HARRY S. STONEHILL, et. al vs. HON. JOSE W. DIOKNO et. al.

G.R. No. L-19550; June 19, 1967

D O C T R I N E:

Two points must be stressed in connection with this constitutional mandate, namely:
(1) that no warrant shall issue but upon probable cause, to be determined by the judge
in the manner set forth in said provision; and (2) that the warrant
shall particularly describe the things to be seized.

None of these requirements has been complied with in the contested warrants. Indeed,
the same were issued upon applications stating that the natural and juridical person
therein named had committed a "violation of Central Ban Laws, Tariff and Customs
Laws, Internal Revenue (Code) and Revised Penal Code." In other words,
no specific offense had been alleged in said applications. The averments thereof with
respect to the offense committed were abstract. As a consequence, it
was impossible for the judges who issued the warrants to have found the existence of
probable cause, for the same presupposes the introduction of competent proof that the
party against whom it is sought has performed particular acts, or
committed specific omissions, violating a given provision of our criminal laws. As a
matter of fact, the applications involved in this case do not allege any specific acts
performed by herein petitioners. It would be the legal heresy, of the highest order, to
convict anybody of a "violation of Central Bank Laws, Tariff and Customs Laws, Internal
Revenue (Code) and Revised Penal Code," — as alleged in the aforementioned
applications — without reference to any determinate provision of said laws or
 CENTRAL BANK OF THE PHILIPPINES vs. THE HONORABLE JUDGE JESUS P.
MORFE
G.R. No. L-20119; June 30, 1967

D O C T R I N E:

The line of reasoning of respondent Judge might, perhaps, be justified if the acts
imputed to the Organization consisted of isolated transactions, distinct and different
from the type of business in which it is generally engaged. In such case, it may be
necessary to specify or identify the parties involved in said isolated transactions, so that
the search and seizure be limited to the records pertinent thereto. Such, however,
is not the situation confronting us. The records suggest clearly that the transactions
objected to by the Bank constitute the general pattern of the business of the
Organization. Indeed, the main purpose thereof, according to its By-laws, is "to extend
financial assistance, in the form of loans, to its members," with funds deposited by
them.
 THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES ISLANDS vs. JOSE MA. VELOSO
G.R. No. L-23051; October 20, 1925

D O C T R I N E:

John Doe search warrants should be the exception and not the rule. The police should
particularly describe the place to be searched and the person or things to be seized,
wherever and whenever it is feasible. The police should not be hindered in the
performance of their duties, which are difficult enough of performance under the best
of conditions, by superficial adherence to technicality or far fetched judicial interference.
 IN RE: PRODUCTION OF COURT RECORDS AND DOCUMENTS AND THE
ATTENDANCE OF COURT OFFICIALS AND EMPLOYEES AS WITNESSES UNDER
THE SUBPOENAS OF FEBRUARY 10, 2012 AND THE VARIOUS LETTERS FOR
THE IMPEACHMENT PROSECUTION PANEL DATED JANUARY 19 AND 25,
2012.
[February 14, 2012]

D O C T R I N E:

Justice Abad discussed the rationale for the rule in his concurring opinion to the Court
Resolution in Arroyo v. De Lima (TRO on Watch List Order case): the rules on
confidentiality will enable the Members of the Court to "freely discuss the issues without
fear of criticism for holding unpopular positions" or fear of humiliation for one's
comments. The privilege against disclosure of these kinds of
information/communication is known as deliberative process privilege, involving as
it does the deliberative process of reaching a decision. "Written advice from a variety of
individuals is an important element of the government's decision-making process and
that the interchange of advice could be stifled if courts forced the government to
disclose those recommendations;" the privilege is intended "to prevent the 'chilling' of
deliberative communications."

The privilege is not exclusive to the Judiciary. Thus, a Senator may

invoke legislative privilege when he or she is questioned outside the Senate about
information gathered during an executive session of the Senate's legislative inquiry in
aid of legislation. In the same manner, a justice of the court or a judge may
invoke judicial privilege in the Senate sitting as an Impeachment Court, for proceedings
in the performance of his or her own judicial functions. What applies to magistrates
applies with equal force to court officials and employees who are privy to
these deliberations. They may likewise claim exemption when asked about this
privileged information.

While Section 2, Rule 10 of the IRSC cited above speaks only of the confidentiality of
court deliberations, it is understood that the rule extends to documents and other
communications which are part of or are related to the deliberative process.
The deliberative process privilege protects from disclosure documents reflecting
advisory opinions, recommendations and deliberations that are component parts of the
process for formulating governmental decisions and policies. Obviously, the privilege
may also be claimed by other court officials and employees when asked to act on these
documents and other communications.

To qualify for protection under the deliberative process privilege, the agency must show
that the document is both (1) predecisional and (2) deliberative.
A document is "predecisional" under the deliberative process privilege if it precedes, in
temporal sequence, the decision to which it relates. In other words, communications
are considered predecisional if they were made in the attempt to reach a
final conclusion.

A material is "deliberative," on the other hand, if it reflects the give-and-take of the

consultative process. The key question in determining whether the material is
deliberative in nature is whether disclosure of the information would discourage
candid discussion within the agency. If the disclosure of the information would
expose the government's decision-making process in a way that discourages candid
discussion among the decision-makers (thereby undermining the courts' ability to
perform their functions), the information is deemed privileged.

Court records which are "predecisional" and "deliberative" in nature are thus
protected and cannot be the subject of a subpoena if judicial privilege is to
be preserved. The privilege in general insulates the Judiciary from an improper
intrusion into the functions of the judicial branch and shields justices, judges, and court
officials and employees from public scrutiny or the pressure of public opinion that would
impair a judge's ability to render impartial decisions. The deliberative process can be
impaired by undue exposure of the decision-making process to public scrutiny before or
even after the decision is made, as discussed below.

Additionally, two other grounds may be cited for denying access to court records, as
well as preventing members of the bench, from being subjected to compulsory
process: (1) the disqualification by reason of privileged communication and
(2) the pendency of an action or matter.
 TILTON ET AL. vs RICHARDSON ET AL.
June 28, 1971

D O C T R I N E:

Every analysis must begin with the candid acknowledgment that there is no single
constitutional caliper that can be used to measure the precise degree to which these
three factors are present or absent. Instead, our analysis in this area must begin with a
consideration of the cumulative criteria developed over many years and applying to a
wide range of governmental action challenged as violative of the Establishment Clause.

There are always risks in treating criteria discussed by the Court from time to time as
“tests” in any limiting sense of that term. Constitutional adjudication does not lend itself
to the absolutes of the physical sciences or mathematics. The standards should rather
be viewed as guidelines with which to identify instances in which the objectives of the
Religion Clauses have been impaired. And, as we have noted
in Lemon v. Kurtzman and Earley v. DiCenso, ante, at 612, candor compels the
acknowledgment that we can only dimly perceive the boundaries of permissible
government activity in this sensitive area of constitutional adjudication.

Against this background we consider four questions: First, does the Act reflect a secular
legislative purpose? Second, is the primary effect of the Act to advance or inhibit
religion? Third, does the administration of the Act foster an excessive government
entanglement with religion? Fourth, does the implementation of the Act inhibit the free
exercise of religion?
 EFRAIM C. GENUINO et. al. vs HON. LEILA M. DE LIMA et. al.
G.R. No. 197930; April 17, 2018

D O C T R I N E:

It bears reiterating that the power to issue HDO is inherent to the courts. The courts
may issue a HDO against an accused in a criminal case so that he may be dealt with in
accordance with law. It does not require legislative conferment or constitutional
recognition; it co-exists with the grant of judicial power. In Defensor-Santiago vs.
Vasquez, the Court declared, thus:

Courts possess certain inherent powers which may be said to be implied from a general
grant of jurisdiction, in addition to those expressly conferred on them. These inherent
powers are such powers as are necessary for the ordinary and efficient exercise of
jurisdiction; or essential to the existence, dignity and functions of the court, as well as
to the due administration of justice; or are directly appropriate, convenient and suitable
to the execution of their granted powers; and include the power to maintain the court's
jurisdiction and render it effective in behalf of the litigants.

The inherent powers of the courts are essential in upholding its integrity and largely
beneficial in keeping the people's faith in the institution by ensuring that it has the
power and the means to enforce its jurisdiction.
 PENN CENTRAL TRANSPORTATION CO. vs NEW YORK CITY
D O C T R I N E:

If the restriction is reasonably related to a legitimate public interest, then it does not
result in a taking. Diminution in property value alone does not establish a taking.
THE OFFICE OF THE SOLICITOR GENERAL vs AYALA LAND INCORPORATED et.
al.
G.R. NO. 177056; September 18, 2009

D O C T R I N E:

When there is a taking or confiscation of private property for public use, the State is no
longer exercising police power, but another of its inherent powers, namely, eminent
domain. Eminent domain enables the State to forcibly acquire private lands intended for
public use upon payment of just compensation to the owner.

It is a settled rule that neither acquisition of title nor total destruction of value is
essential to taking. It is usually in cases where title remains with the private owner that
inquiry should be made to determine whether the impairment of a property is merely
regulated or amounts to a compensable taking. A regulation that deprives any person of
the profitable use of his property constitutes a taking and entitles him to compensation,
unless the invasion of rights is so slight as to permit the regulation to be justified under
the police power. Similarly, a police regulation that unreasonably restricts the right to
use business property for business purposes amounts to a taking of private property,
and the owner may recover therefor.
 THE CITY OF MANILA vs. BALBINA ESTRADA Y SARMIENTO
G.R. No. 7749; September 9, 1913

D O C T R I N E:

"Compensation" means an equivalent for the value of the land (property) taken.
Anything beyond that is more and anything short of that is less than compensation. To
compensate is to render something which is equal to that taken or received. The word
"just" is used to intensify the meaning of the word "compensation;" to convey the idea
that the equivalent to be rendered for the property taken shall be real, substantial, full,
ample. "Just compensation," therefore, as used in section 246 of the Code of Civil
Procedure, means a fair and full equivalent for the loss sustained."

The compensation must be just to the public as well as to the owners. (Searl vs. School
District, 133 U.S., 553; 33 L. ed., 740.)

"To assess" is to perform a judicial act. The commissioners' power is limited to

assessing the value and to determining the amount of the damages. There it stops;
they can go no further. The value and damages awarded must be a just compensation
and no more and no less. But in fixing these amounts, the commissioners are not to
act ad libitum. They are to discharge the trust reposed in them according to well
established rules and form their judgment upon correct legal principles. To deny this is
to place them where no one else in this country is placed: Above the law and beyond
accountability.
 PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES vs BERNARDINO DOMANTAY
G.R. No. 130612; May 11, 1999

D O C T R I N E:

Art. III, 12 of the Constitution in part provides:

(1) Any person under investigation for the commission of an offense shall have the right
to be informed of his right to remain silent and to have competent and independent
counsel preferably of his own choice. If the person cannot afford the services of
counsel, he must be provided with one. These rights cannot be waived except in writing
and in the presence of counsel.

....

(3) Any confession or admission obtained in violation of this section or section 17 hereof
shall be inadmissible in evidence.

This provision applies to the stage of custodial investigation, that is, when the
investigation is no longer a general inquiry into an unsolved crime but starts to focus on
a particular person as a suspect. R.A. No. 7438 has extended the constitutional
guarantee to situations in which an individual has not been formally arrested but has
merely been invited for questioning.
 THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES vs. HERSON TAN y VERZO
G.R. No. 117321 February 11, 1998

D O C T R I N E:

Custodial investigation involves any questioning initiated by law enforcement authorities

after a person is taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in
any significant manner. The rules on custodial investigation begin to operate as soon as
the investigation ceases to be a general inquiry into an unsolved crime and begins to
focus a particular suspect, the suspect is taken into custody, and the police carries out a
process of interrogations that tends itself to eliciting incriminating statements that the
rule begins to operate.
 THE UNITED STATES vs. TAN TENG
G.R. No. 7081; September 7, 1912

D O C T R I N E:

The prohibition contained in section 5 of the Philippine Bill that a person shall not be
compelled to be a witness against himself, is simply a prohibition against legal process
to extract from the defendant's own lips, against his will, an admission of his guilt.
 THE UNITED STATES vs. ONG SIU HONG
G.R. No. L-12778; August 3, 1917

D O C T R I N E:

To force a prohibited drug from the person of an accused is along the same line as
requiring him to exhibit himself before the court; or putting in evidence papers and
other articles taken from the room of an accused in his absence; or, as in the Tan Teng
case, taking a substance from the body of the accused to be used in proving his guilt. It
would be a forced construction of the paragraph of the Philippine Bill of Rights in
question to hold that any article, substance, or thing taken from a person accused of
crime could not be given in evidence. The main purpose of this constitutional provision
is to prohibit testimonial compulsion by oral examination in order to extort unwilling
confessions from prisoners implicating them in the commission of a crime.
 FRANCISCO BELTRAN vs. FELIX SAMSON
G.R. No. 32025; September 23, 1929

D O C T R I N E:

The rights intended to be protected by the constitutional provision that no man accused
of crime shall be compelled to be a witness against himself is so sacred, and the
pressure toward their relaxation so great when the suspicion of guilt is strong and the
evidence obscure, that is the duty of courts liberally to construe the prohibition in favor
of personal rights, and to refuse to permit any steps tending toward their invasion.
Hence, there is the well-established doctrine that the constitutional inhibition is directed
not merely to giving of oral testimony, but embraces as well the furnishing of evidence
by other means than by word of mouth, the divulging, in short, of any fact which the
accused has a right to hold secret.
 EASTERN SHIPPING LINES, INC., vs. POEA
G.R. No. 76633; October 18, 1988

D O C T R I N E:

There are two accepted tests to determine whether or not there is a valid delegation of
legislative power, viz, the completeness test and the sufficient standard test. Under the
first test, the law must be complete in all its terms and conditions when it leaves the
legislature such that when it reaches the delegate the only thing he will have to do is
enforce it. Under the sufficient standard test, there must be adequate guidelines or
stations in the law to map out the boundaries of the delegate's authority and prevent
the delegation from running riot.

Both tests are intended to prevent a total transference of legislative authority to the
delegate, who is not allowed to step into the shoes of the legislature and exercise a
power essentially legislative.
 THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS and HONGKONG & SHANGHAI
BANKING CORPORATION vs. JOSE O. VERA
G.R. No. L-45685; November 16, 1937

D O C T R I N E:

In testing whether a statute constitute an undue delegation of legislative power or not,

it is usual to inquire whether the statute was complete in all its terms and provisions
when it left the hands of the legislature so that nothing was left to the judgment of any
other appointee or delegate of the legislature. In the United States vs. Ang Tang Ho
([1922], 43 Phil., 1), this court adhered to the foregoing rule when it held an act of the
legislature void in so far as it undertook to authorize the Governor-General, in his
discretion, to issue a proclamation fixing the price of rice and to make the sale of it in
violation of the proclamation a crime. The general rule, however, is limited by another
rule that to a certain extent matters of detail may be left to be filled in by rules and
regulations to be adopted or promulgated by executive officers and administrative
boards.
 REGINA ONGSIAKO REYES vs HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ELECTORAL
TRIBUNAL
G.R. No. 221103; October 16, 2018

D O C T R I N E:

HRET's jurisdiction is provided under Section 17, Article VI of the 1987 Constitution
which states that "[t]he Senate and the House of Representatives shall each have an
Electoral Tribunal which shall be the sole judge of all contests relating to the election,
returns, and qualifications of their respective Members." There is no room for the
COMELEC to assume jurisdiction because HRET's jurisdiction is constitutionally
mandated.