By Jose A. Oliveros
Can the Senate interpret the Constitution? Please point to the specific provision in the Constitution that the Senate can interpret the Constitution. These direct and pointed questions were directed by Senator Panfilo Lacson to Senator Francisco Pangilinan during the latter’s sponsorship of a proposed Senate resolution signed by 14 Senators, expressing “the sense of the Senate” on the decision of the Supreme Court in the quo warranto case filed by Solicitor General Jose Calida against Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno.
Pangilinan gave a circuitous answer but finally admitted that there is no specific provision in the Constitution giving the Senate the power to interpret the Constitution. But to extricate himself from an embarrassing position, Pangilinan stated that in crafting laws and during debates and deliberations on proposed laws, the Senate, from time to time, interprets the Constitution.
Pangilinan’s answer immediately reminded me of the late Chief Justice Fred Ruiz Castro’s dissenting opinion in Chavez v. Court of Appeals that “the past may have receded so far into the distance that our perspectives may have been altered and our vision blurred.” This is because in the 1953 case of Pastor Endencia v. Saturnino David (93 Phil. 696), the Supreme Court categorically ruled that under the Constitution, the Judiciary alone has the power to interpret not only laws but the Constitution as well.
A brief background of that case:
In the 1950 case of Perfecto v. Meer (85 Phil. 552) the Supreme Court ruled that subjecting the salaries of justices and judges to income tax constituted diminution of their salaries which was prohibited under the 1935 Constitution. The decision was not received favorably by Congress, because immediately after its promulgation, Congress enacted Republic Act No. 590 which, among others, provided:
SEC. 13. No salary wherever received by any public officer of the Republic of the Philippines shall be considered as exempt from the income tax, payment of which is hereby declared not to be diminution of his compensation fixed by the Constitution or by law.
Ruling squarely on the constitutionality of the above-cited provision of R. A. No. 590, specifically its last clause, the Supreme Court declared that “under our system of constitutional government, the Legislative department is assigned the power to make and enact laws. The Executive department is charged with the execution of carrying out of the provisions of said laws. But the interpretation and application of said laws belong exclusively to the Judicial department.” Senator Lacson emphasized this in his interpellation without adverting to the Endencia v. David decision.
Continued the Supreme Court in said case:
“We have already said that the Legislature under our form of government is assigned the task and the power to make and enact laws, but not to interpret them. This is more true with regard to the interpretation of the basic law, the Constitution, which is not within the sphere of the Legislative department. If the Legislature may declare what a law means, or what a specific portion of the Constitution means, especially after the courts have in actual case ascertain its meaning by interpretation and applied it in a decision, this would surely cause confusion and instability in judicial processes and court decisions. Under such a system, a final court determination of a case based on a judicial interpretation of the law of the Constitution may be undermined or even annulled by a subsequent and different interpretation of the law or of the Constitution by the Legislative department. That would be neither wise nor desirable, besides being clearly violative of the fundamental, principles of our constitutional system of government, particularly those governing the separation of powers.”
The pronouncement of the Supreme Court in the Endencia v. David case that the Judiciary is the sole organ empowered under the Constitution to interpret laws and the Constitution echoes Justice Jose P. Laurel’s ponencia in the 1936 landmark case of Angara v. Electoral Commission (63 Phil. 139) that “in times of social disquietude or political excitement, the great landmarks of the Constitution are apt to be forgotten or marred, if not entirely obliterated. In cases of conflict, the judicial department is the only constitutional organ which can be called upon to determine the proper allocation of powers between the several departments and among the integral or constituent units thereof.”
Jose A. Oliveros is a member of the Philippine Bar.