NORTH COTABATO V. REPUBLIC OF THE PHILS PEACE PANEL ON ANCESTRAL DOMAIN (CONSTI, REMEDIAL)

Nachura dissents from the ponencia of Carpio-Morales, even as he agrees that the MOA-AD is not an international agreement or unilateral declaration binding on the Phils under international law.

He submits that because of SUPERVENING EVENTS, the petitions and petitions-in-intervention are no longer ripe for adjudication and that these cases have been rendered moot and academic. Accordingly, the petitions should be dismissed.

Locus Standi
The Court adopted the direct injury test, i.e., the person who impugns the validity of a statute must have a personal and substantial interest in the case such that he has sustained or will sustain direct injury as a result. This mere procedural technicality may be and has in fact been waived by the Court in the exercise of its discretion. This was done in the 1949 Emergency Powers Cases, where the TRANSCENDENTAL IMPORTANCE of the cases prompted the Court to act liberally.

By way of summary, taxpayers, voters, concerned citizens, and legislators may be accorded standing to sue, provided 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 complained of infringes upon their prerogatives as legislators.

Considering that the Court has discretion to relax this procedural technicality, and given the liberal attitude it has adopted in a number of earlier cases, the SC acknowledge the legal standing of the petitioners herein.

Ripeness for Adjudication
A mandatory requirement for the Court's exercise of the power of judicial review is the existence of an actual case or controversy. An ACTUAL CASE OR CONTROVERSY is a conflict of legal rights, an assertion of opposite legal claims which can be resolved on the basis on existing law and jurisprudence.

But it is not enough that the controversy exists at the outset. To qualify for adjudication, it is necessary that the actual controversy be extant at all stages of review, not merely at the time the complaint is filed. This is to say that the case is ripe for judicial determination.

In the case at bench, there is no gainsaying that at the time of the filing of the initial petitions up to the issuance of TRO, there was actual controversy. However, SUPERVENING EVENTS effectively eliminated the conflict of rights and opposite claims. THERE IS NO LONGER AN ACTUAL CASE OR CONTROVERSY BETWEEN THE PARTIES as the Peace Panel has been disbanded by the President along with the resounding declaration that the MOA-AD will not be signed in its present form or in any other form. The Memorandum issued by the Executive Secretary to the Solicitor General is unequivocal: "No matter what the SC ultimately decides, the government will not sign the MOA."

The subsequent events were sufficient to alter the course of these judicial proceedings, clearly affecting the ripeness of the case for adjudication. With an abandoned and unsigned MOA-AD and a dissolved Peace Panel, any purported controversy has virtually disappeared. Judicial review cannot be exercised where the incipient actual controversy does not remain extant until the termination of the case; this Court cannot provide reliefs for controversies that are no longer there.

Reliefs are unavailing, because the Peace Panel has been dissolved, and by the nature of things, rendered permanently unable to sign any agreement. Further, the MOA-AD sought to be nullified does not confer any rights now imposes any duties. It is, as of today, non-existent.

Mootness
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 value. Generally, courts decline jurisdiction over such case, or dismiss it on ground of mootness.

It is axiomatic that courts will decide cases otherwise moot and academic:

1. if there is grave violation of the Constitution;


2. the exceptional character of the situation and the paramount public interest involved;


3. when the constitutional issue raised requires formulation of controlling principles to guide the bench, the bar, and the public; or


4. when the case is capable of repetition yet evasive of review.

As to the first exception, there is no violation of the constitution. Thus, the dreaded constitutional infractions are at best, merely anticipatory, hypothetical, or conjectural. Neither will the second exception apply. Third, given the events that led to the issuance of the Court of a TRO to stop the signing, it would appear that there is no need for the Court to formulate controlling principles, precepts, and rules to guide the bench, the bar, and the public. A scrutiny of the factual antecedents of this case revels no such imperative exists. The fourth exception, that the issue is capable of repetition yet evasive of review is likewise inapplicable in this case.

While the petitions have previously embodied a live case or controversy, they now have been rendered extinct by the lifting of the questioned issuances. thus, nothing is gained by breathing life into a dead issue.

Moreover, without a justiciable controversy, the petitions have become pleas for declaratory relief, over which the SC has no original jurisdiction. Be it remembered that they were filed directly with the SC, and thus invokes its original jurisdiction.

In short, the theory of capable of repetition yet evading review may be invoked only when this Court has jurisdiction over the subject matter. It cannot be used in the present controversy for declaratory relief over which the SC has no original jurisdiction.