preachers "did not bother to peruse the contents of the said publication, which featured literature from award-winning writers such as Marguerite de Leon, Anna Felicia Sanchez[,] and Norman Wilwayco."42 They point out that there must be evidence of pandering to prurient interests to determine if a material is obscene, instead of the Ordinance's "wholesale branding of materials ... as being obscene, without regard to the manner of their commercial exploitation[.]"43

Moreover, petitioners contend that their manner of distribution shows that their magazine is not being commercially exploited "for the sake of its prurient appeal."44 They point out that "a clear 18+ mark appears prominently on all the covers of FHM magazines together with the words 'CONTENTS MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR MINORS.'"45 The magazines are also sealed in plastic covers, sold in legitimate stands, "and only to adults."46

Petitioners submit that allowing obscenity to be defined based on religious morals and customs violates the principle of the separation of Church and State.47 They argue that allowing so would open "the floodgates for religious organizations to impose their beliefs on non-members."48

Moreover, petitioners submit that the Ordinance violates their right to due process, as the means employed were "not reasonably necessary to accomplish its purpose."49 They allege that the Ordinance imposes criminal liability based on one's membership in a publication's board, regardless of whether that member was involved in the actual publication of the questioned material. Considering that Summit Media publishes several magazines other than FHM Magazine, they argue that the Ordinance effectively discourages persons from pursuing other legitimate businesses.50

Petitioners further assert that the Ordinance violates their readers' privacy rights as it "intrude[s] into the privacy of one's home with no other purpose than to control individual thought."51 They point out that the words, "private showing for public consumption, whether free or for a fee, of pornographic pictures as herein defined," in the acts prohibited by the Ordinance "unlawfully oversteps the traditionally recognized state interest to control commercial exhibition of prohibited material."52 They argue that the Ordinance is "tantamount to a blanket prohibition of the private possession of objectionable materials" and thus, is "in the nature of a constitutionally impermissible state control over private thoughts."53

Respondents, on the other hand, counter that an action for prohibition is not proper, since petitioners failed to allege any act by the Office of the City Prosecutor of Manila that shows grave abuse of discretion in the conduct of its preliminary investigation.54

Respondents, citing Guingona v. City Fiscal of Manila,55 maintain that criminal prosecutions cannot be enjoined and that this case does not fall under the exceptions to the general rule. They point out that petitioners incorrectly cited Venus since nowhere in that case was it contended that a law, ordinance, or regulation was invalid. They also aver that this Court in Yu Cong Eng did not enjoin the criminal prosecution since the law being assailed was found to be constitutional.56

Moreover, respondents argue that the adoption of the Miller test "takes away the civil law aspect of our criminal law."57 They submit that with obscenity not defined in statute, Ordinance No. 7780's definition of it "could very well be the contemporary community standard."58 They allege that the Petition "seeks a mere exercise of academic discussion"59 since petitioners failed to prove that the Ordinance will actually violate their civil rights.60

Respondents further submit that the Ordinance's "legislative intent to eradicate greed, which preys on and appeals on the baser instincts of unwary consumers, is far superior to the 'property rights' of the petitioners in the hierarchy of values within the due process clause[.]"61 Moreover, they point out that the Ordinance did not violate the due process clause since it had undergone the basic requirements of notice and hearing.62

As to legal standing, respondents assert that petitioners were not the proper party to question Ordinance No. 7780. Since petitioners did not allege that they were the authors of articles, photographs, and graphics published in the magazine, they supposedly failed to prove that their constitutional rights of freedom of speech and expression was or will be violated because of the Ordinance.63

Even assuming that they were the authors, respondents submit that petitioner's freedoms were not absolute since "petitioners cannot pretend to be 'Little Lord Fauntleroys', when they published articles depicting incestuous sex or a woman having sex with father and son ... or the suggestive pictures of lesbians fondling each other[.]"64

Moreover, respondents claim that since petitioners have neither alleged that they are believers or non-believers, they would have no standing to question the Ordinance on the basis that it violates the non-establishment clause. They likewise argue that since petitioners have not alleged to be Manila residents, they would have no standing to question the alleged violations to privacy.65 They insist that Ordinance No. 7780 enjoys the presumption of constitutionality absent any factual evidence showing that it will impair their personal civil rights.66

In rebuttal, petitioners claim that they have sufficiently established a personal and substantial interest, since they are precisely the respondents in the criminal case who will personally suffer from some actual or threatened injury as a result of its enforcement.67

Later, on November 11, 2013, petitioners manifested68 receiving a copy of the Office of the City Prosecutor of Manila's June 25, 2013 Resolution.69 In it, the filing of Information against them for violation of Section 201(2)(a) of the Revised Penal Code was recommended. However, the charge against petitioner Gokongwei-Cheng for violation of Article 201 of the Revised Penal Code was dismissed. The charge against petitioners for violation of Article 200 of the Revised Penal Code and Ordinance No. 7780 was likewise dismissed.70

In their Manifestation, however, petitioners point out that what they question in their Petitions is the constitutionality of the Ordinance itself; hence, the issue has not become moot.71

From the arguments of the parties, this Court is now asked to resolve the following procedural issues:

First, whether or not a petition for prohibition is the proper remedy;

Second, whether or not petitioners Allan Madrilejos, Allan Hernandez, Glenda Gil, and Lisa Gokongwei-Cheng have legal standing to question the constitutionality of Ordinance No. 7780; and

Third, whether or not petitioners are entitled to the issuance of an injunctive writ.

The parties likewise raise the main substantive issue of whether or not Manila Ordinance No. 7780 is unconstitutional. To resolve this, however, this Court must first pass upon the following questions:

First, whether or not Ordinance No. 7780 contravenes the definition set by Miller v. California;72

Second, whether or not Ordinance No. 7780 violates the non-establishment clause;

Third, whether or not Ordinance No. 7780 violates the right to due process; and

Finally, whether or not Ordinance No. 7780 offends privacy rights.

I

"The writ of prohibition is an extraordinary judicial writ issuing out of a court of superior jurisdiction and directed to an inferior court, for the purpose of preventing the inferior tribunal from usurping a jurisdiction with which it is not legally vested."73 A petition for prohibition seeks the issuance of a judgment ordering the respondent to stop conducting further proceedings in the specified action or matter.74

Here, petitioners filed a Petition for Prohibition seeking to prevent respondents from proceeding with the prosecution of I.S. No. 08G-12234 for violation of Articles 200 and 201 of the Revised Penal Code and Ordinance No. 7780.

As a general rule, a petition that seeks to enjoin the prosecution of criminal proceedings will not prosper. This is because "public interest requires that criminal acts be immediately investigated and prosecuted for the protection of society."75 There are of course, recognized exceptions to the rule, as laid out in Brocka v. Enrile:76

a. To afford adequate protection to the constitutional rights of the accused;

b. When necessary for the orderly administration of justice or to avoid oppression or multiplicity of actions;

c. When there is a pre-judicial question which is sub judice;

d. When the acts of the officer are without or in excess of authority;

e. Where the prosecution is under an invalid law, ordinance or regulation;

f. When double jeopardy is clearly apparent;

g. Where the court has no jurisdiction over the offense;

h. Where it is a case of persecution rather than prosecution;

i. Where the charges are manifestly false and motivated by the lust for vengeance; and

j. When there is clearly no prima facie case against the accused and a motion to quash on that ground has been denied.

7. Preliminary injunction has been issued by the Supreme Court to prevent the threatened unlawful arrest of petitioners.77

An action for prohibition is the proper remedy to enjoin a criminal prosecution if the tribunal hearing the case derives its jurisdiction exclusively from an unconstitutional statute. In People v. Vera:78

The general rule, although there is a conflict in the cases, is that the writ of prohibition will not lie.... But where the inferior court or tribunal derives its jurisdiction exclusively from an unconstitutional statute, it may be prevented by the writ of prohibition from enforcing that statute.79 (Emphasis supplied)

Respondents reason that Yu Cong Eng,80 which petitioners cite as basis, upheld the constitutionality of the questioned statute, and thus, would not be adequate to support their position.

Yu Cong Eng, however, was eventually appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which overturned this Court's finding of constitutionality on the basis that the questioned statute violated the right to equal protection.81 In any case, Yu Cong Eng remains good law on the exception that a criminal prosecution may be enjoined if a prosecution is alleged to be under an invalid law, ordinance, or regulation.

Respondents likewise cite Guingona82 as basis to prove that this case does not fall under any of the exceptions. However, contrary to their claim, Guingona provides that criminal offenses may be the subject of prohibition and injunction "to afford adequate protection to constitutional rights" and "in proper cases, because the statute relied upon is unconstitutional or was held invalid."83

Here, petitioners did not err in seeking a writ of prohibition to enjoin the criminal proceedings against them, since they claim that the penal statute used against them, Ordinance No. 7780, is unconstitutional.

II

Legal standing or locus standi is the "right of appearance in a court of justice on a given question."84 It has likewise been defined as "the ability of a party to demonstrate to the court sufficient connection to and harm from the law or action challenged to support that party's participation in the case."85

In private suits, standing is afforded only to the real party-in-interest,86 one "who stands to be benefited or injured by the judgment in the suit, or the party entitled to the avails of the suit."87

In public suits, however, "the doctrine of standing is built on the principle of separation of powers, sparing as it does unnecessary interference or invalidation by the judicial branch of the actions rendered by its co-equal branches of government."88 Parties must show "a personal and substantial interest" in the case such that they "sustained or will sustain direct injury as a result of the governmental act that is being challenged."89 They must allege "such personal stake in the outcome of the controversy as to assure that concrete adverseness which sharpens the presentation of issues upon which the court depends for illumination of difficult constitutional questions."90

The general rule, therefore, is that before parties can raise a constitutional question, they must first show that direct injury was sustained or will be sustained because of the challenged government act. Nonetheless, as discussed in David v. Macapagal-Arroyo,91 there are exceptions:

Taxpayers, voters, concerned citizens, and legislators may be accorded standing to sue, provided that the following requirements are met:

(1) the cases involve constitutional issues;

(2) for taxpayers, there must be a claim of illegal disbursement of public funds or that the tax measure is unconstitutional;

(3) for voters, there must be a showing of obvious interest in the validity of the election law in question;

(4) for concerned citizens, there must be a showing that the issues raised are of transcendental importance which must be settled early; and

(5) for legislators, there must be a claim that the official action complained of infringes upon their prerogatives as legislators.92

Another permissible exception is the concept of third-party standing. Actions may be brought on behalf of third parties if the following requisites are satisfied:

... the litigant must have suffered an 'injury-in-fact,' thus giving him or her a "sufficiently concrete interest" in the outcome of the issue in dispute; the litigant must have a close relation to the third party; and there must exist some hindrance to the third party's ability to protect his or her own interests.93

In White Light Corporation v. City of Manila,94 hotel and motel operators filed a complaint to prevent the implementation of Manila Ordinance No. 7774, which prohibited "short time admission in hotels, motels, lodging houses, pension houses and similar establishments"95 in Manila. These operators alleged that the questioned ordinance unlawfully interfered with the conduct of their business. Interestingly, they likewise filed the complaint on behalf of their clients, alleging that the questioned ordinance violated their clients' right to privacy and the freedom of movement, as well as their right to equal protection of the laws.

This Court granted standing to these hotel and motel operators since there would be a clear injury to their business interests. It reasoned that these kinds of businesses rely on the continued patronage of their clientele, and Ordinance No. 7774 deters their clients from patronizing their businesses. This Court likewise noted that "[t]he relative silence in constitutional litigation of such special interest groups in our nation such as the American Civil Liberties Union in the United States may also be construed as a hindrance for customers to bring suit."96

In this case, respondents allege that petitioners were not the proper parties to the suit since they were not the authors of articles, photographs, and graphics published in the magazine. Ordinance No. 7780, however, penalizes the printing, publishing, distribution, or circulation of materials alleged to be obscene or pornographic. Petitioners are the editor-in-chief, managing editor, circulation manager of FHM Magazine and the president of Summit Media, the corporation that publishes the magazine alleged to contain obscene or pornographic material. They stood to be penalized under the law. The direct injury to them, therefore, is clear.

Respondents likewise assail petitioners' standing to argue that Ordinance No. 7780 violates the non-establishment clause, since petitioners did not allege that they were "believers or non-believers" of a particular religion or sect. But, as explained in David, concerned citizens may be granted standing if the case involves constitutional issues. Regardless of petitioners' religious denomination, they may question the validity of an ordinance on the ground that it violates provisions of the Constitution.

Petitioners also bring this suit on behalf of their readers in Manila, whose privacy rights are supposedly violated by Ordinance No. 7780. They assert that it is "tantamount to a blanket prohibition of the private possession of objectionable materials[,]"97 and thus, "is in the nature of a constitutionally impermissible state control over private thoughts."98 Respondents counter that petitioners have no standing to raise this issue since they are not residents of Manila.

Petitioners have shown sufficient third-party standing to question Ordinance No. 7780 on the basis that it violates their readers' privacy rights. As with White Light Corporation, readers would be deterred from buying petitioners' magazines, believing that they possess prohibited materials. This, in turn, would endanger petitioners' business interests, since their publications rely on the strength of their readership.

It is likewise unlikely that a Manila resident who regularly reads these kinds of publications would bring an action to question the Ordinance. This kind of action would be costly and protracted, bringing no substantial benefit to that Manila resident other than giving him or her continued freedom to read these magazines. As noted in White Light Corporation, corporations will more likely question such ordinances to protect their business interests, since there are not enough special interest groups that can regularly engage in constitutional litigation.

III

The issuance of an injunctive writ has already become unnecessary in light of the dismissal of I.S. No. 08G-12234. The Petition, however, has not yet become moot since petitioners questioned not only the validity of the criminal prosecution against them, but the validity of Ordinance No. 7780 itself.

An injunctive writ may be "granted at any stage of an action or proceeding prior to the judgment or final order, requiring a party or a court, agency or a person to refrain from a particular act or acts. It may also require the performance of a particular act or acts[.]"99 For it to be granted, the applicant must establish:

(a)
That the applicant is entitled to the relief demanded, and the whole or part of such relief consists in restraining the commission or continuance of the act or acts complained of, or in requiring performance of an act or acts, either for a limited period or perpetually;
(b)
That the commission, continuance or non-performance of the act or acts complained of during the litigation would probably work injustice to the applicant; or
(c)
That a party, court, agency or a person is doing, threatening, or is attempting to do, or is procuring or suffering to be done, some act or acts probably in violation of the rights of the applicant respecting the subject of the action or proceeding, and tending to render the judgment ineffectual.100

Since I.S. No. 08G-12234 has already been dismissed,101 there is no need or urgency requiring the issuance of an injunctive writ. However, the majority opined that the dismissal of the criminal prosecution has rendered this Petition moot. I disagree.

In David:

A moot and academic case is one that ceases to present a justiciable controversy by virtue of supervening events, so that a declaration thereon would be of no practical use or value. Generally, courts decline jurisdiction over such case or dismiss it on ground of mootness.102

Generally, this Court cannot review cases where the controversy has become moot. However, it will decide cases that have otherwise been moot "if: first, there is a grave violation of the Constitution; second, the exceptional character of the situation and the paramount public interest is involved; third, when the constitutional issue raised requires formulation of controlling principles to guide the bench, the bar, and the public; and fourth, the case is capable of repetition yet evading review."103

Ordinance No. 7780 is still valid within the City of Manila. No other case has been filed to question its constitutionality. The dismissal of the criminal cases against petitioners does not mean that no other person will be penalized under the Ordinance. Its constitutionality, therefore, is an issue that is precisely "capable of repetition, yet evading review."

As this Court stated in Fernando v. Court of Appeals,104 "obscenity is an issue proper for judicial determination and should be treated on a case to case basis and on the judge's sound discretion."105

The majority, however, points out that this dissenting opinion disregards the two-requirement rule in footnote 11 of Pormento v. Estrada,106 which reads:

[T]he "capable of repetition yet evading review" exception ... applies only where the following two circumstances concur: (1) the challenged action is in its duration too short to be fully litigated prior to its cessation or expiration and (2) there is a reasonable expectation that the same complaining party would be subjected to the same action again.107

The majority submits that, first, petitioners' indictment "is not of such inherently short duration that it will lapse before petitioners are able to see it challenged before a higher prosecutorial authority (i.e., the Department of Justice) or the courts";108 and second, that petitioners "also failed to demonstrate a reasonable likelihood that they will once again be hailed before the [Office of the City Prosecutor of] Manila for the same or another violation of Ordinance No. 7780."109

As the facts show, at the time of the filing of the Petition, petitioners were criminally charged before the Office of the City Prosecutor of Manila for violating the questioned Ordinance, but the charges were later dismissed after a preliminary investigation. The short duration of the criminal prosecution is the very reason for this Court to pass upon the issue of mootness. Had the criminal prosecution prospered, there would have been no issue on mootness since the threatened injury would still be existing.

Likewise, as previously stated, Ordinance No. 7780 is still valid and existing in the City of Manila as of the writing of the Decision. Petitioners publish their magazines monthly, which means that they could be subjected to similar criminal charges for every monthly publication. There is, thus, a reasonable likelihood that petitioners could again be charged before the Ordinance's validity is addressed by any court.

In the recent case of Nicolas-Lewis, this Court entertained a Petition questioning the prohibition against partisan political activities abroad during the 2019 national and local elections. Though the Petition had already become moot, this Court exercised its power of judicial review on the ground that the questioned provision might have a chilling effect on a citizen's fundamental right to speech, expression, and suffrage.110

Even more recent, Marquez v. Commission on Elections111 involved the petitioner questioning the Commission on Elections' cancellation of his Certificate of Candidacy for the 2019 national and local elections for being a nuisance candidate. This Court, through Justice Francis H. Jardeleza, conceded that the case should have been dismissed for mootness since elections had already been conducted, with the winning candidates proclaimed. Nonetheless, it proceeded to rule on the case:

The Court is well aware that the May 13, 2019 national and local elections have concluded, with the proclamation of the top 12 candidates receiving the highest number of votes as senators-elect. This development would ordinarily result in the dismissal of the case on the ground of mootness. Since a judgment in one party's (i.e., Marquez) favor will not serve any useful purpose nor have any practical legal effect because, in the nature of things, it cannot be enforced, the Court would normally decline jurisdiction over it.

The Court's power to adjudicate is limited to actual, ongoing controversies. Paragraph 2, Section 1, Article VIII of the 1987 Constitution provides that "judicial power includes the duty of the courts of justice to settle actual controversies involving rights which are legally demandable and enforceable ..." Thus, and as a general rule, this Court will not decide moot questions, or abstract propositions, or declare principles or rules of law which cannot affect the result as to the thing in issue in the case before it.

Such rule, however, admits of exceptions. A court will decide a case which is otherwise moot and academic if it finds that: (a) there was a grave violation of the Constitution; (2) the case involved a situation of exceptional character and was of paramount public interest; (3) the issues raised required the formulation of controlling principles to guide the Bench, the Bar and the public; and (4) the case was capable of repetition yet evading review.

We find that the fourth exception obtains in this case.

At this point, tracing the history of the capable of repetition yet evading review exception to the doctrine on mootness is in order.

The United States (U.S.) Supreme Court first laid down the exception in 1911, in Southern Pacific Terminal Company v. Interstate Commerce Commission. In that case, the Interstate Commerce Commission ordered appellants to cease and desist from granting a shipper undue preference over wharfage charges. The questioned Order, which was effective for about two years expired while the case inched its way up the appellate process, and before a decision could be rendered by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court refused to dismiss the appeal as moot, holding:

. . . The questions involved in the orders of the Interstate Commerce Commission are usually continuing (as are manifestly those in the case at bar) and their consideration ought not to be, as they might be, defeated, by short term orders, capable of repetition, yet evading review, and at one time the Government and at another time the carriers have their rights determined by the Commission without a chance of redress.

The exception would find application in the 1969 election case of Moore v. Ogilvie. Petitioners were independent candidates from Illinois for the offices of electors for President and Vice President of the U.S., for the 1968 election. They questioned an Illinois statute which required candidates for the post of such electors to be nominated by means of signatures of at least 25,000 qualified voters, provided the 25,000 signatures include the signatures of 200 qualified voters spread from each of at least 50 counties. While petitioners filed petitions containing 26,500 signatures of qualified voters, they failed to satisfy the proviso.

Although the 1968 election was over by the time the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court for decision, the Court did not dismiss the case as moot, ruling that "the burden which . . . allowed to be placed on the nomination of candidates for statewide offices remains and controls future elections, as long as Illinois maintains her present system as she has done since 1935. The problem is therefore "capable of repetition, yet evading review.""

Similarly, the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973 applied the exception in Roe v. Wade. There, a pregnant woman in 1970 filed a petition challenging the anti-abortion statutes of Texas and Georgia. The case was not decided until 1973 when petitioner was no longer pregnant. Despite being mooted, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the merits of the petition, explaining:

The usual rule in federal cases is that an actual controversy must exist at stages of appellate or certiorari review, and not simply at the date the action is initiated.

But when, as here, pregnancy is a significant fact in the litigation, the normal 266-day human gestation period is so short that the pregnancy will come to term before the usual appellate process is complete. If that termination makes a case moot, pregnancy litigation seldom will survive much beyond the trial stage, and appellate review will be effectively denied. Our law should not be that rigid. Pregnancy often comes more than once to the same woman, and in the general population, if man is to survive, it will always be with us. Pregnancy provides a classic justification for a conclusion of nonmootness. It truly could be "capable of repetition, yet evading review." ...

By 1975, the U.S. Supreme Court would lay down two elements required to be present in a case before the exception applies. In Weinstein v. Bradford, the Court, explaining its ruling in Sosna v. Iowa, clarified that in the absence of a class action, the "capable of repetition yet evading review" doctrine was limited to the situation where two elements combined: (1) the challenged action was in its duration too short to be fully litigated prior to its cessation or expiration; and (2) there was a reasonable expectation that the same complaining party would be subjected to the same action again.

In Our jurisdiction, the Court would first apply the exception in Alunan III v. Mirasol, an election case. There, petitioners assailed a Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Resolution exempting the City of Manila from holding elections for the Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) on December 4, 1992. Petitioners argued that the elections previously held on May 26, 1990 were to be considered the first under the Local Government Code. The Court was then confronted with the issue of whether the COMELEC can validly vest in the DILG control and supervision of the SK Elections. While the second elections were already held on May 13, 1996, during the pendency of the petition, the Court ruled that the controversy raised is capable of repetition yet evading review because the same issue is "likely to arise in connection with every SK election and yet, the question may not be decided before the date of such elections."

The Court would then apply the exception in the subsequent cases of Sanlakas v. Executive Secretary, David v. Macapagal-Arroyo, Belgica v. Ochoa and in the more recent case of Philippine Association of Detective and Protective Agency Operators (PADPAO) v. COMELEC.

Here, it was only on January 23, 2019 that the COMELEC En Banc rendered its assailed ruling and ultimately decided that Marquez is a nuisance candidate. After receiving a copy of the Resolution on January 28, 2019, he filed this petition on February 14, 2019. Meanwhile, the COMELEC finalized the list of senatorial candidates on January 31, 2019 started printing ballots for national candidates on February 9, 2019 and completing the printing of the same on April 26, 2019. Given this chronology of events, this Court was little wont to issue a TRO, as the same would only delay the conduct of the May 13, 2019 elections.

Moreover, given that the COMELEC appears to be applying the same rule with respect to other aspiring candidates, there is reason to believe that the same issue would likely arise in future elections. Thus, the Court deems it proper to exercise its power of judicial review to rule with finality on whether lack of proof of financial capacity is a valid ground to declare an aspirant a nuisance candidate.112 (Citations omitted)

In Marquez, the parties did not need to prove that other aspiring candidates would file the same cases in subsequent national elections. The Commission on Elections' continuing application of its rules on nuisance candidates was enough for this Court to consider the case as capable of repetition, yet evading review.

Here, the continuing existence of Ordinance No. 7780 and the continuing sale of petitioners' publications heighten the likelihood that they, or other similar publishers, will once again be charged by the Office of the City Prosecutor of Manila with the same offense. Since the issues raised here concern local legislation and its effect on constitutional freedoms, it would be far more prudent for this Court to exercise its power of judicial review to settle the controversy. As this Court aptly stated in David, and as quoted113 by the majority:

There is no question that the issues being raised affect the public's interest, involving as they do the people's basic rights to freedom of expression, of assembly and of the press. Moreover, the Court has the duty to formulate guiding and controlling constitutional precepts, doctrines or rules. It has the symbolic function of educating the bench and the bar, and in the present petitions, the military and the police, on the extent of the protection given by constitutional guarantees. And lastly, respondents' contested actions are capable of repetition. Certainly, the petitions are subject to judicial review.114 (Citation omitted)

IV

Before the enactment of the Revised Penal Code, questions as to what speech or publication may be considered "obscene" were analyzed within the context of Act No. 277,115 otherwise referred to as the Philippine Libel Law.116 Its Section 12 provided:

SECTION 12. Any person who writes, composes, stereotypes, prints, publishes, sells, or keeps for sale, distributes, or exhibits any obscene or indecent writing, paper, book, or other matter, or who designs, copies, draws, engraves, paints or otherwise prepares any obscene picture or print, or who moulds, cuts, casts, or otherwise makes any obscene or indecent figure, or who writes, composes, or prints any notice or advertisement of any such writing, paper, book, print, or figure shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and punished by a fine of not exceeding one thousand dollars or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both.

This Court was first confronted with the question of obscene publications in the 1923 case of People v. Kottinger.117 In that case, an Information was filed against J.J. Kottinger, the owner of Camera Supply Company, for selling photos alleged to be obscene and indecent:

The pictures which it is argued offend against the law on account of being obscene and indecent, disclose six different postures of non-Christian inhabitants of the Philippines. Exhibit A carries the legend "Philippines, Bontoc Woman." Exhibit A-1 is a picture of five young boys and carries the legend "Greetings from the Philippines." Exhibit A-2 has the legend "Ifugao Belle, Philippines. Greetings from the Philippines." Exhibit A-3 has the legend "Igorrot (sic) Girl, Rice Field Costume." Exhibit A-4 has the legend "Kalinga Girls, Philippines." Exhibit A-5 has the legend "Moros, Philippines."118

To determine if the pictures violated Act No. 227, this Court in Kottinger first had to determine what was meant by "obscene." It held:

The word "obscene" and the term "obscenity" may be defined as meaning something offensive to chastity, decency, or delicacy. "Indecency" is an act against good behavior and a just delicacy. The test ordinarily followed by the courts in determining whether a particular publication or other thing is obscene within the meaning of the statutes, is whether the tendency of the matter charged as obscene, is to deprave or corrupt those who minds are open to such immoral influences and into whose hands a publication or other article charged as being obscene may fall. Another test of obscenity is that which shocks the ordinary and common sense of men as an indecency.

The Philippine statute does not attempt to define obscenity or indecent pictures, writings, papers, or books. But the words "obscene or indecent" are themselves descriptive. They are words in common use and every person of average intelligence understands their meaning. Indeed, beyond the evidence furnished by the pictures themselves, there is but little scope for bearing on the issue of obscenity or indecency. Whether a picture is obscene or indecent must depend upon the circumstances of the case.119

This Court likewise noted that there were "copies of reputable magazines which circulate freely thru-out the United States and other countries, and which are admitted into the Philippines without question, containing illustrations into the Philippines without question, containing illustrations identical in nature to those forming the basis of the prosecution at bar."120 Tested against these standards, this Court concluded that the pictures could not be considered "obscene" within the context of the law since they do not tend to offend the viewer's sensibilities:

The pictures in question merely depict persons as they actually live, without attempted presentation of persons in unusual postures or dress. The aggregate judgment of the Philippine community, the moral sense of all the people in the Philippines, would not be shocked by photographs of this type. We are convinced that the post-card pictures in this case cannot be characterized as offensive to chastity, or foul, or filthy.

We readily understand the laudable motives which moved the Government to initiate this prosecution. We fully appreciate the sentiments of colleagues who take a different view of the case. We would be the last to offend the sensibilities of the Filipino people and to sanction anything which would hold them up to ridicule in the eyes of mankind. But we emphasize that we are not deciding a question in political theory or in social ethics. We are dealing with a legal question predicated on a legal fact, and on this question and fact, we reach the conclusion that there has not been proved a violation of section 12 of the Libel Law. When other cases predicated on other states of facts are brought to our attention, we will decide them as they arise.121

Interestingly, Justice George A. Malcolm, an American justice, wrote this Court's opinion. To do so, he used the same standards that would be usec in an American federal court and concluded that based on these standards, an American federal court would find that the pictures were not offensive. Ir contrast, a Filipino justice, Justice Norberto Romualdez, dissented and opined that the same standards would not hold in Manila:

I do not agree with the view taken by the majority as to the nature of the photographic pictures in question. While said pictures cannot, strictly, be termed obscene, they must, however, be regarded as indecent, for they are so.

Such pictures offend modesty and refinement, and for this reason, they are indecent. This is shown by common sense. No woman claiming to be decent would dare to stand before the public in Manila, where said pictures were exhibited, in the same fashion as these pictures are.

It is alleged that these pictures were taken from nature in non-Christian regions. We agree that in said regions they are not, perhaps, regarded as offensive to modesty, and, therefore, are accidentally not indecent there. But in the City of Manila where they were exhibited, no doubt they are.122

This Court would not be confronted with the same issue until the 1955 case of People v. Go Pin.123 By then, however, any question before this Court as to what may be considered "obscene" was seen through the lens of Article 201 of the Revised Penal Code, which provides:

ARTICLE 201. Immoral doctrines, obscene publications and exhibitions, and indecent shows. � The penalty of prision mayor or a fine ranging from six thousand to twelve thousand pesos, or both such imprisonment and fine, shall be imposed upon:

1. Those who shall publicly expound or proclaim doctrines openly contrary to public morals;

2. The authors of obscene literature, published with their knowledge in any form, the editors publishing such literature, and the owners/operators of the book store or other establishments selling the same;

3. Those who in theaters, fairs cinematographs or any other place, shall exhibit indecent or immoral plays, scenes, acts or shows, including the following:

(a) Films which tend to incite subversion, insurrection or rebellion against the State;

(b) Films which tend to undermine the faith and confidence of the people in their Government and/or duly constituted authorities;

(c) Films which glorify criminals or condone crimes;

(d) Films which serve no other purpose but to satisfy the market for violence, lust or pornography;

(e) Films which offend any race or religion;

(f) Films which tend to abet traffic in the use of prohibited drugs;

(g) Films contrary to law, public order, morals, good customs, established policies, lawful orders, decrees, edicts, and any or all films which in the judgment of the Board of Censors for Motion Pictures or other agency established by the Government to oversee such motion pictures are objectionable on some other legal or moral grounds.

4. Those who shall sell, give away of exhibit prints, engravings, sculptures or literature which are offensive to morals.124

In Go Pin, a Chinese citizen was charged with violation of Article 201 for exhibiting within the City of Manila "a large number of one-real 16-millimeter films about 100 feet in length each, which are allegedly indecent and/or immoral."125 The case, however, did not specify what the films actually contained.

This Court in Go Pin neither defined "obscenity" nor even cited Kottinger. Instead, it created a standard where publications done for the sake of art would not be treated with the same protection as those distributed for commercial purposes:

If such pictures, sculptures and paintings are shown in art exhibits and art galleries for the cause of art, to be viewed and appreciated by people interested in art, there would be no offense committed. However, the pictures here in question were used not exactly for art's sake but rather for commercial purposes. In other words, the supposed artistic qualities of said pictures were being commercialized so that the cause of art was of secondary or minor importance. Gain and profit would appear to have been the main, if not the exclusive consideration in their exhibition; and it would not be surprising if the persons who went to see those pictures and paid entrance fees for the privilege of doing so, were not exactly artists and persons interested in art and who generally go to art exhibitions and galleries to satisfy and improve their artistic tastes, but rather people desirous of satisfying their morbid curiosity and taste, and lust, and for love for excitement, including the youth who because of their immaturity are not in a position to resist and shield themselves from the ill and perverting effects of these pictures.126

Not more than two (2) years later, this Court would again apply the same standard in People v. Padan.127 In Padan, a manager, a ticket collector and two (2) performers were convicted of violating Article 201 for allegedly performing sexual intercourse in front of paying spectators.

This Court's shock at the offense was palpable. It was quick to denounce the crime:

We believe that the penalty imposed fits the crime, considering its seriousness. As far as we know, this is the first time that the courts in this jurisdiction, at least this Tribunal, have been called upon to take cognizance of an offense against morals and decency of this kind. We have had occasion to consider offenses like the exhibition of still or moving pictures of women in the nude, which we have condemned for obscenity and as offensive to morals. In those cases, one might yet claim that there was involved the element of art; that connoisseurs of the same, and painters and sculptors might find inspiration in the showing of pictures in the nude, or the human body exhibited in sheer nakedness, as models in tableaux vivants. But an actual exhibition of the sexual act, preceded by acts of lasciviousness, can have no redeeming feature. In it, there is no room for art. One can see nothing in it but clear and unmitigated obscenity, indecency, and an offense to public morals, inspiring and causing as it does, nothing but lust and lewdness, and exerting a corrupting influence specially on the youth of the land.128

Art, thus, was not considered obscene if it contained a "redeeming feature." The irony, however, was that despite the apparently shocking nature of the offense, this Court proceeded to describe in detail the "exhibition of human 'fighting fish' [in the] actual act of coitus or copulation":129

[The manager Fajardo] ordered that an army steel bed be placed at the center of the floor, covered with an army blanket and provided with a pillow. Once the spectators, about 106 in number, were crowded inside that small building, the show started. Fajardo evidently to arouse more interest among the customers, asked them to select among two girls present who was to be one of the principal actors. By pointing to or holding his hand over the head of each of the two women one after the other, and judging by the shouts of approval emitted by the spectators, he decided that defendant Marina Padan was the subject of popular approval, and he selected her. After her selection, the other woman named Concha, left. Without much ado, Fajardo selected Cosme Espinosa to be Marina's partner. Thereafter, Cosme and Marina proceeded to disrobe while standing around the bed. When completely naked, they turned around to exhibit their bodies to the spectators. Then they indulged in lascivious acts, consisting of petting, kissing, and touching the private parts of each other. When sufficiently aroused, they lay on the bed and proceeded to consummate the act of coitus in three different positions which we deem unnecessary to describe. The four or five witnesses who testified for the Government when asked about their reaction to what they saw, frankly admitted that they were excited beyond description. Then the police who were among the spectators and who were previously provided with a search warrant made the raid, arrested the four defendants herein, and took pictures of Marina and Cosme still naked and of the army bed, which pictures were presented as exhibits during the trial.130

None of these prior cases, however, involved constitutional questions. They merely required the interpretation of "obscenity" under the law. It was only in 1985 when, for the first time, an obscenity case invoking the constitutional right to freedom of expression was brought to this Court.

In Gonzalez v. Katigbak,131 the Board of Review for Motion Pictures and Television (Board), created by Executive Order No. 876, classified the film, "Kapit sa Patalim," as "For Adults Only," and permitted its showing subject to certain changes and deletions enumerated by the Board. This prompted Jose U. Gonzalez, the president of Malaya Films, and the filmmakers, Lino Brocka, Jose F. Lacaba, and Dulce Q. Saguisag, to file a Petition for Certiorari against the Board on the basis that the classification was "without legal and factual basis and [was] exercised as impermissible restraint of artistic expression."132

In balancing the prohibition against obscenity and the protection of constitutionally-protected rights, this Court applied the Hicklin test in Regina v. Hicklin:133

. . . whether to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to prurient interest.134

Thus, this Court mandated in Gonzalez that a work must be evaluated as a whole, rather than in its isolated passages, "applying contemporary Filipino cultural values as standard," to determine if the work is obscene and beyond the protection of freedom of expression:

In the applicable law, Executive Order No. 876, reference was made to respondent Board "applying contemporary Filipino cultural values as standard," words which can be construed in an analogous manner. Moreover, as far as the question of sex and obscenity are concerned, it cannot be stressed strongly that the arts and letters "shall be under the patronage of the State." That is a constitutional mandate. It will be less than true to its function if any government office or agency would invade the sphere of autonomy that an artist enjoys. There is no orthodoxy in what passes for beauty or for reality. It is for the artist to determine what for him is a true representation. It is not to be forgotten that art and belles-lettres deal primarily with imagination, not so much with ideas in a strict sense. What is seen or perceived by an artist is entitled to respect, unless there is a showing that the product of his talent rightfully may be considered obscene. As so well put by Justice Frankfurter in a concurring opinion, "the widest scope of freedom is to be given to the adventurous and imaginative exercise of the human spirit" in this sensitive area of a man's personality. On the question of obscenity, therefore, and in the light of the facts of this case, such standard set forth in Executive Order No. 878 is to be construed in such a fashion to avoid any taint of unconstitutionality. To repeat, what was stated in a recent decision citing the language of Justice Malcolm in Yu Cong Eng v. Trinidad, it is "an elementary, a fundamental, and a universal role of construction, applied when considering constitutional questions, that when a law is susceptible of two constructions one of which will maintain and the other destroy it, the courts will always adopt the former[.]" As thus construed, there can be no valid objection to the sufficiency of the controlling standard and its conformity to what the Constitution ordains.135

Guided by the following standards, this Court ruled that the Board abused its discretion, finding "its perception of what constitutes obscenity appears to be unduly restrictive."136 The abuse, however, could not be categorized as grave since:

The adult classification given the film serves as a warning to theater operators and viewers that some contents of Kapit are not fit for the young. Some of the scenes in the picture were taken in a theater-club and a good portion of the film shots concentrated on some women erotically dancing naked, or at least nearly naked, on the theater stage. Another scene on that stage depicted the women kissing and caressing as lesbians. And toward the end of the picture, there exists scenes of excessive violence attending the battle between a group of robbers and the police. The vulnerable and imitative in the young audience will misunderstand these scenes.137

This Court likewise suggested a "less liberal approach" when reviewing television shows:

[U]nlike motion pictures where the patrons have to pay their way, television reaches every home where there is a set. Children then will likely will be among the avid viewers of the programs therein shown. As was observed by Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jerome Frank, it is hardly the concern of the law to deal with the sexual fantasies of the adult population. It cannot be denied though that the State as parens patriae is called upon to manifest an attitude of caring for the welfare of the young.138

The absence of a set standard in prior cases would continue to confound this Court in the 1989 case of Pita v. Court of Appeals,139 remarking that "the issue is a complicated one, in which the fine lines have neither been drawn nor divided."140 In that case, the publisher of Pinoy Playboy, a "men's magazine,"141 questioned the police's seizure of his magazines from peddlers along Manila sidewalks for supposedly being obscene, pornographic, and indecent.

In Pita, this Court first addressed the prior cases but subsequently concluded that jurisprudence tended to obfuscate, rather than illuminate, the issues:

Kottinger, in its effort to arrive at a "conclusive" definition, succeeded merely in generalizing a problem that has grown increasingly complex over the years. Precisely, the question is: When does a publication have a corrupting tendency, or when can it be said to be offensive to human sensibilities? And obviously, it is to beg the question to say that a piece of literature has a corrupting influence because it is obscene, and vice-versa.

Apparently, Kottinger was aware of its own uncertainty because in the same breath, it would leave the final say to a hypothetical "community standard" � whatever that is � and that the question must supposedly be judged from case to case.

About three decades later, this Court promulgated People v. Go Pin, a prosecution under Article 201 of the Revised Penal Code. Go Pin was also even hazier[.]

. . . .

It was People v. Padan y Alova, however, that introduced to Philippine jurisprudence the "redeeming" element that should accompany the work, to save it from a valid prosecution. . . .

. . . .

Padan y Alova, like Go Pin, however, raised more questions than answers. For one thing, if the exhibition was attended by "artists and persons interested in art and who generally go to art exhibitions and galleries to satisfy and improve their artistic tastes," could the same legitimately lay claim to "art"? For another, suppose that the exhibition was so presented that "connoisseurs of [art], and painters and sculptors might find inspiration," in it, would it cease to be a case of obscenity?

Padan y Alova, like Go Pin also leaves too much latitude for judicial arbitrament, which has permitted an ad lib of ideas and "two-cents worths" among judges as to what is obscene and what is art.

In a much later decision, Gonzalez v. Kalaw Katigbak, the Court, following trends in the United States, adopted the test: "Whether to the average person, applying contemporary standards, the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to prurient interest." Kalaw-Katigbak represented a marked departure from Kottinger in the sense that it measured obscenity in terms of the "dominant theme" of the work rather than isolated passages, which were central to Kottinger (although both cases are agreed that "contemporary community standards" are the final arbiters of what is "obscene"). Kalaw-Katigbak undertook moreover to make the determination of obscenity essentially a judicial question and as a consequence, to temper the wide discretion Kottinger had given unto law enforcers.142

This Court showed in Pita a rather progressive view of the constitutional questions involved, concluding that a society's tastes and sensibilities develop and evolve over time. What may be regarded as obscene before may not be as shocking decades later:

In the case at bar, there is no challenge on the right of the State, in the legitimate exercise of police power, to suppress smut � provided it is smut. For obvious reasons, smut is not smut simply because one insists it is smut. So is it equally evident that individual tastes develop, adapt to wide-ranging influences, and keep in step with the rapid advance of civilization. What shocked our forebears, say, five decades ago, is not necessarily repulsive to the present generation. James Joyce and D.H. Lawrence were censored in the Thirties yet their works are considered important literature today. Goya's La Maja Desnuda was once banned from public exhibition but now adorns the world's most prestigious museums.

But neither should we say that "obscenity" is a bare (no pun intended) matter of opinion. As we said earlier, it is the divergent perceptions of men and women that have probably compounded the problem rather than resolved it.

What the Court is impressing, plainly and simply, is that the question is not, and has not been, an easy one to answer, as it is far from being a settled matter. We share Tribe's disappointment over the discouraging trend in American decisional law on obscenity as well as his pessimism on whether or not an "acceptable" solution is in sight.143 (Citation omitted)

It was also in Pita where the standards imposed in Miller v. California144 were introduced into this jurisdiction. Miller refined and clarified the Hicklin test by expanding its guidelines:

The latest word, however, is Miller v. California, which . . . established "basic guidelines," to wit: "(a) whether 'the average person, applying contemporary standards' would find the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest . . .; (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value."145

However, despite introducing the Miller test, this Court declined to apply it in Pita. Instead, this Court focused the issue on whether the distribution and sale of Pinoy Playboy presented a clear and present danger that would warrant State interference:

In the final analysis perhaps, the task that confronts us is less heroic than rushing to a "perfect" definition of "obscenity," if that is possible, as evolving standards for proper police conduct faced with the problem, which, after all, is the plaint specifically raised in the petition.

. . . .

Undoubtedly, "immoral" lore or literature comes within the ambit of free expression, although not its protection. In free expression cases, this Court has consistently been on the side of the exercise of the right, barring a "clear and present danger" that would warrant State interference and action. But, so we asserted in Reyes v. Bagatsing, "the burden to show the existence of grave and imminent danger that would justify adverse action . . . lies on the . . . authorit[ies]."

"There must be objective and convincing, not subjective or conjectural, proof of the existence of such clear and present danger." "It is essential for the validity of . . . previous restraint or censorship that the . . . authority does not rely solely on his own appraisal of what the public welfare, peace or safety may require."

"To justify such a limitation, there must be proof of such weight and sufficiency to satisfy the clear and present danger test."

The above disposition must not, however, be taken as a neat effort to arrive at a solution � so only we may arrive at one � but rather as a serious attempt to put the question in its proper perspective, that is, as a genuine constitutional issue.146 (Citations omitted)

This Court's reluctance to apply the Miller test in Pita was not a hindrance in Fernando v. Court of Appeals.147 In Fernando, the petitioners were charged with violation of Article 201 for the sale and exhibition of allegedly obscene magazines and VHS tapes. This Court, after a review of the relevant jurisprudence, conceded that "[i]t seems futile at this point to formulate a perfect definition of obscenity that shall apply in all cases."148

This Court encouraged the application of the Miller test in determining obscenity, but was quick to point out that "it would be a serious misreading of Miller to conclude that the trier of facts has the unbridled discretion in determining what is 'patently offensive.'"149 Instead, it mandated:

No one will be subject to prosecution for the sale or exposure of obscene materials unless these materials depict or describe patently offensive "hard core" sexual conduct. Examples included (a) patently offensive representations or descriptions of ultimate sexual acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated; and (b) patently offensive representations or descriptions of masturbation, excretory functions, and lewd exhibition of the genitals.150

Using these examples as basis, this Court concluded that the confiscated materials, being obscene, violated Article 201 of the Revised Penal Code. It affirmed the lower courts' finding that the pictures and the VHS tapes, which showed nude men and women having sex, "exhibited indecent and immoral scenes and acts."151

The latest pronouncement upholding the Miller test was in the 2009 case of Soriano v. Laguardia,152 where this Court stated that "a patently offensive utterance would come within the pale of the term obscenity should it appeal to the prurient interest of an average listener applying contemporary standards."153

The Miller test provides the current guidelines to distinguish between protected speech and obscenity. Any legislation, whether local or national, that goes beyond these guidelines run the risk of violating constitutionally-protected freedoms. Thus, they must be struck down as unconstitutional.

V

Before proceeding, this Court must recognize certain views to be considered when faced with the issue of offensive and obscene language and imagery as protected speech and expression.

Legal scholar Catharine MacKinnon (MacKinnon) submits that whenever courts discuss obscenity or pornography, there is an inherent conflict between the doctrines on free speech and gender equality.154 The standard to measure whether obscene speech is unprotected speech is if it is "puerile," or when it can give a penis an erection.155 To Mackinnon, framing issues based on men's reactions to obscene expression perpetuates the social reality that women are subordinate to men, since it is men's speech that is protected when an obscene expression is held as constitutional.156

MacKinnon elaborates that in treating pornography as protected expression, the State only protects men's freedom of speech. A woman's freedom of speech is trampled.157 When an obscene material is held constitutional, it is concluded that the material did not offend men's sensibilities. No actual discussion is held on whether the material tends to exploit women.158 This is the continuing flaw of anti-obscenity regulations. Each time pornography is held as protected expression, this inequality is perpetuated. It becomes more integrated into the social consciousness, effectively silencing women, and rendering any argument on inequality as inconsequential.159

This perceived inequality has never been addressed in this jurisdiction. This Court's application of the Miller test, as with the earlier guidelines, is premised on the idea of equality: that men and women are equal and are to be viewed equally. All prior cases, however, were written by male Justices, and necessarily pertained to the male's point of view of equality that women are inferior to men.

MacKinnon's views, however, are not without criticisms. Scholar Edwin Baker (Baker) submits that her theory fails to recognize the primary justification for protecting expression in relation to individual liberty.160 It fails to recognize that people can induce change and transform their social and political environments through expressive behavior.161 Their participation in this process is within their protected freedoms:

Even expression that is received less as argument than "masturbation material", becomes part of a cultural or behavioral "debate" about sexuality, about the nature of human relations, and about pleasure and morality, as well as about the roles of men and women. Historically, puritanical attempts to suppress sexually explicit materials appear largely designed to shut down this cultural contestation in favor of a traditional practice of keeping women in the private sphere. Opening up this cultural debate has in the past, and can in the future, contribute to progressive change.162 (Citations omitted)

Baker likewise suggests that MacKinnon disregards the view that the audience of the obscene expression is presumed to be composed of autonomous agents who are responsible for their actions and are capable of making their own moral choices.163

For Baker, the expression should be treated as independent of the offense. The speaker's obscene expression does not by itself give rise to the offense. Any possible harm that could be caused by the expression is through how the receiver, who has the autonomy to think and act for himself or herself, responds to the expression:

Part of the reason to protect speech, or, more broadly, to protect liberty, is a commitment to the view that people should be able to participate in constructing their world, or to the belief that this popular participation provides the best way to move toward a better world. The guarantee of liberty represents a deep faith in people and in democracy.164 (Citation omitted)

Regardless of these seemingly conflicting views, discussions on obscene expression as protected speech still largely remain a debate on the male reaction to the expression. Perhaps, in future cases, this inequality would be raised by the parties and addressed by this Court. For now, the Miller test would have to suffice in determining whether an obscenity regulation transgresses on protected freedoms.

VI

This Court's task here is not to determine whether a certain work or publication is obscene, but rather, whether a certain local legislation follows the set guidelines to protect speech and expression.

When confronted with the constitutionality of a statute, this Court determines whether a statute is valid "on its face" or "as applied."165 In his opinion in Estrada v. Sandiganbayan,166 Justice Vicente Mendoza explains:

A facial challenge is allowed to be made to a vague statute and to one which is overbroad because of possible "chilling effect" upon protected speech. The theory is that "[w]hen statutes regulate or proscribe speech and no readily apparent construction suggests itself as a vehicle for rehabilitating the statutes in a single prosecution, the transcendent value to all society of constitutionally protected expression is deemed to justify allowing attacks on overly broad statutes with no requirement that the person making the attack demonstrate that his own conduct could not be regulated by a statute drawn with narrow specificity." The possible harm to society in permitting some unprotected speech to go unpunished is outweighed by the possibility that the protected speech of others may be deterred and perceived grievances left to fester because of possible inhibitory effects of overly broad statutes.

This rationale does not apply to penal statutes. Criminal statutes have general in terrorem effect resulting from their very existence, and, if facial challenge is allowed for this reason alone, the State may well be prevented from enacting laws against socially harmful conduct. In the area of criminal law, the law cannot take chances as in the area of free speech.

The overbreadth and vagueness doctrines then have special application only to free speech cases. They are inapt for testing the validity of penal statutes. As the U.S. Supreme Court put it, in an opinion by Chief Justice Rehnquist, "we have not recognized an 'overbreadth' doctrine outside the limited context of the First Amendment." In Broadrick v. Oklahoma, the Court ruled that "claims of facial overbreadth have been entertained in cases involving statutes which, by their terms, seek to regulate only spoken words" and, again, that "overbreadth claims, if entertained at all, have been curtailed when invoked against ordinary criminal laws that are sought to be applied to protected conduct." For this reason, it has been held that "a facial challenge to a legislative Act is . . . the most difficult challenge to mount successfully, since the challenger must establish that no set of circumstances exists under which the Act would be valid." As for the vagueness doctrine, it is said that a litigant may challenge a statute on its face only if it is vague in all its possible applications. "A plaintiff who engages in some conduct that is clearly proscribed cannot complain of the vagueness of the law as applied to the conduct of others."

In sum, the doctrines of strict scrutiny, overbreadth, and vagueness are analytical tools developed for testing "on their faces" statutes in free speech cases or, as they are called in American law, First Amendment cases. They cannot be made to do service when what is involved is a criminal statute. With respect to such statute, the established rule is that "one to whom application of a statute is constitutional will not be heard to attack the statute on the ground that impliedly it might also be taken as applying to other persons or other situations in which its application might be unconstitutional." As has been pointed out, "vagueness challenges in the First Amendment context, like overbreadth challenges typically produce facial invalidation, while statutes found vague as a matter of due process typically are invalidated [only] 'as applied' to a particular defendant." Consequently, there is no basis for petitioner's claim that this Court review the Anti-Plunder Law on its face and in its entirety.167

A statute may be declared invalid if it is vague�when its provisions fail to "inform those who are subject to it what conduct on their part will render them liable to its penalties."168 Specifically:

A statute or act suffers from the defect of vagueness when it lacks comprehensible standards that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application. It is repugnant to the Constitution in two respects: (1) it violates due process for failure to accord persons, especially the parties targeted by it, fair notice of the conduct to avoid; and (2) it leaves law enforcers unbridled discretion in carrying out its provisions and becomes an arbitrary flexing of the Government muscle.169 (Citation omitted)

In Southern Hemisphere Engagement Network, Inc. v. Anti-Terrorism Council,170 this Court clarified that a vagueness challenge may only be invoked in "as applied" cases. In Disini, Jr. v. Secretary of Justice,171 however, this Court expanded its application to facial challenges, on the ground that "[w]hen a penal statute encroaches upon the freedom of speech, a facial challenge grounded on the void-for-vagueness doctrine is acceptable."172

The overbreadth doctrine, on the other hand, invalidates a statute when it "offends the constitutional principle that a governmental purpose to control or prevent activities constitutionally subject to state regulations may not be achieved by means which sweep unnecessarily broadly and thereby invade the area of protected freedoms."173

Southern Hemisphere limits the application of the overbreadth doctrine only to freedom of expression cases:

By its nature, the overbreadth doctrine has to necessarily apply a facial type of invalidation in order to plot areas of protected speech, inevitably almost always under situations not before the court, that are impermissibly swept by the substantially overbroad regulation. Otherwise stated, a statute cannot be properly analyzed for being substantially overbroad if the court confines itself only to facts as applied to the litigants.174

The same case, however, clarifies that "the primary criterion in the application of the doctrine is not whether the case is a freedom of speech case, but rather, whether the case involves an as-applied or a facial challenge."175 In particular:

In restricting the overbreadth doctrine to free speech claims, the Court, in at least two cases, observed that the US Supreme Court has not recognized an overbreadth doctrine outside the limited context of the First Amendment, and that claims of facial overbreadth have been entertained in cases involving statutes which, by their terms, seek to regulate only spoken words. In Virginia v. Hicks, it was held that rarely, if ever, will an overbreadth challenge succeed against a law or regulation that is not specifically addressed to speech or speech-related conduct. Attacks on overly broad statutes are justified by the "transcendent value to all society of constitutionally protected expression."176 (Citations omitted)

Thus, in determining whether the void-for-vagueness doctrine and the overbreadth doctrine should apply, the primary consideration is not whether the case is a freedom of expression case. Instead, for the void-for-vagueness doctrine, the primary consideration is whether there is a violation of the fundamental right to due process. As for the overbreadth doctrine, the question must be whether the case involves a facial challenge or an "as applied" challenge.177

The only exception to this analysis is when the assailed ordinance prohibits child pornography. This type of medium is explicitly prohibited by Republic Act No. 9775.178 It is, thus, beyond the pale of constitutionally-protected speech.

Petitioners in this case assail the constitutionality of Ordinance No. 7780 on the ground that its provisions were unduly expansive and encroaches upon protected expression. They appear to be arguing that the statute, on its face, was overbroad. Thus, an overbreadth analysis must be applied to determine the validity of Ordinance No. 7780.

In Nicolas-Lewis, this Court subjected Section 36.8179 of Republic Act No. 9189, as amended,180 to a facial challenge on the ground of overbreadth, as it was alleged that this provision, on its face, violated the right to free speech, expression, and assembly, as well as the right of suffrage.181 This Court stated:

Foremost, a facial review of a law or statute encroaching upon the freedom of speech on the ground of overbreadth or vagueness is acceptable in our jurisdiction. Under the overbreadth doctrine, a proper governmental purpose, constitutionally subject to state regulation, may not be achieved by means that unnecessarily sweep its subject broadly, thereby invading the area of protected freedoms. Put differently, an overbroad law or statute needlessly restricts even constitutionally-protected rights. On the other hand, a law or statute suffers from vagueness when it lacks comprehensible standards that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application.

It is noteworthy, however, that facial invalidation of laws is generally disfavored as its results to entirely striking down the challenged law or statute on the ground that they may be applied to parties not before the Court whose activities are constitutionally protected. It disregards the case and controversy requirement of the Constitution in judicial review, and permits decisions to be made without concrete factual settings and in sterile abstract contexts, deviating thus from the traditional rules governing constitutional adjudication. Hence, an on-its-face invalidation of the law has consistently been considered as a "manifestly strong medicine to be used "sparingly and only as a last resort."

The allowance of a review of a law or statute on its face in free speech cases is justified, however, by the aim to avert the "chilling effect" on protected speech, the exercise of which should not at all times be abridged. The Court elucidated:

The theory is that "[w]hen statutes regulate or proscribe speech and no readily apparent construction suggests itself as a vehicle for rehabilitating the statutes in a single prosecution, the transcendent value to all society of constitutionally protected expression is deemed to justify allowing attacks on overly broad statutes with no requirement that the person making the attack demonstrate that his own conduct could not be regulated by a statute drawn with narrow specificity.182 (Citations omitted)

The questioned legislation here, Ordinance No. 7780, considers the following acts or materials as "obscene," and therefore, illegal:

A. Obscene shall refer to any material or act that is indecent, erotic, lewd or offensive, or contrary to morals, good customs or religious beliefs, principles or doctrines, or to any material or act that tends to corrupt or depr[a]ve the human mind, or is calculated to excite impure imagination or arouse prurient interest, or is unfit to be seen or heard, or which violates the proprieties of language or behavior, regardless of the motive of the printer, publisher, seller, distributor, performer or author of such act or material, such as but not limited to:

1. Printing, showing, depicting or describing sexual acts;

2. Printing, showing, depicting or describing children in sexual acts;

3. Printing, showing, depicting or describing completely nude human bodies; and

4. Printing, showing, depicting or describing the human sexual organs or the female breasts.

The question before this Court is whether the enumeration in the Ordinance is so overbroad that it invades the areas of protected freedoms. We are asked to resolve whether it contains, on its face, provisions that result in a "chilling effect" on constitutionally-protected speech and expression.

The majority submits that "a facial overbreadth challenge is improper as against an anti-obscenity statute"183 since obscenity has always been considered unprotected speech.

However, before speech may be considered obscene�and therefore, unprotected speech�prior legislation must first declare it to be so. Jurisprudence has yet to accept the idea of any speech or expression that is obscene per se. Thus, anti-obscenity statutes may still be subjected to a constitutional challenge to determine if they violate certain constitutional freedoms. Only when the statute overcomes questions of overbreadth can any speech or expression proscribed by it be considered obscene or unprotected speech.

The problem in this case is how to determine if the provisions of Ordinance No. 7780 are overbroad. This Court must, thus, resort to more specific tests, and in this particular instance, the Miller test suffices.

As Justice Estela Perlas-Bernabe (Justice Perlas-Bernabe) notes "Miller is not � strictly speaking � the test to determine the constitutionality of a particular ordinance or statute."184 It "provides the prevailing proper standard to determine what is obscene[.]"185 Thus, a questioned anti-obscenity ordinance may be rendered unconstitutional, not because it violates the Miller test, but because it violates substantive due process under the overbreadth analysis.186

To be sure, the Miller test is not the only test that has provided guidelines on obscenity. The MacKinnon-Dworkin test, after MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin (Dworkin), provides a different definition of pornography:

Pornography is the graphic sexually explicit subordination of women through pictures and/or words that also includes one or more of the following: (i) women are presented dehumanized as sexual objects, things, or commodities; or (ii) women are presented as sexual objects who enjoy pain or humiliation; or (iii) women are presented as sexual objects who experience sexual pleasure in being raped; or (iv) women are presented as sexual objects tied up or cut up or mutilated or bruised or physically hurt; or (v) women are presented in postures or positions of sexual submission, servility, or display; or (vi) women's body parts�including but not limited to vaginas, breasts, or buttocks�are exhibited such that women are reduced to those parts; or (vii) women are presented as whores by nature; or (viii) women are presented being penetrated by objects or animals; or (ix) women are presented in scenarios of degradation, injury, torture, shown as filthy or inferior, bleeding, bruised, or hurt in a context that makes these conditions sexual.

The use of men, children, or transsexuals in the place of women in [the paragraph] above is also pornography.187

Unlike the Miller test, the MacKinnon-Dworkin test examines particular depictions of obscenity, and not the work when viewed as a whole. It concerns itself with the prohibition of obscene works, not merely because they appeal to prurient interest, but because they tend to subordinate women. For MacKinnon and Dworkin, pornography is "a practice of civil inequality on the basis of gender,"188 and law is the specific vehicle for which this inequality may be corrected. The MacKinnon-Dworkin test espouses an absolute prohibition on pornography, as it conditions the viewers' minds to believe that the actors, usually the female actors, are subordinate and cannot be treated as equal.189

However, the MacKinnon-Dworkin test has since been struck down in American Booksellers Association v. Hudnut,190 a case heard in the United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit and summarily affirmed by the United States Supreme Court.191

In that case,192 an Indianapolis anti-obscenity ordinance, which was primarily drafted by MacKinnon and Dworkin, was questioned before the courts. The district court declared it unconstitutional as it tended to regulate speech rather than the conduct involved. The circuit court agreed, since the premise of MacKinnon and Dworkin's theory proposes that depictions of subordinate women perpetuates men's continued subordination of women. According to the circuit court:

Sexual responses often are unthinking responses, and the association of sexual arousal with the subordination of women therefore may have a substantial effect. But almost all cultural stimuli provoke unconscious responses. Religious ceremonies condition their participants. Teachers convey messages by selecting what not to cover; the implicit message about what is off limits or unthinkable may be more powerful than the messages for which they present rational argument. Television scripts contain unarticulated assumptions. People may be conditioned in subtle ways. If the fact that speech plays a role in a process of conditioning were enough to permit governmental regulation, that would be the end of freedom of speech.

It is possible to interpret the claim that the pornography is the harm in a different way. Indianapolis emphasizes the injury that models in pornographic films and pictures may suffer. The record contains materials depicting sexual torture, penetration of women by red-hot irons and the like. These concerns have nothing to do with written materials subject to the statute, and physical injury can occur with or without the "subordination" of women.193

The questioned ordinance in American Booksellers Association was seen as overbroad since it tended to encroach on protected speech. Thus, the entire ordinance was struck down as unconstitutional based on the very definition of what may be considered pornography:

The definition of "pornography" is unconstitutional. No construction or excision of particular terms could save it. The offense of trafficking in pornography necessarily falls with the definition. We express no view on the district court's conclusions that the ordinance is vague and that it establishes a prior restraint. Neither is necessary to our judgment. We also express no view on the argument presented by several amici that the ordinance is itself a form of discrimination on account of sex.

Section 8 of the ordinance is a strong severability clause, and Indianapolis asks that we parse the ordinance to save what we can. If a court could do this by surgical excision, this might be possible. But a federal court may not completely reconstruct a local ordinance, and we conclude that nothing short of rewriting could save anything.194 (Citation omitted)

Since the MacKinnon-Dworkin test is in itself overbroad, this Court is constrained to apply the Miller test.

This Court acknowledges that Ordinance No. 7780 was enacted before the promulgation of Miller.195 But as discussed earlier, Miller merely refined Hicklin,196 which provided:

. . . whether to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to prurient interest.197

Gonzalez,198 where the Hicklin test was applied, had already been in existence when Ordinance No. 7780 was enacted. Miller merely consolidates and refines the standards in Hicklin and the other cases that came before it.

Justice Antonio Carpio, in his opinion in Soriano, succinctly provides an illuminating history of these cases and its subsequent application in this jurisdiction:

One of the established exceptions in freedom of expression is speech characterized as obscene. I will briefly discuss obscenity as the majority opinion characterized the subject speech in this case as obscene, thereby taking the speech out of the scope of constitutional protection.

The leading test for determining what material could be considered obscene was the famous Regina v. Hicklin case wherein Lord Cockburn enunciated thus:

I think the test of obscenity is this, whether the tendency of the matter charged as obscenity is to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences, and into whose hands a publication of this sort may fall.

Judge Learned Hand, in United States v. Kennerly, opposed the strictness of the Hicklin test even as he was obliged to follow the rule. He wrote:

I hope it is not improper for me to say that the rule as laid down, however consonant it may be with mid-Victorian morals, does not seem to me to answer to the understanding and morality of the present time.

Roth v. United States laid down the more reasonable and thus, more acceptable test for obscenity: "whether to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to prurient interest." Such material is defined as that which has "a tendency to excite lustful thoughts," and "prurient interest" as "a shameful or morbid interest in nudity, sex, or excretion."

Miller v. California merely expanded the Roth test to include two additional criteria: "the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and the work, taken as whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value." The basic test, as applied in our jurisprudence, extracts the essence of both Roth and Miller � that is, whether the material appeals to prurient interest.199

The majority in this case, however, takes exception to this Court's application of the Miller test and suggests that the proper recourse should have been to proceed with trial so that the trial court could rule on the factual issues, adopt the Miller test, and receive evidence. It suggests that the case should have first undergone the appellate process before review by this Court, as that "is the process observed by the US Supreme Court in all of the obscenity cases cited . . . which led to the adoption of the Miller standards in the US."200

In this case, petitioners were criminally charged by the Office of the City Prosecutor of Manila before filing this Petition. While this case was pending, however, that criminal case was dismissed. Had it continued, there would be no doubt that it would have undergone the appellate process suggested by the majority and would have eventually been reviewed by this Court. The same discussion would, undoubtedly, be undertaken by this Court.

In any case, there is no need to make a factual determination of the issues when the mode of analysis to be applied is a facial overbreadth challenge. The constitutionality of the statute is determined "on its face," rather than "as applied," which requires factual antecedence. As recent cases present, resolving questions of fact when subsequent events have already rendered the facts moot is unnecessary.

In Marquez, this Court did not delve into the factual issue of whether the petitioner had the financial capacity to launch a nationwide senatorial campaign, since the conduct of the elections already rendered this issue moot.201

In Nicolas-Lewis, no questions of fact were to be resolved since the petitioner, a private citizen with dual citizenship, was not alleged to have been campaigning for certain candidates abroad. She merely argued that the questioned provision prevented her from doing so.202

Even certain obscenity cases did not require the conduct of an appellate process before this Court exercised its power of judicial review.

In Gonzalez,203 the Petition was filed directly before this Court questioning the Board's resolution classifying "Kapit sa Patalim" as "For Adults Only." There was no question raised as to whether the issue should first be resolved by the trial court or whether the trial court should first receive evidence that moviegoers and critics found the movie too obscene for commercial distribution. On the contrary, this Court assumed jurisdiction over the certiorari petition.

In Soriano,204 this Court did not hesitate to entertain a Petition directly filed before it assailing decision of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board to suspend the petitioner from his television program for allegedly uttering obscene words. It was unnecessary that the case be first reviewed by the Court of Appeals before this Court could fully resolve the issues raised by the parties.

While the majority is correct in stating that cases in the United States that led to the development of the Miller test underwent an appellate process, that is not the case in this jurisdiction. Thus, while this Court may consider the Miller test as a guideline, prior cases in our jurisdiction should still take precedence to that resolved by foreign courts.

The Miller test may have vague application to this case, since what is questioned is the validity of an ordinance, not the prurience of a certain published work. This case, however, is not the proper occasion for this Court to carve out a test that specifically applies to anti-obscenity regulation. We are called to determine the validity of an ordinance as it applies to an entire publication and not merely to a specific utterance or expression. For now, this Court should have applied the Miller test, which, as discussed, is currently the dominant test to determine whether the statute is overbroad, and thus, violative of substantive due process.

VII

Petitioners argue that Ordinance No. 7780 violates the guidelines in the Miller test for the following reasons: (1) its expansive language fails to consider contemporary community standards in its application; (2) it considers certain acts as obscene without determining whether it was made in a patently offensive manner; and (3) it fails to take into account whether a certain expression, when taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

Under Ordinance No. 7780, "obscene" is defined as:

[A]ny material or act that is indecent, erotic, lewd or offensive, or contrary to morals, good customs or religious beliefs, principles or doctrines, or to any material or act that tends to corrupt or depr[a]ve the human mind, or is calculated to excite impure imagination or arouse prurient interest, or is unfit to be seen or heard, or which violates the proprieties of language or behavior, regardless of the motive of the printer, publisher, seller, distributor, performer or author of such act or material, such as but not limited to:

1. Printing, showing, depicting or describing sexual acts;

2. Printing, showing, depicting or describing children in sexual acts;

3. Printing, showing, depicting or describing completely nude human bodies; and

4. Printing, showing, depicting or describing the human sexual organs or the female breasts[.]205

Pornography, on the other hand, is defined as:

[S]uch objects or subjects of photography, movies, music records, video and VHS tapes, laser discs, billboards, television, magazines, newspapers, tabloids, comics and live shows calculated to excite or stimulate sexual drive or impure imagination, regardless of the motive of the author thereof, such as, but not limited to the following:

1. Performing live sexual acts in whatever form;

2. Those other than live performances showing, depicting or describing sexual acts;

3. Those showing, depicting or describing children in sex acts;

4. Those showing, depicting, or describing completely nude human body, or showing, depicting or describing the human sexual organs or the female breasts.206

The Ordinance does not take into account contemporary community standards in determining what is considered obscene.

The Ordinance fails to specify what material or act may be considered "indecent, erotic, lewd or offensive, or contrary to morals, good customs or religious beliefs, principles or doctrines, or to any material or act that tends to corrupt or depr[a]ve the human mind, or is calculated to excite impure imagination or arouse prurient interest, or is unfit to be seen or heard, or which violates the proprieties of language or behavior[.]" Instead, it casts a wide net that could encompass all kinds of behavior without acknowledging what the present standards of the community are.

Petitioners submit that 40% of their readership is female.207 This is an indication that the "community" by which contemporary standards are to be held do not necessarily believe that petitioners' magazines appeal purely to male prurient interests. Even in Pita, this Court acknowledged that what may be offensive years ago could be inoffensive now.208 The Ordinance's failure to indicate what it considers offensive within contemporary community standards is fatal.

Worse, the prohibitions used in the Ordinance include material that is contrary to religious beliefs.

Ordinance No. 7780 does not mention which religion's beliefs it seeks to protect, but considering that its sponsor is Abante, a Baptist pastor,209 and that it was he who filed the criminal case against petitioners, it can be presumed that the Ordinance seeks to penalize those that offend the sensibilities of Baptists or similar religions.

Article II, Section 6 of the Constitution provides that there shall be an inviolable separation of Church and State. Article III, Section 5 is even more explicit:

SECTION 5. No law shall be made respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference, shall forever be allowed. No religious test shall be required for the exercise of civil or political rights.

A local legislation that bases its standards of morality on a particular religion only tends to establish a dominant religion, to the exclusion of all other faiths. A religion may not consider a certain material as offensive, and another may even view human sexuality as part of the religious experience. To arbitrarily create legislation based on the puritanical views of a specific religion is not merely insensitive; it is unconstitutional.

The language used by the Ordinance is likewise unduly expansive. It tends to punish every single print, show, depiction, or description of nudity and sex seemingly without distinction. For example, it unnecessarily lumps together eroticism with lewdness, "regardless of the motive of the printer, publisher, seller, distributor, performer[,] or author[.]"210 It even singles out the female breast as lewder and more offensive than other sexual organs.

Under the Miller test, a material is seen as obscene if it is "patently offensive." Yet, of the examples listed, only that of child pornography is, on its face, offensive. Even without this Ordinance, child pornography would still be illegal under Republic Act No. 9775, or the Anti-Child Pornography Act of 2009.

Moreover, under the Ordinance's expansive language, the motive of the author, performer, or publisher is disregarded. Any work is immediately categorized as obscene if it is deemed "indecent, erotic, lewd or offensive, or contrary to morals, good customs or religious beliefs, principles or doctrines, or to any material or act that tends to corrupt or depr[a]ve the human mind, or is calculated to excite impure imagination or arouse prurient interest, or is unfit to be seen or heard, or which violates the proprieties of language or behavior[.]"211

Such disregard of the author, performer, or publisher's motives contradicts the Ordinance's very own proviso, as indicated in Section 4:

[T]his ordinance shall not apply to materials printed, distributed, exhibited, sold, filmed, rented, viewed or produced by reason of or in connection with or in furtherance of science and scientific research and medical or medically related art, profession, and for educational purposes.212

An artist may, for instance, intend for his or her painting to be erotic, and the painting will still be considered as art. Certainly, the artist does not mean for the painting to be patently offensive. But by penalizing the artist regardless of the motive, the Ordinance imposes an arbitrary restraint on that artist's freedom of expression.

The Ordinance also fails to take into account whether the materials, when taken as a whole, lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

In disregarding the motives of the printer, publisher, distributor, or seller, the Ordinance broadly presumes that an entire publication can only contain obscene material and nothing more. Petitioners point out that the allegedly offensive magazines featured "literature from award-winning writers such as Marguerite de Leon, Anna Felicia Sanchez[,] and Norman Wilwayco."213 Parts of the magazine may appeal to prurient interests, but some parts are heralded for having serious literary value.

During the martial law period, journalists looked to small publications to skirt censorship. Called the "mosquito press," these journalists published searing articles on the dictatorship that continued to reach the people.214 The mosquito press would not have survived this Ordinance since it prohibits the entire publication, regardless of whatever important articles may have been published in it.

The Ordinance likewise imposes criminal liability on the president and board members of a publication, regardless of whether they were personally involved in actually publishing the allegedly obscene material. In this case, Summit Media also publishes several other magazines outside the realm of the Ordinance. However, because of its provisions, the president and the board members may be held criminally liable for offenses they may have no personal knowledge of, and may consequently be prevented from doing their jobs. This is an arbitrary restraint on their legitimate pursuit of business.

VIII

Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution provides:

SECTION 1. No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor shall any person be denied the equal protection of the laws.

Due process under this provision encompasses two (2) concepts: (1) procedural due process; and (2) substantive due process. In Ermita-Malate Hotel and Motel Operators Association, Inc. v. The Honorable City Mayor of Manila:215

There is no controlling and precise definition of due process. It furnishes though a standard to which governmental action should conform in order that deprivation of life, liberty or property, in each appropriate case, be valid. What then is the standard of due process which must exist both as a procedural and as substantive requisite to free the challenged ordinance, or any government action for that matter, from the imputation of legal infirmity; sufficient to spell its doom? It is responsiveness to the supremacy of reason, obedience to the dictates of justice. Negatively put, arbitrariness is ruled out and unfairness avoided. To satisfy the due process requirement, official action, to paraphrase Cardozo, must not outrun the bounds of reasons and result in sheer oppression. Due process is thus hostile to any official action marred by lack of reasonableness. Correctly has it been identified as freedom from arbitrariness. It is the embodiment of the sporting idea of fair play. It exacts fealty "to those strivings for justice" and judges the act of officialdom of whatever branch" in the light of reason drawn from considerations of fairness that reflect [democratic] traditions of legal and political thought." It is not a narrow or "technical conception with fixed content unrelated to time, place and circumstances," decisions based on such a clause requiring a "close and perceptive inquiry into fundamental principles of our society." Questions of due process are not to be treated narrowly or pedantically in slavery to form or phrases.216

"Procedural due process refers to the procedures that the government must follow before it deprives a person of life, liberty, or property. Procedural due process concerns itself with government action adhering to the established process when it makes an intrusion into the private sphere."217 Here, since Ordinance No. 7780 underwent notice and hearing when it was enacted, it suffers no defect in its compliance with the requirements of procedural due process.218

When measured against the requirements of substantive due process, however, the Ordinance is found wanting.

Substantive due process "inquires whether the government has sufficient justification for depriving a person of life, liberty, or property."219 It requires an examination as to whether the State's exercise of its police power transgresses on certain protected freedoms. In White Light Corporation:

In terms of judicial review of statutes or ordinances, strict scrutiny refers to the standard for determining the quality and the amount of governmental interest brought to justify the regulation of fundamental freedoms. Strict scrutiny is used today to test the validity of laws dealing with the regulation of speech, gender, or race as well as other fundamental rights as expansion from its earlier applications to equal protection. The United States Supreme Court has expanded the scope of strict scrutiny to protect fundamental rights such as suffrage, judicial access and interstate travel.220

Similarly, in Kabataan Party-List v. Commission on Elections:221

Applying strict scrutiny, the focus is on the presence of compelling, rather than substantial, governmental interest and on the absence of less restrictive means for achieving that interest, and the burden befalls upon the State to prove the same.222

Thus, in determining whether an ordinance was validly enacted, the State must prove that: (1) the governmental interest involved is compelling enough to require a restraint on constitutional freedoms; and (2) there were no less restrictive means for achieving that interest. In White Light Corporation:

It must appear that the interests of the public generally, as distinguished from those of a particular class, require an interference with private rights and the means must be reasonably necessary for the accomplishment of the purpose and not unduly oppressive of private rights. It must also be evident that no other alternative for the accomplishment of the purpose less intrusive of private rights can work. More importantly, a reasonable relation must exist between the purposes of the measure and the means employed for its accomplishment, for even under the guise of protecting the public interest, personal rights and those pertaining to private property will not be permitted to be arbitrarily invaded.223

Respondents submit that the Ordinance's legislative intent is to eradicate greed, "which preys on and appeals on the baser instincts of unwary consumers, [and] is far superior to the 'property rights' of the petitioners in the hierarchy of values within the due process clause[.]"224

Whatever baser instincts an adult consumer may have is not for the local government to legislate. As previously discussed, consumers may buy the publications not merely to satisfy their prurient curiosity, but because the publication itself contains serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

Ordinance No. 7780 does not give due regard to measures that may have been undertaken by the publishing corporation to ensure that only adults, who have full autonomy over all their moral choices, are in possession of the materials. As petitioners point out, "a clear 18+ mark appears prominently on all the covers of FHM magazines together with the words 'CONTENTS MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR MINORS.' Further, these magazines are released to distributors sealed in plastic covers, for sale only in legitimate magazine stands and only to adults."225

These measures taken to protect the "unwary consumers" are less restrictive than the penal provisions provided in the Ordinance.

As this Court aptly observed in White Light Corporation:

The promotion of public welfare and a sense of morality among citizens deserves the full endorsement of the judiciary provided that such measures do not trample rights this Court is sworn to protect. The notion that the promotion of public morality is a function of the State is as old as Aristotle. The advancement of moral relativism as a school of philosophy does not de-legitimize the role of morality in law, even if it may foster wider debate on which particular behavior to penalize. It is conceivable that a society with relatively little shared morality among its citizens could be functional so long as the pursuit of sharply variant moral perspectives yields an adequate accommodation of different interests.

To be candid about it, the oft-quoted American maxim that "you cannot legislate morality" is ultimately illegitimate as a matter of law, since as explained by Calabresi, that phrase is more accurately interpreted as meaning that efforts to legislate morality will fail if they are widely at variance with public attitudes about right and wrong. Our penal laws, for one, are founded on age-old moral traditions, and as long as there are widely accepted distinctions between right and wrong, they will remain so oriented.

Yet the continuing progression of the human story has seen not only the acceptance of the right-wrong distinction, but also the advent of fundamental liberties as the key to the enjoyment of life to the fullest. Our democracy is distinguished from non-free societies not with any more extensive elaboration on our part of what is moral and immoral, but from our recognition that the individual liberty to make the choices in our lives is innate, and protected by the State. Independent and fair-minded judges themselves are under a moral duty to uphold the Constitution as the embodiment of the rule of law, by reason of their expression of consent to do so when they take the oath of office, and because they are entrusted by the people to uphold the law.

Even as the implementation of moral norms remains an indispensable complement to governance, that prerogative is hardly absolute, especially in the face of the norms of due process of liberty. And while the tension may often be left to the courts to relieve, it is possible for the government to avoid the constitutional conflict by employing more judicious, less drastic means to promote morality.226

IX

The value of art in a person's life and in society at large is immeasurable. However, no authoritative standard exists by which all members of Philippine society will agree on what constitutes art, much less "good" art. Indeed, different sectors have on occasion been vocal in their disagreements on art, even beyond matters of personal preference. Despite the absence of any standard, and perhaps naturally so, art maintains a special status in the Constitution and in law.

Artistic creations are, of course, protected under the Bill of Rights as a mode of an artist's expression. Beyond this preferred status as a form of expression, the role of art in society is further recognized in our Constitution, which devotes a subsection to its promotion and protection.227

Art is so seamlessly integrated into our lives that we tend to forget its power, where it derives this power, and why it deserves this special status. Forgetting these reasons may lead the State to intrude into matters of the art. This intrusion may be in the form of regulation that unduly stifles art, and consequently, society. Thus, the important role of art in society demands reiteration�a reminder of why the State should not unduly police what can be interpreted as artistic endeavors.

During the constitutional deliberations, Commissioner Ponciano Bennagen (Commissioner Bennagen) provided some context within which to appreciate the special status of art:

Arts is one of the things that have always been with us but are usually taken for granted until they impinge on or shock our jaded consciousness. We hang a painting to impress people, to add color to a wall or to fill up a space. We sing or listen to music while we do our morning ablutions and laundry and while we are in the midst of some conversation. We dance, recite poems, go to the theater and do other things that may be artistic, all in the process of growing up and, sadly, also of growing old. But most of the time, we go through these things rather thoughtlessly, unaware of the subtle ways of how arts affects our very life, both as individuals and as a society.

. . . .

Arts is a way of surviving beyond the historical circumstances which have generated them. It survives in situ, in private and public museums, in scholars' books and shelves and, more vibrant still, in people's lives. And as it survives, its functions often change. For example, we continue to be awed and fascinated by the cave paintings of Altamira in Spain and those of Lascaux in France. We are entertained by the ancient dances, songs, and epics of our ancestors through the Bayanihan, Filipinescas and other dance troupes. We decorate our rooms with ethnic and folk arts and we are cheek by jowl with imports from other lands and other times.

Art, therefore, acquires a certain autonomy and it affects our lives in very subtle ways. Art, beyond its magico-religious and economic functions, also functions to distort, criticize and shape our feeling, thinking and behavior. Today, conventional wisdom has it that art entertains, decorates or educates. But in its own way, it also mystifies and in the process dehumanizes.

Let me illustrate, Madam President. An average citizen, looking at an abstract painting by Joya with a five-figure price, could be dehumanized in at least two ways: The painting, understandable only to the specialist, tells him: "You do not understand me; you are a Philistine, therefore, you are an idiot." Or it could say: "You cannot afford me, therefore, you are poor." The same could also apply to other arts that have been accessible only to the rich and the powerful. It is this kind of cultural terrorism that has agitated some artists to wage protest actions against the Cultural Center of the Philippines during the Marcos years when it became the watering hole of culture vultures oblivious to the widespread poverty and misery even as they speak sanctimoniously of "the true, the good and the beautiful."

In a class-divided society, it is the dominant elite who dictate what is true, what is good and what is beautiful. Consequently, art contributes to the preservation of social and cultural stratification. Fortunately, however, because of the relative autonomy of art, it provides an arena for criticism of society and of the struggle to restructure this society. Those who are excluded from the privileged circle, whether by choice or by force, continue to explore other forms of artistic expression, particularly those that are rooted in the realities of Filipino life. In their inchoate form, these efforts complement those directed at liberating us from an alienating Western culture, as well as the corollary search for a Filipino aesthetics nourished by the rich diversity of Philippine society and culture as it expresses our own vision of humanity.

It is in this search for Filipino aesthetics that the provisions in the section on arts and culture are situated. The provisions, we believe, are supportive of already approved provisions which altogether aim to help build a vigorously democratic Filipino nation.228

In Almario v. Executive Secretary,229 this Court stressed that the law recognizes the significance of art in society:

Art has traditionally been viewed as the expression of everything that is true, good and beautiful. As such, it is perceived to evoke and produce a spirit of harmony. Art is also considered as a civilizing force, a catalyst of nation-building. The notion of art and artists as privileged expressions of national culture helped shape the grand narratives of the nation and shared symbols of the people. The artist does not simply express his/her own individual inspiration but articulates the deeper aspirations of history and the soul of the people. The law recognizes this role and views art as something that "reflects and shapes values, beliefs, aspirations, thereby defining a people's national identity."230 (Citations omitted)

As explained by Commissioner Bennagen and noted in Almario, art does not merely repeat what has been said; it has a formative power and can shape and define a people's national identity. Still, art does more than shape our consciousness�it also reacts to this consciousness, and becomes part of our consciousness.

However, it can also be a tool to stifle a people and rigidly preserve the aesthetics and values of a dominant class.

When Article III, Section 4 of the Constitution speaks of freedom of speech and expression, this freedom pertains not only to matters of political discourse for the sake of policy development, but also to life, liberty, and the authenticity of life of an enlightened citizenry.

Ideally, art opens minds, lifting individuals from their immediate present, deepening their experience of the world. It facilitates contemplation on matters such as the meaning of life, of good and evil, existence, truth, or| even the meaning of meaning itself.

However, the art to which society is regularly exposed consists of that found in advertising and social media. These works are designed to convince their audiences to spend, and their messages overwhelmingly pertain to conformity, appeal to consumerism, and act as distractions from questions more significant to the development of society.

Art and cultural forms are unique in their capacity to open the mind to experiences and possibilities beyond the self. While verbal communications may be written or uttered with the similar goal of presenting the author's point of view to the audience, their presentation does not have the same effect. Such verbal communications may be expressed to shock or provoke their audiences, or to persuade them of the author's perspective. However, when presented as an argument to a reader whose beliefs are not already aligned with the author's position, the typical response is not one of openness. Rather, the reader tends to be defensive, to critically search for flaws in the author's logic or holes in the author's presentation.

Works of art and culture, on the other hand, are less direct in their messaging, and more subject to interpretation. An artist's choices, as manifested in a piece, pertain to all the human senses, and are not clearly defined the way that words are. Viewers may not even be equipped to fully understand even a fraction of the artist's intention. Despite this, they may find something compelling in the work to cause them to dwell on it further, and linger a moment longer. Works of art and culture appeal to any or all human senses and sensibilities; what may initially captivate a viewer may vary from person to person. They rely less on logic and argumentation, and are less susceptible to the knee-jerk defensive response that straightforward verbal communication tends to produce. They can, therefore, be more effective than persuasion and argumentation as a means of questioning the norms.

I am not suggesting that FHM Magazine is opening people's minds or moving society toward some lofty ideal, nor am I attempting to reify the male gaze perpetuated by it as a form of elevated art. I am not convinced that the magazine is attempting to achieve anything beyond selling magazines and advertising space.

However, the demarcations as to what constitutes art are not always clear. Art is subjective: a particular portrayal may have one meaning to a viewer and an entirely different meaning to the other. Moreover, there is always the possibility that FHM Magazine may be more creative or lofty in its endeavors, the way that Playboy, for instance, decided to stop publishing nude photos of women for a time.231

Moreover, intentions aside, the unclothed body�and whether it is obscene, and whether it is art�is in itself subject to interpretation.

To conclude that something sexual was obscene, this Court reasoned that it could not be art, because it would not be viewed by "artists and persons interested in art and who generally go to art exhibitions and galleries to satisfy and improve their artistic tastes[.]"232 This Court has taken it upon itself to declare what cannot possibly be art or has no redeeming quality.233 It has lamely attempted to discern the "aggregate judgment of the Philippine community,"234 enforcing the contemporary community's standards of what may offend it.

Just as important, it may be time to ask why the contemporary community�as such, the government and this Court�polices the display of women's bodies with so much more zeal than it polices men's bodies. It may be time to consider why the contemporary community appears to judge the nipple as obscene, but only when it belongs to a woman.

Nonetheless, as it stands, Ordinance No. 7780 is a feeble attempt to legislate morality. It prevents adults, who have complete autonomy over their morals and choices, from pursuing what may be their own personal interests. While it does not penalize mere possession of obscene materials, it relies heavily on inserting perceived values into each individual's thoughts.

The artist or author should not have to live under the threat o censorship without legitimate basis. While this Court is granted the discretion to decide what is and what is not obscene, the standards for determination must vary per case and must evolve over time. Any legislation that seeks to restrain the exercise of free speech and expression�be it local or national law�must be struck down. As Article III, Section 4 of the Constitution succinctly states:

SECTION 4. No law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech, of expression, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances.

ACCORDINGLY, I vote to GRANT the Petition. City of Manila Ordinance No. 7780 should be declared VOID for being UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

Endnotes:


1 CONST., art. III, sec. 4.

2 CONST., art. III, sec. 1.

3 Concurring Opinion of J. Stewart in Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184 (1964).

4 222 Phil. 225 (1985) [Per J. Fernando, En Banc].

4 222 Phil. 225 (1985) [Per J. Fernando, En Banc].

5 258-A Phil. 134 (1989) [Per J. Sarmiento, En Banc].

6 539 Phil. 407 (2006) [Per J. Quisumbing, Third Division].

7 605 Phil. 43 (2009) [Per J. Velasco, Jr., En Banc].

8 G.R. No. 223705, August 13, 2019, [Per J. Reyes, Jr., En Banc].

9 Republic Act No 9189 (2003), sec. 24, as amended by Republic Act No. 10590 (2013), sec 37 provides:

SECTION 37. Section 24 of the same Act is hereby renumbered as Section 36 and is amended to read as follows:

SEC. 36. Prohibited Acts. � In addition to the prohibited acts provided by law, it shall be unlawful:

. . . .

36.8. For any person to engage in partisan political activity abroad during the thirty (30)-day overseas voting period[.]

10 The Overseas Voting Act of 2013.

11Soriano v. Laguardia, 605 Phil. 43, 97 (2009) [Per J. Velasco, Jr., En Banc] citing Fernando v. Court of Appeals, 539 Phil. 407 (2006) [Per J. Quisumbing, Third Division] and Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973).

12Rollo, pp. 3-38.

13 Id. at 39-41.

14 Id. at 39-40.

15 Id. at 6.

16 Id. at 44-49.

17 REV. PEN. CODE, art. 200 provides:

ARTICLE 200. Grave scandal. - The penalties of arresto mayor and public censure shall be imposed upon any person who shall offend against decency or good customs by any highly scandalous conduct not expressly falling within any other article of this Code.

18 REV. PEN. CODE, art. 201 provides:

ARTICLE 201. Immoral doctrines, obscene publications and exhibitions and indecent shows. - The penalty of prision mayor or a fine ranging from six thousand to twelve thousand pesos, or both such imprisonment and fine, shall be imposed upon:

. . . .

(2) (a) the authors of obscene literature, published with their knowledge in any form; the editors publishing such literature; and the owners/operators of the establishment selling the same[.]

19Rollo, p. 44.

20 Id. at 4-5.

21 Id. at 352.

22 Id. at 7

23 Id. at 50.

24 Id. at 7.

25 Id. at 3-38. The Comment was filed on November 18, 2008 (rollo, pp. 352-368) while the Reply was filed on December 19, 2008 (rollo, pp. 337-351).

26 Id. at 34.

27 Id.

28 358 Phil. 675 (1998) [Per J. Davide, Jr., First Division].

29Rollo, p. 9 citing Venus v. Desierto, 358 Phil. 675, 694 (1998) [Per J. Davide, Jr., First Division].

30 47 Phil. 385 (1925) [Per J. Malcolm, Second Division].

31Rollo, pp. 10-12.

32 Id. at 15 citing 413 U.S. 15 (1973).

33 Id. at 18.

34 Id.

35 Id. at 19.

36 Id. at 20.

37 Id. at 21.

38 583 Phil. 299 (2008) [Per J. Quisumbing, Second Division].

39Rollo, pp. 22-23.

40 Id. at 23.

41 Id. at 24.

42 Id.

43 Id.

44 Id. at 25.

45 Id. at 24.

46 Id.

47 Id. at 26.

48 Id. at 27.

49 Id. at 29.

50 Id. at 29-30.

51 Id. at 30-31.

52 Id.

53 Id. at 32.

54 Id. at 353-355.

55 213 Phil. 516 (1984) [Per J. Makasiar, Second Division].

56Rollo, pp. 359-361.

57 Id. at 364.

58 Id.

59 Id.

60 Id.

61 Id. at 364-365.

62 Id. at 365.

63 Id. at 362.

64 Id.

65 Id. at 362-363.

66 Id. at 365-367.

67 Id. at 340.

68 Id. at 422-424.

69 Id. at 425-439.

70 Id. at 438-439.

71 Id. at 423.

72 413 U.S. 15 (1973).

73People v. Vera, 65 Phil. 56, 84 (1937) [Per J. Laurel, En Banc] citing High, Extraordinary Legal Remedies, p. 705.

74 RULES OF COURT, Rule 65, sec. 2.

75Asutilla v. Philippine National Bank, 225 Phil. 40, 43 (1986) [Per J. Melencio-Herrera, First Division].

76 270 Phil. 271 (1990) [Per J. Medialdea, En Banc].

77 Id. at 276-277 citing Hernandez v. Albano, 125 Phil. 513 (1967) [Per J. Sanchez, En Banc]; Dimayuga v. Fernandez, 43 Phil. 304 (1922) [Per J. Johns, First Division]; Fortun v. Labang, 192 Phil. 125 (1981) [Per J. Fernando, Second Division]; De Leon v. Mabanag, 70 Phil. 202 (1940) [Per J. Imperial, First Division]; Planas v. Gil, 67 Phil. 62 (1939) [Per J. Laurel, En Banc]; Young v. Rafferty, 33 Phil. 556 (1916) [Per J. Trent, First Division]; Yu Cong Eng v. Trinidad, 47 Phil. 385, 389 (1925) [Per J. Malcolm, Second Division]; Sangalang v. People and Avendia, 109 Phil. 1140 (1960) [Per J. Gutierrez-David, First Division]; Lopez v. City Judge, 124 Phil. 1211 (1966) [Per J. Dizon, En Banc]; Rustia v. Ocampo, CA-G.R. No. 4760, March 25, 1960; Recto v. Castelo, 18 L.J. (1953); Ra�oa v. Alvendia, CA-G.R. No. 30720-R, October 8, 1962; Guingona v. City Fiscal, 213 Phil. 516 (1984) [Per J. Makasiar, Second Division]; Salonga v. Pa�o, 219 Phil. 402 (1985) [Per J. Gutierrez, Jr., En Banc]; Rodriguez v. Castelo, L-6374, August 1, 1958.

78 65 Phil. 56 (1937) [Per J. Laurel, En Banc].

79 Id. at 84-85 citing 50 C. J., 670; Ex parte Round tree [1874, 51 Ala., 42; In re Macfarland, 30 App. [D.C.], 365; Curtis v. Cornish (1912), 109 Me., 384; 84 A., 799; Pennington v. Woolfolk (1880), 79 Ky., 13; State v. Godfrey (1903), 54 W. Va., 54; 46 S. E., 185; Arnold v. Shields (1837), 5 Dana, 19; 30 Am. Dec., 669.

80 47 Phil. 385 (1925) [Per J. Malcolm, Second Division].

81See Yu Cong Eng v. Trinidad, 271 U.S. 500 (46 S.Ct. 619, 70 L.Ed. 1059).

82 213 Phil. 516 (1984) [Per Acting CJ. Makasiar, Second Division].

83 Id. at 528 citing Primicias v. Municipality of Urdaneta, Pangasinan, 182 Phil. 42 (1979) [Per J. De Castro, First Division]; Ramos v. Torres, 134 Phil. 544 (1968) [Per J. Concepcion, En Banc]; and Hernandez v. Albano, 125 Phil. 153 (1967) [Per J. Sanchez, En Banc].

84David v. Macapagal-Arroyo, 522 Phil. 705, 755 (2006) [Per J. Sandoval-Gutierrez, En Banc] citing Black's Law Dictionary, 6th Ed. 1991, p. 941.

85White Light Corporation v. City of Manila, 596 Phil. 444, 455 (2009) [Per J. Tinga, En Banc].

86 RULES OF COURT, Rule 3, sec. 2.

87 RULES OF COURT, Rule 3, sec. 2.

88White Light Corporation v. City of Manila, 596 Phil. 444, 455 (2009) [Per J. Tinga, En Banc] citing Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737 (1984).

89Galicto v. Aquino III, 683 Phil. 141, 170 (2012) [Per J. Brion, En Banc].

90 Id. citing Southern Hemisphere Engagement Network, Inc. v. Anti-Terrorism Council, 646 Phil. 452 (2010) [Per J. Carpio Morales, En Banc].

91 522 Phil. 705 (2006) [Per J. Sandoval-Gutierrez, En Banc].

92 Id. at 760.

93White Light Corporation v. City of Manila, 596 Phil. 444, 456 (2009) [Per J. Tinga, En Banc] citing Powers v. Ohio, 499 U.S. 400 (1991).

94 596 Phil. 444 (2009) [Per J. Tinga, En Banc].

95 Id. at 450.

96 Id. at 456-457 citing Kelsey McCowan Heilman, The Rights of Others: Protection and Advocacy Organizations Associational Standing to Sue, 157 U. Pa. L. Rev. 237.

97Rollo, p. 32.

98 Id.

99 RULES OF COURT, Rule 58, sec. 1.

100 RULES OF COURT, Rule 58, sec. 3.

101Rollo, pp. 438-439.

102David v. Macapagal-Arroyo, 522 Phil. 705, 753-754 (2006) [Per J. Sandoval-Gutierrez, En Banc] citing Province of Batangas v. Romulo, 473 Phil. 806 (2004) [Per J. Callejo, Sr., En Banc]; Banco Filipino Savings and Mortgage Bank v. Tuazon, Jr., 469 Phil. 79 (2004) [Per J. Austria-Martinez, Second Division]; Vda. De Dabao v. Court of Appeals, 469 Phil. 938 (2004) [Per J. Austria-Marinez, Second Division]; and Paloma v. Court of Appeals, 461 Phil. 270 (2003) [Per J. Quisumbing, Second]; Royal Cargo Corporation v. Civil Aeronautics Board, 465 Phil. 719 (2004) [Per J. Callejo, Sr., Second Division]; and Lacson v. Perez, 410 Phil. 78 (2001) [Per J. Melo, En Banc].

103Belgica v. Ochoa, 721 Phil. 416, 522 (2013) [Per J. Perlas-Bernabe, En Banc] citing Mattel, Inc. v. Francisco, 582 Phil. 492 (2008) [Per J. Austria-Martinez, Third Division]; and Constantino v. Sandiganbayan, 559 Phil. 622 (2007) [Per J. Tinga, Second Division].

104 539 Phil. 407 (2006) [Per J. Quisumbing, Third Division].

105 Id. at 417.

106 643 Phil. 735 (2010) [Per CJ. Corona, En Banc].

107 Id. at 738-739, see Footnote 11 citing Lewis v. Continental Bank Corporation, 494 U.S. 472 (1990).

108 Ponencia, p. 14.

109 Id.

110 G.R. No. 223705, August 13, 2019, [Per J. Reyes, Jr., En Banc].

111 G.R. No. 244274, September 10, 2019, [Per J. Jardeleza, En Banc].

112 Id. at 4-9.

113 Ponencia, p. 13.

114David v. Macapagal-Arroyo, 522 Phil. 705, 755 (2006) [Per J. Sandoval-Gutierrez, En Banc].

115 An Act Defining the Law of Libel and Threats to Publish a Libel, Making Libel and Threats to Publish a Libel Misdemeanors, Giving a Right of Civil Action Therefor, and Making Obscene or Indecent Publications Misdemeanors (1901).

116See People v. Kottinger, 45 Phil. 352 (1923) [Per J. Malcolm, Second Division].

117 Id.

118 Id. at 356.

119 Id. at 356-357 citing 29 Cyc., 1315; 8 R. C. L., 312; People v. Muller, 96 N. Y., 408 (1884); and 48 Am. Rep., 635.

120 Id. at 360.

121 Id. at 360-361.

122 J. Romualdez, Dissenting Opinion in People v. Kottinger, 45 Phil. 352, 361-362 (1923) [Per J. Malcolm, Second Division].

123 97 Phil. 418 (1955) [Per J. Montemayor, First Division].

124 REV. PEN. CODE, art. 201, as amended by Presidential Decree No. 960 (1976).

125People v. Go Pin, 97 Phil. 418 (1955) [Per J. Montemayor, First Division].

126 Id. at 419.

127 101 Phil. 749 (1957) [Per J. Montemayor, En Banc].

128 Id. at 752.

129 Id. at 753.

130 Id. at 754-755.

131 222 Phil. 225 (1985) [Per J. Fernando, En Banc].

132 Id. at 228.

133 L.R. 2 Q.B. 360 (1868).

134Gonzalez v. Katigbak, 222 Phil. 225, 232 (1985) [Per J. Fernando, En Banc] citing Regina v. Hicklin, L.R. 3 Q.B. 360 (1868).

135 Id. at 233-234 citing Executive Order No. 876 (1963), sec. 3(c); CONST. (1973), art. XV, sec. 9(2); Kingsley v. Regents, 360 U.S. 684, 695 (1959); Lopez, Jr. v. Commission on Elections, 221 Phil. 321 (1985) [Per J. Fernando, En Banc]; and Yu Cong Eng v. Trinidad, 47 Phil. 385 (1925) [Per J. Malcolm, Second Division].

136 Id. at 234.

137 Id. at 234-235 citing respondents' Answer to the Amended Petition.

138 Id. at 235 citing United States v. Roth, 237 F 2d 796 (1956).

139 258-A Phil. 134 (1989) [Per J. Sarmiento, En Banc].

140 Id. at 143.

141 Id. at 138.

142 Id. at 142-144 citing People v. Kottinger, 45 Phil. 352 (1923) [Per J. Malcolm, En Banc]; People v. Go Pin, 97 Phil. 418 (1955) [Per J. Montemayor, First Division]; People v. Padan, 101 Phil. 749 (1957) [Per J. Montemayor, En Banc]; and Gonzalez v. Katigbak, 222 Phil. 225 (1985) [Per J. Fernando, En Banc].

143 Id. at 146.

144 413 U.S. 15 (1973).

145Pita v. Court of Appeals, 258-A Phil. 134, 145 (1989) [Per J. Sarmiento, En Banc] citing Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973).

146 Id. at 147.

147 539 Phil. 407 (2006) [Per J. Quisumbing, Third Division].

148 Id. at 417.

149 Id. citing Jenkins v. Georgia, 418 U.S. 153 (1974).

150 Id. citing Jenkins v. Georgia, 418 U.S. 153 (1974) and Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973).

151 Id. at 418.

152 605 Phil. 43 (2009) [Per J. Velasco, Jr., En Banc].

153 Id. at 98.

154See CATHARINE MACKINNON, ONLY WORDS (1993). See also CATHARINE MACKINNON, FROM PORNOGRAPHY, CIVIL RIGHTS, AND SPEECH, IN DOING ETHICS (2009) and J. Leonen, Dissenting Opinion in Disini, Jr. v. Secretary of Justice, 727 Phil. 28, 301-430 (2014) [Per J. Abad, En Banc].

155See CATHARINE MACKINNON, FROM PORNOGRAPHY, CIVIL RIGHTS, AND SPEECH, IN DOING ETHICS (2009). See also 2 CATHARINE MACKINNON, Not a Moral Issue, YALE LAW & POL'Y REV. (Spring, 1984).

156See CATHARINE MACKINNON, ONLY WORDS (1993). See also CATHARINE MACKINNON, FROM PORNOGRAPHY, CIVIL RIGHTS, AND SPEECH, IN DOING ETHICS (2009) and J. Leonen, Dissenting Opinion in Disini, Jr. v. Secretary of Justice, 727 Phil. 28, 301-430 (2014) [Per J. Abad, En Banc].

157 Id.

158See CATHARINE MACKINNON, FROM PORNOGRAPHY, CIVIL RIGHTS, AND SPEECH, IN DOING ETHICS (2009) and 2 CATHARINE MACKINNON, NOT A MORAL ISSUE, YALE LAW & POL'Y REV. (Spring, 1984).

159See CATHARINE MACKINNON, ONLY WORDS (1993); See also CATHARINE MACKINNON, FROM PORNOGRAPHY, CIVIL RIGHTS, AND SPEECH, IN DOING ETHICS (2009); and J. Leonen, Dissenting Opinion in Disini, Jr. v. Secretary of Justice, 727 Phil. 28, 301-430 (2014) [Per J. Abad, En Banc].

160See EDWIN BAKER, Of Course, More Than Words, 61 U. CHI. L. REV. 1181, 1197 (1994) and J. Leonen, Dissenting Opinion in Disini, Jr. v. Secretary of Justice, 727 Phil. 28, 301-430 (2014) [Per J. Abad, En Banc].

161 Id. and J. Leonen, Dissenting Opinion in Disini, Jr. v. Secretary of Justice, 727 Phil. 28, 301-430 (2014) [Per J. Abad, En Banc].

162 Id. at 1198.

163 See EDWIN BAKER, Of Course, More Than Words, 61 U. CHI. L. REV. 1181 (1994) and J. Leonen, Dissenting Opinion in Disini, Jr. v. Secretary of Justice, 727 Phil. 28, 301-430 (2014) [Per J. Abad, En Banc].

164 Id. at 1204.

165See J. Mendoza, Separate Opinion in Cruz v. Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources, 400 Phil 904, 1092 (2000) [Per Curiam, En Banc].

166 421 Phil. 290, 430-432 (2001) [Per J. Bellosillo, En Banc].

167 J. Mendoza, Concurring Opinion in Estrada v. Sandiganbayan, 421 Phil. 290, 430-432 [Per J. Bellosillo, En Banc] citing Gooding v. Wilson, 405 U.S. 518, 521, 31 L.Ed.2d 408, 413 (1972); United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S. 739, 745, 95 L.Ed.2d 697, 707 (1987); People v. Dela Piedra, 403 Phil. 31 (2001) [J. Kapunan, First Division]; Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U.S. 601, 612-613, 37 L.Ed. 2d 830, 840-841 (1973); Village of Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc., 455 U.S. 489, 494-95, 71 L.Ed.2d 362, 369 (1982); United States v. Raines, 362 U.S. 17, 21, 4 L.Ed.2d 524, 529 (1960); and Yazoo & Mississippi Valley RR. v. Jackson Vinegar Co., 226 U.S. 217, 57 L.Ed. 193 (1912).

168See J. Leonen, Dissenting Opinion in Lagman v. Medialdea, 812 Phil. 179, 749-750 (2017 [Per J. Del Castillo, En Banc] citing People v. Dela Piedra, 403 Phil. 31 (2001) [Per J. Kapunan, First Division].

169Southern Hemisphere Engagement Network, Inc. v. Anti-Terrorism Council, 646 Phil. 452, 488 (2010) [Per J. Carpio Morales, En Banc].

170 646 Phil. 452 (2010) [Per J. Carpio Morales, En Banc].

171 727 Phil. 28 (2014) [Per J. Abad, En Banc].

172 Id. at 121.

173Adiong v. Commission on Elections, G.R. No. 103956, March 31, 1992, 207 SCRA 712, 719 [Per Gutierrez, Jr., En Banc].

174Southern Hemisphere Engagement Network, Inc. v. Anti-Terrorism Council, 646 Phil. 452, 490 (2010) [Per J. Carpio Morales, En Banc]

175See J. Leonen, Dissenting Opinion in Lagman v. Medialdea, 812 Phil. 179, 754-755 (2017) [Per J. Del Castillo, En Banc].

176Southern Hemisphere Engagement Network, Inc. v. Anti-Terrorism Council, 646 Phil. 452, 490-491 (2010) [Per J. Carpio Morales, En Banc].

177See J. Leonen, Dissenting Opinion in Lagman v. Medialdea, 812 Phil. 179 (2017) [Per J. Del Castillo, En Banc].

178 Anti-Child Pornography Act of 2009.

179 Republic Act No 9189 (2003), sec. 24, as amended by Republic Act No. 10590 (2013), sec 37 provides:

SECTION 37. Section 24 of the same Act is hereby renumbered as Section 36 and is amended to read as follows:

SEC. 36. Prohibited Acts. - In addition to the prohibited acts provided by law, it shall be unlawful:

. . . .

36.8. For any person to engage in partisan political activity abroad during the thirty (30)-day overseas voting period[.]

180 The Overseas Voting Act of 2013.

181Nicolas-Lewis v. Commission on Elections, G.R. No. 223705, August 13, 2019, [Per J. Reyes, Jr., En Banc].

182 Id. at 9-10.

183 Ponencia, p. 15.

184 J. Perlas-Bernabe, Dissent, p. 5.

185 Id.

186 Id. at 4.

187 ANDREA DWORKIN AND CATHARINE MACKINNON, CIVIL RIGHTS: A NEW DAY FOR WOMEN'S EQUALITY, 36 (2nd ed., 1988).

188 Id. at 31.

189 Id. at 38-39.

190 771 F.2d 323 (7th Cir. 1985).

191 475 U.S. 1001 (1986).

192 771 F.2d 323 (7th Cir. 1985).

193 Id.

194 Id.

195 413 U.S. 15 [1973].

196 LR 3 QB 360 (1868).

197Gonzalez v. Katigbak, 222 Phil. 225, 232 (1985) [Per J. Fernando, En Banc] citing Regina v. Hicklin, LR 3 QB 360 (1868).

198 222 Phil. 225 (1985) [Per J. Fernando, En Banc].

199 J. Carpio, Dissenting Opinion in Soriano v. Laguardia, 629 Phil. 262, 286-287 (2010) [Per J. Velasco, Jr., En Banc]. citing Regina v. Hicklin, L.R. 3 Q.B. 360, 371 (1868); United States v. Kennerly, 209 F. 119, 120 (S.D.N.Y. 1913); Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957); Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973); and Gonzalez v. Katigbak, 222 Phil. 225 (1985) [Per J. Fernando, En Banc].

200 Ponencia, p. 21.

201Marquez v. Commission on Elections, G.R. No. 244274, September 10, 2019, [Per J. Jardeleza, En Banc].

202Nicolas-Lewis v. Commission on Elections, G.R. No. 223705, August 13, 2019, [Per J. Reyes, Jr., En Banc].

203 222 Phil. 225 (1985) [Per J. Fernando, En Banc].

204 605 Phil. 43 (2009) [Per J. Velasco, Jr, En Banc].

205Rollo, p. 39.

206 Id.

207 Id. at 19.

208Pita v. Court of Appeals, 258-A Phil. 134 (1989) [Per J. Sarmiento, En Banc].

209Rollo, p. 45.

210 Id. at 39.

211 Id.

212 Id. at 40.

213 Id. at 24.

214See Ria de Fiesta, How women journalists pushed limits during Martial Law, ABS-CBN NEWS ONLINE, February 24, 2014, (last accessed on September 23, 2019).

215 127 Phil. 306 (1967) [Per J. Fernando, En Banc].

216 Id. at 318-319 citing Frankfurter, Mr. Justice Holmes and the Supreme Court, 32-33 (1938); Frankfurter, Hannah v. Larche, 363 U.S. 420, 487 (1960); Cafeteria Workers v. McElroy, 367 U.S. 1230 (1961); and Bartkus v. Illinois (1959) 359 U.S. 121.

217White Light Corporation v. City of Manila, 596 Phil. 444, 461 (2009) [Per J. Tinga, En Banc] citing Lopez v. Director of Lands, 47 Phil. 23, 32 (1924) [Per J. Johnson, Second Division].

218Rollo, p. 365.

219White Light Corporation v. City of Manila, 596 Phil. 444, 461 (2009) [Per J. Tinga, En Banc] citing City of Manila v. Hon. Laguio, Jr., 495 Phil. 289, 330 (2005) [Per J. Tinga, En Banc].

220 Id. at 463 citing J. Mendoza, Concurring Opinion in Estrada v. Sandiganbayan, 421 Phil. 290 (2001) [Per J. Bellosillo, En Banc]; Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000); Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U.S. 371 (1971); Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618 (1969); and ERWIN CHEMERINSKY, CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, PRINCIPLES AND POLICIES (2nd ed., 2002).

221 775 Phil. 523 (2015) [Per J. Perlas-Bernabe, En Banc].

222 Id. at 552 citing White Light Corporation v. City of Manila, 596 Phil. 444 (2009) [Per J. Tinga, En Banc]; J. Leonardo-De Castro, Concurring Opinion in Garcia v. Drilon, 712 Phil. 44 (2013) [Per J. Perlas-Bernabe, En Banc]; and J. Puno, Separate Concurring Opinion in Ang Ladlad LGBT Party v. COMELEC, 632 Phil. 32, 106 (2010) [Per J. Del Castillo, En Banc].

223White Light Corporation v. City of Manila, 596 Phil. 444, 467 (2009) [Per J. Tinga, En Banc] citing Metro Manila Development Authority v. Viron Transportation Company, 557 Phil. 121 (2007) [Per J. Carpio Morales, En Banc] and U.S. v. Toribio, 15 Phil. 85 (1910) [Per J. Carson, First Division].

224Rollo, pp. 364-365.

225 Id. at 24.

226White Light Corporation v. City of Manila, 596 Phil. 444, 469-471 (2009) [Per J. Tinga, En Banc] citing City of Manila v. Hon. Laguio, Jr., 495 Phil. 289 (2005) [Per J. Tinga, En Banc]; De La Cruz v. Hon. Paras, 208 Phil. 490 (1983) [Per J. Fernando, En Banc]; Ermita-Malate Hotel and Motel Operations Association, Inc. v. City Mayor of Manila, 127 Phil. 306 (1967) [Per J. Fernando, En Banc]; MAX HAMBURGER, MORALS AND LAW: THE GROWTH OF ARISTOTLE'S LEGAL THEORY, 178 (1951 ed.); KENT GREENWALT, CONFLICTS OF LAW AND MORALITY, 38 (1989 ed.); STEVEN CALABRESI, Render Unto Caesar that which is Caesars, and unto God that which is God's, 31 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 495; RICHARD POSNER, The Problematics of Moral And Legal Theory, THE BELKNAP PRESS OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS (2002); and STEVEN BURTON, JUDGING IN GOOD FAITH, 218 (1992 ed.).

227 CONST., art. XIV, secs. 13, 14, 15, 16, and 18.

228 R.C.C. No. 080, September 11, 1986.

229 714 Phil. 127 (2013) [Per J. Leonardo-De Castro, En Banc].

230 Id. at 133.

231See Ravi Somaiya, Nudes Are Old News at Playboy, THE NEW YORK TIMES, October 12, 2015, (last accessed on September 23, 2019).

232People v. Go Pin, 97 Phil. 418, 419 (1955) [Per J. Montemayor, First Division].

233See People v. Padan, 101 Phil. 749 (1957) [Per J. Montemayor, En Banc].

234People v. Kottinger, 45 Phil. 352, 360 (1923) [Per J. Malcolm, Second Division].




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September-2019 Jurisprudence                 

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  • A.M. No. RTJ-17-2486 [Formerly A.M. No. 17-02-45-RTC - RE: INVESTIGATION REPORT ON THE ALLEGED EXTORTION ACTIVITIES OF PRESIDING JUDGE GODOFREDO B. ABUL, JR., BRANCH 4, REGIONAL TRIAL COURT, BUTUAN CITY, AGUSAN DEL NORTE

  • G.R. No. 220514 - RUBEN T. OCLARINO, ABBIE S. HILAY, CUSTODIO N. NONAILLADA, JR., HENEDIN F. TORRECAMPO, ISIDRO A. MORILLO, ROBERTO R. PANGAN, ROGELIO O. DI�O, BEBIANO S. GANDAMON, ASTERIO S. CATIBIG, DAVID G. GUJILDE, ROBERTO Y. NUGOY, EDUARDO H. SOTTO, ALLAN JEAN E. SANDAG, VICENTE P. DUYOG, ORLANDO C. PELARES, MARLON A. ALERTA and EXPEDITO A. SOLIVAR, Petitioners, vs. SILVERIO J. NAVARRO, EDUARDOCRISTOBAL, REYNALDO BERNARDO, DANILO SALAZAR, MAXIMO ESPINOSA, ROMEO DI�O, ISAGANI SAMONTE, REYWELL RUAYA, VIRGILIO SECO, RUBEN ESTOCADA, WARSON GUY-AB, ANGELITO BAYAWA, JOSE PIRIGRIN, VALERIANO CANTUNGAN, ROGELIO PAGSISIHAN and NEMENCIO AGUILAR, RESPONDENTS

  • G.R. No. 234273 - PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, v. EMALYN N. MORENO, ACCUSED-APPELLANT

  • G.R. No. 224511 - EXCHANGE CAPITAL CORPORATION, PETITIONER, v. BANK OF COMMERCE AND BANCAPITAL DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION, RESPONDENTS

  • G.R. No. 227993 - PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, v. BENSON TULOD Y CUARTE, ACCUSED-APPELLANT

  • G.R. No. 232380 - PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, V. RONALD JAURIGUE @ "RON-RON" A.K.A. RONALDO VICENTE Y JAURIGUE, ACCUSED-APPELLANT

  • G.R. No. 205805 - SIMEONA, GLORIA AND RODOLFO (ALL SURNAMED PRESCILLA), ARMENTINA PRESCILLA-PERDES, HERMINIA PRESCILLA-CARANDANG, ZENAIDA PRESCILLA-MANUEL AND YOLANDA PRESCILLA-MARCIANO, PETITIONERS, v. CONRADO O. LASQUITE AND JUANITO L. ANDRADE, RESPONDENTS

  • G.R. No. 217755 - ELMER MONTERO, PETITIONER, v. SANTIAGO MONTERO, JR. AND CHARLIE MONTERO, RESPONDENTS

  • G.R. No. 224186 - SPOUSES EMILIO MANGARON, JR. AND ERLINDA MANGARON, PETITIONERS, v. HANNA VIA DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION, OWNED AND MANAGED BY ENGR. JAMES STEPHEN B. CARPE, RESPONDENT

  • G.R. No. 213831 - THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, V. ADONIS CABALES, ACCUSED-APPELLANT

  • G.R. No. 242101 - XXX, PETITIONER, v. PEOPLE OF PHILIPPINES, THE RESPONDENT

  • G.R. Nos. 229164 & 229186 - MERCEDES TOLENTINO SOLIMAN, HEIRS OF ANGELES TOLENTINO-ANGELES, NAMELY: GRACIA S. PANES, EDGAR T. SALVOSA, BENJAMIN T. SALVOSA AND SONIA I. MENDOZA, HEIRS OF RAFAEL TOLENTINO, NAMELY: LEAH T. BAENA, RENE ANGEL TOLENTINO AND ROBERT TOLENTINO, PETITIONERS, v. HEIRS OF RAMON TOLENTINO, NAMELY: MARILOU T. LOIUE, ANTONIO I. TOLENTINO, ELSA T. CALAUSTRO, DOLORES T. TOLENTINO, JOCELYN T. DURAN, TERESITA T. THOMAS, SUSAN T. CLASIO AND REMIGIO MANCHUS, RESPONDENTS

  • G.R. No. 234655 - JESSICA LIO MARTINEZ, PETITIONER, v. HEIRS OF REMBERTO F. LIM, NAMELY: FABIANA TIMBANCAYA LIM, CHINITA LIM PE, MINYANI LIM BAYLOSIS, GENARO T. LIM, EMELINE LIM ANGELES AND BELINDA LIM VILLEGAS, REPRESENTED BY THEIR ATTORNEY-IN-FACT, JIM GERALD LIM PE, RESPONDENTS

  • G.R. Nos. 233280-92 - PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PETITIONER, v. HON. SANDIGANBAYAN (SECOND DIVISION) AND FELICIDAD B. ZURBANO, RESPONDENTS

  • G.R. No. 242817 - PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, V. MICHAEL ROXAS Y CAMARILLO, ACCUSED-APPELLANT

  • G.R. No. 239823 - ANGELICA ANZIA FAJARDO, PETITIONER, v. PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, RESPONDENT

  • G.R. No. 220904 - JEBSENS MARITIME, INC. AND HAPAG-LLOYD AKTIENGESELLSCHAFT, PETITIONERS, v. RUPERTO S. PASAMBA, RESPONDENT

  • A.C. No. 12019 - JOSE ANTONIO G. GABUCAN, COMPLAINANT, V. ATTY. FLORENCIO A. NARIDO, JR., RESPONDENT

  • G.R. No. 242213 - PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, v. ROGER ENERO, ACCUSED-APPELLANT

  • G.R. No. 202851 - FEATI UNIVERSITY, PETITIONER, v. ANTOLIN PANGAN, RESPONDENT

  • G.R. No. 199469 - GERTRUDES D. MEJILA, PETITIONER, v. WRIGLEY PHILIPPINES, INC., JESSELYN P. PANIS, ET AL., RESPONDENTS.; G.R. No. 199505, September 11, 2019 - WRIGLEY PHILIPPINES, INC., PETITIONER, v. GERTRUDES D. MEJILA, RESPONDENT

  • G.R. No. 242413 - THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, v. WENNIE PESPENIAN, ACCUSED-APPELLANT

  • G.R. No. 219673 - SOLID HOMES, INC., PETITIONER, v. SPOUSES ARTEMIO JURADO AND CONSUELO O. JURADO, RESPONDENTS

  • G.R. No. 206795 - FOODBEV INTERNATIONAL AND LUCILA S. DELA CRUZ, PETITIONERS, v. NOLI C. FERRER, JEVER BELARDO, FELIX GALELA, ROMEO SISCAR, MICHAEL BALDESCO, RICO ACADEMIA, EDUARDO DELA CRUZ, RYAN AQUINO, GAUDENCIO PARIO, MARK TRAPAGO, MAIR GOMEZ, NAGKAKAISANG MANGGAGAWA NG FOODBEV INTERNATIONAL, RICHARD EROLES AND BERNADETTE BELARDO, RESPONDENTS

  • G.R. No. 216029 - SHEMBERG CORPORATION, MARKETING PETITIONER, v. CITIBANK, N.A., NEMESIO SOLOMON, EX-OFFICIO SHERIFF AND SHERIFF-IN-CHARGE, RESPONDENTS

  • G.R. No. 242165 - PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, v. ABUBACAR ABDULWAHAB Y MAMA, ACCUSED-APPELLANT

  • G.R. No. 245391 - PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, v. NI�A CARAY Y EMMANUEL, ACCUSED-APPELLANT

  • G.R. No. 227934 - JERRY BERING TALAUGON, PETITIONER, v. BSM CREW SERVICE CENTRE PHILS., INC., BERNARD* SCHULTE SHIPMANAGEMENT LTD. AND DANILO MENDOZA, RESPONDENTS

  • A.C. No. 9837 - RANDY N. SEGURA, COMPLAINANT, v. PROSECUTOR MARILOU R. GARACHICO-FABILA, RESPONDENT

  • G.R. No. 234618 - PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PETITIONER, v. MATEO A. LEE, JR., RESPONDENT

  • G.R. No. 209078 - JOSEPH VILLASANA Y CABAHUG, PETITIONER, v. PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, RESPONDENT

  • G.R. No. 242570 - PHILIPPINE NATIONAL BANK, PETITIONER, v. ELENITA V. ABELLO, MA. ELENA ELIZABETH A. FIDER, JONATHAN V. ABELLO, MANUEL V. ABELLO, JR. AND VINCENT EDWARD V. ABELLO, RESPONDENTS

  • A.M. No. RTJ-11-2281 (Formerly OCA IPI- 10-3372-RTJ) - ATTY. MARSHA B. ESTURAS, COMPLAINANT, v. JUDGE AGAPITO S. LU, REGIONAL TRIAL COURT, BRANCH 88, CAVITE CITY, RESPONDENT

  • G.R. No. 230983 - PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, v. EDGARDO GARCIA Y ANCHETA, ACCUSED-APPELLANT

  • G.R. No. 217448 - ELENA A. ESTALILLA, PETITIONER, v. COMMISSION ON AUDIT, RESPONDENT

  • G.R. No. 217837 - MR HOLDINGS, INC. AND MARCOPPER MINING CORPORATION, PETITIONERS, v. ROLANDO A. DE JESUS, IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS THE OFFICER-IN-CHARGE (OIC)-REGIONAL DIRECTOR, MINES AND GEOSCIENCES - BUREAU (MGB), REGION IV-B (MIMAROPA) AND VICENTE S. PARAGAS, CESO III, IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS THE REGIONAL EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, DENR REGION IV-B (MIMAROPA), RESPONDENTS

  • G.R. No. 238892 - SPOUSES AURORA TOJONG SU AND AMADOR SU, PETITIONERS, v. EDA BONTILAO, PABLITA BONTILAO, AND MARICEL DAYANDAYAN, RESPONDENTS

  • G.R. No. 242827 - PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, v. ROSEMARIE* GABUNADA Y TALISIC, ACCUSED-APPELLANT

  • G.R. No. 233556 - CITY TREASURER OF MANILA, PETITIONER, v. PHILIPPINE BEVERAGE PARTNERS, INC., SUBSTITUTED BY COCA-COLA BOTTLERS PHILIPPINES, RESPONDENT

  • G.R. No. 201396 - YUSHI KONDO, PETITIONER, v. TOYOTA BOSHOKU (PHILS.) CORPORATION, MAMORU MATSUNAGA, KAZUKI MIURA, AND JOSELITO LEDESMA, RESPONDENTS

  • G.R. No. 224039 - DANILO DE VILLA Y GUINTO, PETITIONER, v. PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, RESPONDENT

  • G.R. No. 223562 - PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, v. LEAN NOEL DIZON @ "JINGLE", ACCUSED-APPELLANT

  • G.R. No. 208892 - SPOUSES ANTHONY ROGELIO BERNARDO AND MA. MARTHA BERNARDO, PETITIONERS, v. UNION BANK OF THE PHILIPPINES AND THE HON. COURT OF APPEALS, RESPONDENTS

  • G.R. No. 224936 - PNOC ALTERNATIVE FUELS CORPORATION, PETITIONER, v. NATIONAL GRID CORPORATION OF THE PHILIPPINES, RESPONDENT

  • G.R. No. 243589 - PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, v. ANDIDATO MAMARINTA AND JACK BATUAN ACCUSED-APPELLANTS

  • G.R. No. 241324 - PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, v. MARIVIC COHAYCO Y REVIL @ "KAKANG," ACCUSED-APPELLANT

  • G.R. No. 239903 - PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, v. RONALDO SALENGA Y GONZALES A.K.A. "BAROK," ACCUSED-APPELLANT

  • G.R. No. 243936 - PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, v. VERNIE ANTONIO Y MABUTI, ACCUSED-APPELLANT

  • G.R. No. 224584 - THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, v. ZZZ, ACCUSED-APPELLANT

  • G.R. No. 242132 - NOR JELAMIN MUSA, IVAN USOP BITO, AND MONSOUR ABDULRAKMAN ABDILLA, PETITIONERS, v. PEOPLE THE OF PHILIPPINES, RESPONDENT

  • G.R. No. 231305 - PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, v. ALVIN GALISIM Y GARCIA, ACCUSED-APPELLANT

  • G.R. No. 239866 - PAULO JACKSON POLANGCOS Y FRANCISCO, PETITIONER, v. PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, RESPONDENT

  • G.R. No. 206767 - PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, v. ORLANDO RAMOS ORDIZ, ACCUSED-APPELLANT

  • G.R. No. 203382 - PEDRO S. CUERPO, SALVADOR SIMBULAN AND FERNANDO H. RO�O, PETITIONERS, v. PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES RESPONDENT

  • G.R. No. 237172 - MARIO JOEL T. REYES, PETITIONER, v. PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, RESPONDENT

  • G.R. No. 243386 - PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, v. HILARIO DE CASTRO Y SANTOS ALIAS "DACOY," ACCUSED-APPELLANT

  • G.R. No 210105 - LAND BANK OF THE PHILIPPINES, PETITIONER, v. MA. AURORA [RITA] DEL ROSARIO AND IRENE DEL ROSARIO, RESPONDENTS

  • G.R. No. 217910 - JESUS NICARDO M. FALCIS, III, PETITIONER, v. CIVIL REGISTRAR GENERAL, RESPONDENT.; LGBTS CHRISTIAN CHURCH, INC., REVEREND CRESENCIO "CEEJAY" AGBAYANI, JR., MARLON FELIPE, AND MARIA ARLYN "SUGAR" IBA�EZ, PETITIONERS-IN-INTERVENTION.; ATTY. FERNANDO P. PERITO, ATTY. RONALDO T. REYES, ATTY. JEREMY I. GATDULA, ATTY. CRISTINA A. MONTES, AND ATTY. RUFINO POLICARPIO III, INTERVENORS-OPPOSITORS

  • G.R. No. 244806 - AMANDO M. TETANGCO, JR., ARMANDO L. SURATOS, JUAN D. ZUNIGA, JR., ANTONIO A. BERNARDO, JR., VICTORIA C. BERCILES, TERESA T. MANGILA, AND MA. CECILIA N. MARTIN, PETITIONERS, v. COMMISSION ON AUDIT, RESPONDENTS

  • A.M. No. MTJ-17-1889 [Formerly OCA IPI No. 16-2822-MTJ] - RE: ANONYMOUS COMPLAINT AGAINST PRESIDING JUDGE ANALIE C. ALDEA-AROCENA, MUNICIPAL TRIAL COURT IN CITIES, BRANCH 1, SAN JOSE CITY, NUEVA ECIJA

  • G.R. No. 230642 - OSCAR B. PIMENTEL, ERROL B. COMAFAY, JR., RENE B. GOROSPE, EDWIN R. SANDOVAL, VICTORIA B. LOANZON, ELGIN MICHAEL C. PEREZ, ARNOLD E. CACHO, AL CONRAD B. ESPALDON, ED VINCENT S. ALBANO, LEIGHTON R. SIAZON, ARIANNE C. ARTUGUE, CLARABEL ANNE R. LACSINA, KRISTINE JANE R. LIU, ALYANNA MARL C. BUENVIAJE, LANA PATRICIA DULA T. NICOLAS, IRENE A. TOLENTINO AND ALTREA I. GRUYAL, PETITIONERS, v. LEGAL EDUCATION BOARD, AS REPRESENTED BY ITS CHAIRPERSON, HON. EMERSON B. AQUENDE, AND LEB MEMBER HON. ZENAIDA N. ELEPA�O, RESPONDENTS; ATTYS. ANTHONY D. BENGZON, FERDINAND M. NEGRE, MICHAEL Z. UNTALAN; JONATHAN Q. PEREZ, SAMANTHA WESLEY K. ROSALES, ERIKA M. ALFONSO, KRYS VALEN O. MARTINEZ, RYAN CEAZAR P. ROMANO, AND KENNETH C. VARONA, RESPONDENTS-IN-INTERVENTION;APRIL D. CABALLERO, JEREY C. CASTARDO, MC WELLROE P. BRINGAS, RHUFFY D. FEDERE, CONRAD THEODORE A. MATUTINO AND NUMEROUS OTHERS SIMILARLY SITUATED, ST. THOMAS MORE SCHOOL OF LAW AND BUSINESS, INC., REPRESENTED BY ITS PRESIDENT RODOLFO C. RAPISTA, FOR HIMSELF AND AS FOUNDER, DEAN AND PROFESSOR, OF THE COLLEGE OF LAW, JUDY MARIE RAPISTA-TAN, LYNNART WALFORD A. TAN, IAN M. ENTERINA, NEIL JOHN VILLARICO AS LAW PROFESSORS AND AS CONCERNED CITIZENS, PETITIONERS-INTERVENORS; G.R. No. 242954 - FRANCIS JOSE LEAN L. ABAYATA,GRETCHENM. VASQUEZ, SHEENAH S. ILUSTRISMO, RALPH LOUIE SALA�O, AIREEN MONICA B. GUZMAN, DELFINO ODIAS, DARYL DELA CRUZ, CLAIRE SUICO, AIVIE S. PESCADERO, NI�A CHRISTINE DELA PAZ, SHEMARK K. QUENIAHAN, AL JAY T. MEJOS, ROCELLYN L. DA�O, MICHAEL ADOLFO, RONALD A. ATIG, LYNNETTE C. LUMAYAG, MARY CHRIS LAGERA, TIMOTHY B. FRANCISCO, SHEILA MARIE C. DANDAN, MADELINE C. DELA PE�A, DARLIN R. VILLAMOR, LORENZANA L. LLORICO, AND JAN IVAN M. SANTAMARIA, PETITIONERS, v. HON. SALVADOR MEDIALDEA, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, AND LEGAL EDUCATION BOARD, HEREIN REPRESENTED BY ITS CHAIRPERSON, EMERSON B. AQUENDE, RESPONDENTS

  • G.R. No. 221771 - TERP CONSTRUCTION CORPORATION, PETITIONER, v. BANCO FILIPINO SAVINGS AND MORTGAGE BANK, RESPONDENT

  • G.R. No. 194469 - HUBERT JEFFREY P. WEBB, PETITIONER, v. NBI DIRECTOR MAGTANGGOL B. GATDULA, FORMER NBI DIRECTOR CARLOS S. CAABAY, FORMER NBI DIRECTOR NESTOR M. MANTARING, DR. RENATO C. BAUTISTA, DR. PROSPERO CABANAYAN, ATTY. FLORESTO P. ARIZALA, JR., ATTY. REYNALDO O. ESMERALDA, ATTY. ARTURO FIGUERAS, ATTY. PEDRO RIVERA AND JOHN HERRA, RESPONDENTS

  • G.R. No. 152797 - FIL-ESTATE PROPERTIES, INC., PETITIONER, v. PAULINO REYES, DANILO BAON, PACITA D. VADURIA, JULIE MONTOYA, MERCEDES RAMOS, GERONIMO DERAIN, FELICIANO D. BAON, PACIFICO DERAIN, EUTERIO SEVILLA, MAMERTO B. ESPINELI, CARMELITA GRAVADOS, AVELINO E. PASTOR, ANTONIO BUHAY, TIRZO GULFAN, JR., FELIX SOBREMONTE, ERNESTO SOBREMONTE, BEN PILIIN, PASCUAL V. DISTREZA, JACINTO P. BACALAG, ADELAIDA BAYANI, ELMERT BAYANI, EGLESIA SOBREMONTE, NICASIO TINAUGISAN, VICENTE VILLALUNA, MEYNARDO VILLALUNA, LEOPOLDO DE JOYA, LENIE DE JOYA, LIBERATO DE JOYA, CRESENCIANA DE JOYA, FRESCO CATAPANG, ROSITA CATAPANG, DOMINGO P. LIMBOC, VIRGILIO A. LIMBOC, VICENTE LIMBOC, MARIO H. PERNO, LAZARITO CABRAL, CARLITO CAPACIA, RESPONDENTS. [G.R. No. 189315] PAULINO REYES, DANILO BAON, PACITA D. VADURIA, JULIE MONTOYA, BENIGNO BAON, BEATRIZ DERAIN, MARILOU SEVILLA, MAMERTO B. ESPINELLI, CARMELITA GRANADOS, ANTONIO BUHAY, FELIX SOBREMONTE, NICASIO TINAMISAN, CRESCENCIANA DE JOYA, FRESCO CATAPANG, SONNY CATAPANG, MARIO H. PERNO, CARLITO CAPACIA, AQUILINA BAUTISTA, FELECITO BARCELON, LUIS MANGI, BAYANI ORIONDO, BASILISA DERAIN, GUILLERMO BAUTISTA, BEATRIZ SEVILLA, NICOLAS ASAHAN, ROSITA MERCADO, LAMBERTO BAUTISTA, REXIE DINGLES, JOSE QUIROZ, PETITIONERS, v. FIL-ESTATE PROPERTIES, INC., RESPONDENT. [G.R. No. 200684] NOLITO G. DEL MUNDO, GABRIEL A. MAULLON, MARIA L. TENORIO, NOEL G. DEL MUNDO, RACQUEL DEL MUNDO-REDUCA, TEODORICO D. AGUSTIN, REPRESENTED BY THEIR ATTORNEY-IN-FACT, NOMER G. DEL MUNDO, PETITIONERS, v. THE MANILA SOUTHCOAST DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION, INC., RESPONDENT

  • G.R. No. 246679 - GOVERNOR EDGARDO A. TALLADO, PETITIONER, v. COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS, NORBERTO B. VILLAMIN, AND SENANDRO M. JALGALADO, RESPONDENTS

  • G.R. No. 246209 - MONICO A. ABOGADO, ROBERTO M. ASIADO, LARRY HUGO, ANGELO SADANG, NONELON BALBONTIN, SALITO LAGROSA, ARZEL BELIDAN, RONALD GRANDIA, TROY LAGROSA, RONEL BADILLA, ARCHIE GARCIANO, REGIDOR ASIADO, ELY LOPEZ, EXPEDITO MAGDAYAO, RENY MAGBANUA, ROMULO CANA, JR., ROGELIO HINGPIT, JONEL HUGO, ROBERT VALDEZ, RIZEN GALVAN, RICARDO NATURAL, SANNY BELIDAN, ROWEL P. EJONA, FELIX ULZON, RAFFY M. ASIADO, PRIMO M. ASIADO, ADRIAN P. ABAYAN, RANDY DACUMOS, DANILO BELONO, ROMEO MALAGUIT, DENNIS BANIA, JASON VILLAMOR, GARY CASTILLOS, ALBERTO SONIO, DOLIE DUSONG, BJ PIRING AND JING MALINAO (COLLECTIVELY KNOWN AS THE "KALAYAAN PALAWAN FARMERS AND FISHERFOLK ASSOCIATION"), NILO LABRADOR, W1LFREDO LABANDELO AND ROLANDO LABANDELO, AND INTEGRATED BAR OF THE PHILIPPINES, PETITIONERS, v. DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCES, REPRESENTED BY SECRETARY HON. ROY A. CIMATU, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, REPRESENTED BY SECRETARY HON. EMMANUEL PI�OL, BUREAU OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC RESOURCES, REPRESENTED BY NATIONAL DIRECTOR HON. EDUARDO B. GONGONA, PHILIPPINE NAVY, REPRESENTED BY FLAG OFFICER IN COMMAND HON. VADM ROBERT EMPEDRAD, PN, PHILIPPINE COAST GUARD, REPRESENTED BY COMMANDANT HON. ADMIRAL ELSON E. HERMOGINO, PCG, PHILIPPINE NATIONAL POLICE, REPRESENTED BY CHIEF HON. PDG. OSCAR ALBAYALDE, PNP MARITIME GROUP, REPRESENTED BY DIRECTOR HON. PCSUPT RODELIO B. JOCSON, AND DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, REPRESENTED BY SECRETARY HON. MENARDO I. GUEVARRA, RESPONDENTS

  • G.R. No. 223140 - PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, v. ROSEMARIE GARDON-MENTOY, ACCUSED-APPELLANT

  • G.R. No. 243639 - PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, v. JOSE RASOS, JR. Y PADOLLO @ "JOSE", ACCUSED-APPELLANT

  • G.R. No. 224562 - EXCEL GURRO Y MAGA, PETITIONER, v. PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, RESPONDENT.; G.R. NO. 237216 PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLE, v. EXCEL GURRO Y MAGA, WENNIE INTING, JJ. IDIAN Y JAMINDANG AND JOEL JAMINDANG Y ZOSA, ACCUSED, WENNIE IDIAN Y JAMINDANG AND EXCEL GURRO Y MAGA. ACCUSED-APPELLANTS

  • A.C. No. 8249 (Formerly CBD Case No. 05-129) - MARCIANO A. SAMBILE AND LERMA M. SAMBILE, COMPLAINANTS, v. ATTY. RENATO A. IGNACIO, RESPONDENT

  • G.R. No. 229046 - PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, v. NOEL CARDENAS Y HALILI, ACCUSED-APPELLANT

  • G.R. No. 205007 - THE MERCANTILE INSURANCE CO., INC., PETITIONER, v. DMCI-LAING CONSTRUCTION, INC.,� RESPONDENT

  • G.R. No. 204782 - GENUINO AGRO-INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION, PETITIONER, v. ARMANDO G. ROMANO, JAY A. CABRERA AND MOISES V. SARMIENTO, RESPONDENTS

  • A.C. No. 12154 - ATTY. ROGELIO N. VELARDE, PETITIONER, v. ATTY. RUBEN M. ILAGAN, RESPONDENT

  • G.R. No. 237871 - MARGARITA FERNANDO, FELIX FERNANDO AND MANUEL FERNANDO, SUBSTITUTED BY HIS LEGAL HEIRS, NAMELY: JOSEFINA FERNANDO ANDAYA AND MARIA CONSOLACION FERNANDO PARASO, PETITIONERS, v. ROSALINDA RAMOS PAGUYO; HEIRS OF LEONARDO RAMOS, NAMELY: EDNA RAMOS DIMLA, ANDREA RAMOS MIRASOL, AND ERMINIA RAMOS SAUL; VIRGILIO RAMOS REPRESENTED BY CHARLIE RAMOS ALZATE; TEODORICO RAMOS; AURORA RAMOS DELA CRUZ; VIRGINIA RAMOS PADILLA; RODOLFO RAMOS; AND ROSITA RAMOS FLORES, RESPONDENTS

  • G.R. No. 241774 - FRANCISCO C. DELGADO,REPRESENTED BY JOSE MARI DELGADO, PETITIONER, v. GQ REALTY DEVELOPMENT CORP., MA. ROSARIO G. MEYER, KARL KURT EDWARD MEYER, AND THE REGISTRY OF DEEDS OF MAKATI CITY, RESPONDENTS

  • G.R. No. 184535 - SISTER PILAR VERSOZA, PETITIONER, v. PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, MICHELINA S. AGUIRRE-OLONDRIZ, PEDRO AGUIRRE, AND DR. MARISSA PASCUAL, RESPONDENTS

  • G.R. No. 205618 - ELFLEDA, ALBERT, NAPOLEON, EDEN, SEVERIANO, CELIA AND LEO, ALL SURNAMED MARCELO, REPRESENTED BY SPOUSES SEVERINO [DECEASED] AND CELIA C. MARCELO, PETITIONERS, v. SAMAHANG MAGSASAKA NG BARANGAY SAN MARIANO, REPRESENTED BY GODOFREDO ERMITA, RESPONDENT

  • G.R. No. 216024 - SPS. ERNESTO V. YU AND ELSIE YU, PETITIONERS, v. EULOGIO A. TOPACIO, JR., RESPONDENT

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