VIRGILIO O. GARCILLANO, PETITIONER, VS. THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES COMMITTEES ON PUBLIC INFORMATION, PUBLIC ORDER AND SAFETY, NATIONAL DEFENSE AND SECURITY, INFORMATION AND CO…

Garcillano versus the House of Representatives Committees on Public Information, Public Order and Safety, National Defense and Security, Information and Communications Technology, and Suffrage and Electoral Reforms

The Case

This is a consolidated original action for prohibition arising from the notorious recordings known as the Hello Garci tapes, which allegedly captured a sitting President instructing a Commissioner of the Commission on Elections to manipulate the results of the 2004 presidential elections. Two petitions reached the Supreme Court: one by Virgilio Garcillano, the Commissioner himself, seeking to stop the House of Representatives committees from playing the recordings and including them in their committee reports; and one by two retired justices of the Court of Appeals, later joined by an intelligence officer, seeking to stop the Senate from conducting its own legislative inquiry into the same recordings. The case matters because it fixes the constitutional price of legislative investigation: the Senate or the House may conduct inquiries in aid of legislation only in accordance with its duly published rules of procedure, and a Senate that has not republished its rules in its own Congress cannot lawfully investigate.

Procedural History

The House committees conducted hearings on the recordings, and after prolonged debate the tapes were played in the chambers of the House. Garcillano then filed with the Supreme Court a petition for prohibition and injunction with a prayer for a temporary restraining order, asking that the committees be restrained from using the recordings in their reports and that the recordings be stricken from the records of the inquiry. The Senate, meanwhile, took up the matter anew through a privilege speech, and the Senate committee scheduled its own public hearings. Before the hearings could proceed, retired justices Ranada and Agcaoili filed a second petition for prohibition with the Supreme Court to bar the Senate inquiry. The Court did not issue an injunctive writ, so the Senate proceeded with its hearings. An intelligence officer summoned as a resource person moved to intervene as a petitioner. The Court heard the case on oral argument, consolidated the two petitions, and resolved them in this decision.

Facts

More than three years before the decision, tapes ostensibly containing a wiretapped conversation between the President and a high-ranking Commission on Elections official surfaced and captured unprecedented public attention. The recordings, notoriously called the Hello Garci tapes, allegedly contained the President's instructions to Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano to manipulate in her favor the results of the 2004 presidential elections. In the House of Representatives, the Minority Floor Leader delivered a privilege speech and set in motion a congressional investigation conducted jointly by several committees. During the inquiry several versions of the wiretapped conversation emerged, and on the fifth of July 2005 the Director of the National Bureau of Investigation, a lawyer, and the counsel of a former deputy director submitted seven alleged original tape recordings of the supposed three-hour conversation. After impassioned debate on admissibility and authenticity, the tapes were played in the chambers of the House.

On the third of August 2005, the House committees decided to suspend the hearings indefinitely, but still resolved to prepare committee reports based on the recordings and the testimonies of resource persons. Alarmed, Garcillano asked the Supreme Court to restrain the committees from using the illegally obtained recordings in their reports and for any other purpose, and to order the recordings and any reference to them stricken from the records. The House discussion then abruptly stopped.

After more than two years of quiescence, a Senator revived the issue with a privilege speech promising the public the whole unvarnished truth about the alleged wiretap and seeking an inquiry into the willingness of telecommunications providers to participate in wiretapping. The speech was referred to the Senate Committee on National Defense and Security. In plenary session a lengthy debate ensued on the possible transgression of the Anti-Wiretapping law if the body conducted a legislative inquiry, and another Senator delivered a privilege speech arguing that the Constitution absolutely bans the use, possession, replay or communication of the contents of the tapes, though she recommended an investigation into the role of government intelligence and police entities in the alleged wiretapping. The Senate proceeded with its public hearings in September and October 2007. The respondents admitted in their pleadings and even on oral argument that the Senate Rules of Procedure Governing Inquiries in Aid of Legislation had been published in newspapers of general circulation only in 1995 and in 2006, and that with respect to the present Senate of the Fourteenth Congress, no effort was undertaken to publish these rules when it first opened its session.

Issues

• Whether or not petitioner Garcillano and petitioners Ranada and Agcaoili, and intervenor Sagge, have legal standing to institute their respective petitions for prohibition.
• Whether or not the Garcillano petition should be dismissed for being moot and academic.
• Whether or not the Senate may conduct its legislative inquiry into the Hello Garci tapes without having duly published its rules of procedure in its own Congress.

Applicable Provisions

Section 21, Article VI of the 1987 Constitution provides:

The Senate or the House of Representatives, or any of its respective committees may conduct inquiries in aid of legislation in accordance with its duly published rules of procedure.

This is the provision the Court construes, and its requirement of publication is the very ground on which the Senate inquiry is enjoined.

Article 2 of the Civil Code provides:

Laws shall take effect after 15 days following the completion of their publication either in the Official Gazette, or in a newspaper of general circulation in the Philippines.

The Court uses this provision to define what constitutes publication, and to reject publication in pamphlet form or on the Senate website as sufficient compliance.

Ruling

On standing, the Court held that Garcillano has standing because he is the person alluded to in the tapes and was publicly identified by committee members as one of the voices in the recordings, so he stands to be directly injured by the committees' actions and charges of electoral fraud. As for Ranada, Agcaoili, and Sagge, the Court relaxed the stringent direct injury test, noting that it has allowed ordinary citizens, members of Congress, and civic organizations to prosecute actions involving the constitutionality or validity of laws, regulations and rulings, and that it has repeatedly refused to wield procedural barriers against serious legal questions that greatly impact public interest. Since they alleged an interest in the execution of the laws and Sagge asserted his constitutional right to due process, they satisfied the requisite personal stake by merely being citizens, and their allegation that the inquiry would involve the expenditure of public funds sufficed following the Court's earlier ruling in Francisco against the House of Representatives.

On mootness, the Court dismissed the Garcillano petition. Judicial power is limited to actual cases and controversies, and the Court will not determine a moot question in which no practical relief can be granted. The recordings had already been played in the House and heard by its members, and the committee reports on the inquiry had been completed and submitted to the House in plenary. Prohibition is a preventive remedy to restrain the doing of an act about to be done, and is not intended to provide a remedy for an act already accomplished.

On the Senate inquiry, the Court granted the petition. The requirement of publication of the rules is intended to satisfy the basic requirements of due process, for it would be the height of injustice to punish or otherwise burden a citizen for the transgression of a law or rule of which he had no notice whatsoever, not even a constructive one. The respondents admitted that the rules had been published only in 1995 and in 2006, and that the Senate of the Fourteenth Congress made no effort to publish them when it opened its session. Following its earlier ruling in Neri against the Senate Committee on Accountability of Public Officers and Investigations, the Court held that the phrase duly published rules of procedure requires the Senate of every Congress to publish its rules, because every Senate is distinct from the one before it or after it. The Court explained that while the Senate as an institution is continuing, in the conduct of its day-to-day business the Senate of each Congress acts separately and independently of the Senate of the Congress before it, and all pending matters and proceedings terminate upon the expiration of one Congress. The absence of any amendment to the rules cannot justify the Senate's defiance of the clear and unambiguous language of Section 21, Article VI, and the constitutional mandate to publish prevails over any custom, practice or tradition. Publication on the Senate website or in pamphlet form is not sufficient, and the Electronic Commerce Act merely recognizes electronic documents as the functional equivalent of written documents for evidentiary purposes; it does not make the internet a medium for publishing laws, rules and regulations. The publication of the rules on the thirty-first of October 2008 did not cure the infirmity of the inquiry, because no published rules governed it at the time.

Doctrine

First, legislative standing is a mere procedural technicality that the Court may relax. A party who is directly alluded to and identified in the subject of an investigation has standing; so may ordinary citizens, taxpayers, and members of the bar, where the constitutional issues are of transcendental and paramount importance and the inquiry necessarily involves the expenditure of public funds.

Second, a petition for prohibition is a preventive remedy. Once the act sought to be restrained has been accomplished, the petition becomes moot and academic and must be dismissed, because the Court's power extends only to actual cases and controversies and not to advisory opinions.

Third, and most important for the Bar, the constitutional requirement that legislative inquiries be conducted in accordance with duly published rules of procedure is categorical. Every Senate must publish its rules of procedure governing inquiries in aid of legislation in each Congress, or otherwise make the published rules clearly state that they shall remain effective in subsequent Congresses or until amended or repealed. Publication must comply with Article 2 of the Civil Code, meaning publication in the Official Gazette or in a newspaper of general circulation; publication in pamphlet form or on the internet does not suffice. The Senate is not a continuing body with respect to the conduct of its business, and its pending matters and proceedings terminate upon the expiration of one Congress.

Disposition

The petition of Garcillano was dismissed for being moot and academic, while the petition of Ranada and Agcaoili was granted, and a writ of prohibition was issued enjoining the Senate and any of its committees from conducting any inquiry in aid of legislation centered on the Hello Garci tapes.

Remember This

Memorize this line: the Senate or the House may conduct inquiries in aid of legislation only in accordance with its duly published rules of procedure, and every Senate must publish its own rules because it is not a continuing body in the conduct of its business. Examiners use this case to test the publication requirement for legislative inquiries, the liberalized rule on standing, and the rule that prohibition does not lie against an act already accomplished.