Case Digest: Kalipunan ng Damay vs Robredo, G.R. No. 200903, July 22, 2014

CASE TITLE: Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap, Inc v. Robredo
GR No/ Date: G.R. No. 200903   July 22, 2014
PONENTE: Brion, J.:
CASE WITH THE SC: Petition for Prohibition and Mandamus
PROCEDURAL ANTECEDENTS:
FACTS: Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap, Inc. and Corazon de Jesus Homeowners’ Association as well as the individual petitioners, Fernando Sevilla, Estrelieta Bagasbas, Jocy Lopez, Elvira Vidol and Delia Frayres, were/are occupying parcels of land owned by and located in the cities of San Juan, Navotas and Quezon (collectively, the LGUs).  The LGUs sent the petitioners notices of eviction and demolition pursuant to Section 28 (a) and (b) of RA 7279 in order to give way to the implementation and construction of infrastructure projects in the areas illegally occupied by the petitioners. Section 28 (a) and (b) of RA 7279 authorize evictions and demolitions without any court order when: persons or entities occupy danger areas such as esteros, railroad tracks, garbage dumps, riverbanks, shorelines, waterways, and other public places such as sidewalks, roads, parks, and playgrounds; and (2) persons or entities occupy areas where government infrastructure projects with available funding are about to be implemented. On March 23, 2012, the petitioners directly filed a petition for prohibition and mandamus before the Court, seeking to compel the Secretary of Interior and Local Government, et al. (the public respondents) to first secure an eviction and/or demolition order from the court prior to their implementation of Section 28 (a) and (b) of RA 7279.
ISSUE: Whether Section 28 (a) and (b) of RA 7279 are violative of Sections 1 and 6, Article 3 of the 1987 Constitution. NO
ARGUMENTS/LEGAL BASES
PETITIONER	RESPONDENTS
The petitioners justify their direct recourse before this Court by generally averring that they have no plain, speedy and adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law. They asserted unconstitutionality of Section 28 (a) and (b) due to lack of due process.	The Respondents argue that the petitioners ignored the hierarchy of courts by directly filing before the Supreme Court. Mayor of Navotas: Evictions without a court order are permitted under Section 10, Article 13 of the Constitution if done in accordance with the law and in a just and humane manner. and RA 7279 provides adequate procedural safeguards. Mayor of San Juan: The petition has been rendered moot and academic by the successful eviction of some of the petitioners. Mayor of QC: Faithful implementation of RA 7279, which the legislature enacted in the exercise of police power, does not amount to grave abuse of discretion. Secretary of Interior and Local Government and the National Housing Authority (NHA) General Manager: Section 28 of RA 7279 provides sufficient safeguards in ensuring that evictions and demolitions are carried out in a just and humane manner.
PREVAILING PARTY: Robredo
DECISION/DOCTRINE: We dismiss the petition. The petitioners violated the principle of hierarchy of courts when they directly filed the petition before the Court. The petitioners have unduly disregarded the hierarchy of courts by coming directly to the Court with their petition for prohibition and mandamus. The petitioners appear to have forgotten that the Supreme Court is a court of last resort, not a court of first instance. The hierarchy of courts should serve as a general determinant of the appropriate forum for Rule 65 petitions. The concurrence of jurisdiction among the Supreme Court, Court of Appeals and the Regional Trial Courts to issue writs of certiorari, prohibition, mandamus, quo warranto, habeas corpus and injunction does not give the petitioners the unrestricted freedom of choice of forum. By directly filing Rule 65 petitions before us, the petitioners have unduly taxed the Court’s time and attention which are better devoted to matters within our exclusive jurisdiction. Worse, the petitioners only contributed to the overcrowding of the Court's docket. We also wish to emphasize that the trial court is better equipped to resolve cases of this nature since this Court is not a trier of facts and does not normally undertake an examination of the contending parties’ evidence.  The petitioners wrongly availed themselves of a petition for prohibition and mandamus. We cannot also ignore the petitioners’ glaring error in using a petition for prohibition and mandamus in the current case. The petitioners seem to have forgotten that a writ of prohibition only lies against the tribunal, corporation, board, officer or person’s exercise of judicial, quasi-judicial or ministerial functions.  We issue a writ of prohibition to afford the aggrieved party a relief against the respondent’s usurpation or grave abuse of jurisdiction or power. On the other hand, a petition for mandamus is merely directed against the tribunal, corporation, board, officer, or person who unlawfully neglects the performance of an act which the law enjoins as a duty resulting from an office, trust or station or who unlawfully excludes another from the use and enjoyment of a right or office to which such other is entitled.16 Thus, a writ of mandamus will only issue to compel an officer to perform a ministerial duty. It will not control a public officer’s exercise of discretion as where the law imposes upon him the duty to exercise his judgment in reference to any manner in which he is required to act precisely because it is his judgment that is to be exercised, not that of the court. In the present case, the petitioners seek to prohibit the respondents from implementing Section 28 (a) and (b) of RA 7279 without a prior court order of eviction and/or demolition. In relation to this, paragraph 1, Section 28 of RA 7279 provides: Sec. 28. Eviction and Demolition. — Eviction or demolition as a practice shall be discouraged. Eviction or demolition, however, maybe allowed under the following situations: When persons or entities occupy danger areas such as esteros, railroad tracks, garbage dumps, riverbanks, shorelines, waterways, and other public places such as sidewalks, roads, parks, and playgrounds; When government infrastructure projects with available funding are about to be implemented; or When there is a court order for eviction and demolition.  A reading of this provision clearly shows that the acts complained of are beyond the scope of a petition for prohibition and mandamus. The use of the permissive word "may" implies that the public respondents have discretion when their duty to execute evictions and/or demolitions shall be performed. Where the words of a statute are clear, plain, and free from ambiguity, it must be given its literal meaning and applied without attempted interpretation.18 Consequently, the time when the public respondents shall carry out evictions and/or demolitions under Section 28 (a), (b), and (c) of RA 7279 is merely discretionary, and not ministerial, judicial or quasi-judicial. The duty is discretionary if the law imposes a duty upon a public officer and gives him the right to decide when the duty shall be performed. In contrast, a ministerial duty is one which an officer or tribunal performs in a given state of facts,in a prescribed manner, in obedience to the mandate of a legal authority, without regard to or the exercise of his own judgment upon the propriety or impropriety of the act done.19 On the other hand, both judicial and quasi-judicial functions involve the determination of what the law is, and what the legal rights of the contending parties are, with respect to the matter in controversy and, on the basis thereof and the facts obtaining, the adjudication of their respective rights.20 The resolution of the constitutionality of Section 28 (a) and (b) of RA 7279 is not the lis mota of the case. Even if we treat the present petition as one for certiorari since it assails the constitutionality of Section 28 (a) and (b) of RA 7279, the petition must necessarily fail for failure to show the essential requisites that would warrant the Court’s exercise of judicial review. It is a rule firmly entrenched in our jurisprudence that the courts will not determine the constitutionality of a law unless the following requisites are present: (1) the existence of an actual case or controversy involving a conflict of legal rights susceptible of judicial determination; (2) the existence of personal and substantial interest on the part ofthe party raising the constitutional question; (3) recourse to judicial review is made at the earliest opportunity; and (4) the resolution of the constitutional question must be necessary to the decision of the case. Save for the petition pertaining to the City of Quezon’s threat of eviction and demolition, this case no longer presents a justiciable controversy with respect to the Mayors of Navotas and San Juan. We take note of the Comments of these Mayors who alleged that they had already successfully evicted the concerned petitioners in their respective cities at the time of the filing of the petition. What further constrains this Court from touching on the issue of constitutionality is the fact that this issue is not the lis mota of this case. Lis mota literally means "the cause of the suit or action"; it is rooted in the principle of separation of powers and is thus merely an offshoot of the presumption of validity accorded the executive and legislative acts of our coequal branches of the government. This means that the petitioner who claims the unconstitutionality of a law has the burden of showing first that the case cannot be resolved unless the disposition of the constitutional question that he raised is unavoidable. If there is some other ground upon which the court may rest its judgment, that course will be adopted and the question of constitutionality should be avoided.22 Thus, to justify the nullification ofa law, there must be a clear and unequivocal breach of the Constitution, and not one that is doubtful, speculative or argumentative.23 We carefully read the petitions and we conclude that they fail to compellingly show the necessity of examining the constitutionality of Section 28 (a) and (b) of RA 7279 in the light of Sections 1 and 6, Article 3 of the 1987 Constitution.24 In Magkalas v. NHA,25 this Court had already ruled on the validity of evictions and demolitions without any court order. In that case, we affirmed the validity ofSection 2 of Presidential Decree No. 1472 which authorizes the NHA to summarily eject all informal settlers’ colonies on government resettlement projects as well as any illegal occupant in any homelot, apartment or dwelling unit owned or administered by the NHA. In that case, we held that Caridad Magkalas’ illegal possession of the property should not hinder the NHA’s development of Bagong Barrio Urban Bliss Project. We further stated that demolitions and evictions may be validly carried out even without a judicial order in the following instances:  (1) when the property involved is an expropriated property xxx pursuant to Section 1 of P.D. No. 1315; (2) when there are squatters on government resettlement projects and illegal occupants in any homelot, apartment or dwelling unit owned or administered by the NHA pursuant to Section 2 of P.D. No. 1472; (3) when persons or entities occupy danger areas such as esteros, railroad tracks, garbage dumps, riverbanks, shorelines, waterways and other public places such as sidewalks, roads, parks and playgrounds, pursuant toSection 28(a) of R.A. No. 7279; (4) when government infrastructure projects with available funding are about to be implemented pursuant to Section 28(b) of R.A. No. 7279.26 (emphasis ours) We note that Section 10, Article13 of the 1987 Constitution provides that urban or rural poor dwellers shall not be evicted nor their dwelling demolished, except in accordance with law and in a just and humane manner. Paragraph 1, Section 28 of RA 7279 allows summary evictions and demolition in cases where persons or entities occupy danger areas and when persons or entities occupy areas where government infrastructure projects with available funding are about to be implemented. To ensure that evictions and demolitions are conducted in a just and humane manner, paragraph 2, Section 28 of RA 7279 commands the public respondents to comply with the following prescribed procedure in executing eviction and/or demolition orders: In the execution of eviction or demolition orders involving underprivileged and homeless citizens, the following shall be mandatory: (1) Notice upon the effected persons orentities at least thirty (30) days prior to the date of eviction or demolition; (2) Adequate consultations on the matter of settlement with the duly designated representatives of the families to be resettled and the affected communities in the areas where they are to be relocated; (3) Presence of local government officials or their representatives during eviction or demolition; (4) Proper identification of all persons taking part in the demolition; (5) Execution of eviction or demolition only during regular office hours from Mondays to Fridays and during good weather, unless the affected families consent otherwise; (6) No use of heavy equipment for demolition except for structures that are permanent and of concrete materials; (7) Proper uniforms for members of the Philippine National Police who shall occupy the first line of law enforcement and observe proper disturbance control procedures; and (8) Adequate relocation, whether temporary or permanent: Provided, however, That in cases of eviction and demolition pursuant to a court order involving underprivileged and homeless citizens, relocation shall be undertaken by the local government unit concerned and the National Housing Authority with the assistance of other government agencies within forty-five (45) days from service of notice of final judgment by the court, after which period the said order shall be executed: Provided, further, That should relocation not be possible within the said period, financial assistance in the amount equivalent to the prevailing minimum daily wage multiplied by sixty (60) days shall be extended to the affected families by the local government unit concerned. This Department of the Interior and Local Government and the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council shall jointly promulgate the necessary rules and regulations to carry out the above provision. Lastly, the petitioners failed to substantiate their allegations that the public respondents gravely abused their discretion in implementing Section 28 (a) and (b) of RA 7279. Instead, they merely imputed jurisdictional abuse to the public respondents through general averments in their pleading, but without any basis to support their claim. This is precisely the reason why we frown upon the direct filing of Rule 65 petitions before the Court.  To the point of being repetitive, we (xxx source text missing) Lastly, the petitioners failed to substantiate their allegations that the public respondents gravely abused their discretion in implementing Section 28 (a) and (b) of RA 7279. Instead, they merely imputed jurisdictional abuse to the public respondents through general averments in their pleading, but without any basis to support their claim. This is precisely the reason why we frown upon the direct filing of Rule 65 petitions before the Court. To the point of being repetitive, we emphasize that we are not trier of facts and this applies with greater force to Rule 65 petitions which are original and independent actions. To justify judicial intrusion into what is fundamentally the domain of the executive department, the petitioners must establish facts that are necessarily linked to the jurisdictional problem they presented in this case, i.e., whether the public respondents exercised their power in an arbitrary and despotic manner by reason of passion or personal hostility in implementing Section 28 (a) and (b) of RA 7279. Since the petitioners failed to establish that the public respondents' alleged abuse of discretion was so patent and gross as to amount to an evasion or to a unilateral refusal to perform the duty enjoined or to act in contemplation of law, this petition must necessarily fail.27 WHEREFORE, premises considered, we hereby DISMISS the petition for its serious procedural defects. No costs. SO ORDERED.