Gonzales vs. Narvasa

A petition for prohibition against a commission that has completed its work and been dissolved is moot and academic, and prohibition as a preventive remedy does not lie against a fait accompli. A citizen lacks standing to question the creation of a public office absent a showing of direct, personal, and particularized injury; a taxpayer’s standing requires an exercise by Congress of its taxing or spending power, not a mere executive allocation of funds already appropriated by the legislature. The constitutional right to information on matters of public concern, being a self-executory public right, may be enforced by any citizen through mandamus without proof of personal injury, subject to reasonable limitations provided by law.

On November 26, 1998, President Joseph Ejercito Estrada issued Executive Order No. 43, creating the Preparatory Commission on Constitutional Reform (PCCR) to study and recommend amendments to the 1987 Constitution and the manner of implementing them. The commission was allocated an initial P3 million from the funds of the Office of the President. By Executive Order No. 70, the period for completing its work was extended to December 31, 1999. The PCCR submitted its report and recommendations on December 20, 1999 and was dissolved the same day; its funds had been fully spent. Petitioner Ramon A. Gonzales, filing as a citizen and taxpayer, assailed the constitutionality of the PCCR and also challenged the existence of some seventy presidential consultants, advisers, and assistants allegedly created by the President in 1995 and 1996. Additionally, he had requested information from Executive Secretary Ronaldo B. Zamora regarding executive officials holding multiple positions and the disposition of luxury vehicles seized by the Bureau of Customs, which request went unanswered.

• Nature of the Petition: Petitioner Ramon A. Gonzales, a citizen and taxpayer, sought prohibition to enjoin the PCCR and the individual respondents—presidential consultants, advisers, and assistants—from acting as such, to enjoin Executive Secretary Ronaldo B. Zamora from enforcing their advice, and to enjoin the Commission on Audit from passing in audit expenditures for the PCCR and those positions. He also prayed for mandamus to compel Zamora to answer his letter requesting information about executive officials holding multiple positions, copies of their appointments, and a list of recipients of seized luxury vehicles.

• Creation, Operation, and Dissolution of the PCCR: The PCCR was created by President Estrada through Executive Order No. 43 on November 26, 1998. Its mandate was to study and recommend proposed amendments to the 1987 Constitution. Section 7 of the executive order “appropriated” P3 million for operational expenses from funds of the Office of the President. By Executive Order No. 70, the commission’s work was extended to December 31, 1999. The PCCR submitted its report to the President on December 20, 1999 and was dissolved that same day; its allotted funds were exhausted.

• Presidential Consultants, Advisers, and Assistants: Petitioner alleged that in 1995 and 1996, the President created seventy positions in the Office of the President: 20 presidential consultants, 22 presidential advisers, and 28 presidential assistants. To support this claim, petitioner annexed a copy of the Philippine Government Directory listing the names and positions. The petition did not identify the specific executive issuance or official act that supposedly created the positions; the document merely reflected appointments.

• Request for Information: On October 4, 1999, petitioner wrote to Executive Secretary Zamora requesting the names of executive officials holding multiple positions in government, copies of their appointment papers, and a list of recipients of luxury vehicles seized by the Bureau of Customs and turned over to Malacañang. Respondent Zamora did not reply.

• Constitutionality of the PCCR: Petitioner argued that the PCCR constituted a public office that only the legislature could create by statute; the President lacked power to establish it by executive order. He further contended that by forming such a body, the President was intervening in the amendment of the Constitution, a process from which the executive branch is constitutionally excluded.

• Presidential Appointee Positions: Petitioner maintained that the President had no power to create the seventy positions of presidential consultants, advisers, and assistants, rendering their appointments unconstitutional.

• Right to Information: Petitioner asserted that respondent Zamora had a duty under the Constitution to answer his letter and disclose the requested information, which concerned matters of public interest—appointments to public office and the utilization of public property.

• Mootness (PCCR): Respondents, particularly respondent Narvasa, argued that the issues concerning the PCCR had become moot and academic because the commission had completed its work, submitted its report, been dissolved, and exhausted its funds. Prohibition was therefore inappropriate against a body that no longer existed.

• Lack of Standing: The Solicitor General’s comment, representing the other respondents, effectively challenged petitioner’s standing, contending that he had suffered no direct, personal, or particularized injury from the creation of the PCCR or the presidential positions and that no legislative appropriation was involved.

• Mootness and Prohibition (PCCR): Whether the petition regarding the PCCR had become moot and academic.

• Locus Standi as Citizen and Taxpayer (PCCR): Whether petitioner had standing as a citizen or taxpayer to challenge the constitutionality of the PCCR.

• Locus Standi (Presidential Consultants, Advisers, Assistants): Whether petitioner had standing to assail the creation of the seventy presidential positions.

• Right to Information and Mandamus: Whether respondent Executive Secretary unlawfully neglected a duty to respond to petitioner’s request for information, warranting the issuance of a writ of mandamus.

• Mootness and Prohibition (PCCR): The petition concerning the PCCR was moot and academic. The commission had already submitted its recommendations, was dissolved, and had exhausted its funds, leaving no justiciable controversy for resolution. Prohibition is a preventive remedy that does not lie to restrain an act already consummated—a fait accompli. Any ruling on the PCCR would be an advisory opinion, which is beyond the constitutional limits of judicial power.

• Locus Standi as Citizen and Taxpayer (PCCR): Petitioner lacked standing. As a citizen, he failed to demonstrate any actual or threatened personal injury attributable to the creation of the PCCR; any injury from an alleged encroachment on legislative prerogative would be that of Congress, not petitioner’s. As a taxpayer, he could not bring suit because the funds for the PCCR were sourced not from a legislative appropriation but from the President’s own office funds, in the exercise of the constitutional power to transfer savings under Section 25(5), Article VI of the Constitution. A taxpayer’s suit requires an unconstitutional disbursement of public funds by act of Congress in the exercise of taxing or spending power.

• Locus Standi (Presidential Consultants, Advisers, Assistants): Petitioner lacked standing and the pleadings were insufficient. He made no showing of direct personal injury. More fundamentally, he failed to identify the specific official act—executive order, administrative order, or otherwise—that created the challenged positions. A government directory listing names and positions does not prove creation; appointment is distinct from the creation of an office. The allegations were too deficient to permit judicial scrutiny.

• Right to Information and Mandamus: The mandamus was granted. The right to information under Section 7, Article III of the 1987 Constitution is a self-executory public right. When a mandamus proceeding asserts a public right, the requirement of personal interest is satisfied by the mere fact that the petitioner is a citizen. The information sought—names of officials holding multiple posts, copies of appointments, and a list of recipients of seized luxury vehicles—concerned matters of public concern: appointments to public office and the utilization of public property. Respondent Zamora, as Executive Secretary, had both a constitutional and a statutory duty under Republic Act No. 6713 to respond to the letter, subject to reasonable limitations such as the orderly conduct of official business and claims of confidentiality.

• Mootness and Prohibition — An action is moot when it ceases to present a justiciable controversy because the issues have become academic. Prohibition is a preventive remedy and cannot restrain an act that is already a fait accompli. Courts will not render advisory opinions on moot questions.

• Citizen’s Standing — A citizen must establish a direct and personal injury resulting from the government’s allegedly illegal conduct to have locus standi. The injury must be concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent; a generalized grievance shared with the public at large or an injury that properly belongs to another branch of government is insufficient.

• Taxpayer’s Standing — A taxpayer may challenge the constitutionality of a measure only when it involves an exercise by Congress of its taxing or spending power, and public funds are disbursed in alleged contravention of the Constitution or a statute. There is no taxpayer standing where the expenditures are authorized solely by the executive branch from funds already under its control, absent a specific legislative appropriation.

• Right to Information as a Self-Executory Public Right — The right to information under Section 7, Article III of the 1987 Constitution is self-executory; it may be invoked by any citizen in a mandamus proceeding without demonstrating personal injury. The information must relate to matters of public concern, a term encompassing appointments to public office and the use of public property. The right is subject to reasonable limitations imposed by law, such as the orderly conduct of official business and confidentiality.

• Creation of Public Office versus Appointment — The creation of a public office requires a specific official act (statute or executive issuance). Appointment to a position is not equivalent to creation. A mere listing of appointees in a government directory does not establish that the offices were created.

• “An action is considered ‘moot’ when it no longer presents a justiciable controversy because the issues involved have become academic or dead. … It is well established that prohibition is a preventive remedy and does not lie to restrain an act that is already fait accompli.”

• “The question in standing is whether a party has ‘alleged such a personal stake in the outcome of the controversy as to assure that concrete adverseness which sharpens the presentation of issues upon which the court so largely depends for illumination of difficult constitutional questions.’”

• “A taxpayer is deemed to have the standing to raise a constitutional issue when it is established that public funds have been disbursed in alleged contravention of the law or the Constitution. Thus a taxpayer’s action is properly brought only when there is an exercise by Congress of its taxing or spending power.”

• “Under both the 1973 and 1987 Constitution, this is a self-executory provision which can be invoked by any citizen before the courts. … when a mandamus proceeding involves the assertion of a public right, the requirement of personal interest is satisfied by the mere fact that the petitioner is a citizen, and therefore, part of the general ‘public’ which possesses the right.”

• “The information to which the public is entitled are those concerning ‘matters of public concern’, a term which embraces a broad spectrum of subjects which the public may want to know, either because these directly affect their lives, or simply because such matters naturally arouse the interest of an ordinary citizen.”

• Kilosbayan, Incorporated v. Morato, 246 SCRA 540 (1995) — Followed to define the personal-stake requirement for citizen standing; the Court denied standing where petitioners showed no direct, particularized injury.

• Valmonte v. Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office, G.R. No. 78716, Sept. 22, 1987 — Applied as authority that a citizen must demonstrate a direct and personal interest, not merely a vague or indefinite concern.

• Telecommunications and Broadcast Attorneys of the Philippines, Inc. v. Commission on Elections, 289 SCRA 337 (1998) — Relied upon for the rule that taxpayer standing is contingent on an exercise of legislative taxing or spending power.

• Sanidad v. Commission on Elections, 73 SCRA 333 (1976) — Distinguished; used to illustrate that taxpayer standing arises only where a legislative appropriation for the challenged purpose is present.

• Legaspi v. Civil Service Commission, 150 SCRA 530 (1987) — The controlling precedent on the self-executory nature of the right to information and the elimination of the personal-injury requirement when a public right is asserted via mandamus.

• Baldoza v. Dimaano, 71 SCRA 14 (1976) — Cited for the broad scope of “matters of public concern” and the democratic imperative of public access to information.

• Section 7, Article III, 1987 Constitution — The right of the people to information on matters of public concern. Applied to sustain the mandamus; the provision is self-executory, and appointments and the use of public property constitute matters of public concern.

• Section 5(a) and (e), Republic Act No. 6713 (Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees) — Obligation of public officials to respond to letters within fifteen working days and to make public documents accessible. Applied as the statutory basis for the duty owed by respondent Executive Secretary.

• Section 25(5), Article VI, 1987 Constitution — The President’s power to transfer savings within the executive branch. Referenced to explain why the PCCR’s funding was not a legislative appropriation and thus did not confer taxpayer standing.

• Section 2, Rule 3, Rules of Court — Definition of a real party in interest. Referenced in the discussion of the necessity of a direct and substantial interest for standing.

Davide, Jr., C.J., Melo, Vitug, Kapunan, Mendoza, Panganiban, Quisumbing, Purisima, Pardo, Buena, Ynares-Santiago, and De Leon, Jr., JJ., concurred. Bellosillo, J., was abroad on official business. Puno, J., voted to dismiss on the ground that the case is moot.