"Declaratory relief is defined as an action by any
person interested in a deed, will, contract or other written instrument,
executive order or resolution, to determine any question of construction or
validity arising from the instrument, executive order or regulation, or
statute, and for a declaration of his rights and duties thereunder. The only
issue that may be raised in such a petition is the question of construction or
validity of the provisions in an instrument or statute." (Ferrer, et.
al. v. Mayor Sulpicio Roco, et. al., G.R. No. 174129 [2010])
"Case law states
that the following are the requisites for an action for declaratory relief:
first, the subject matter of the
controversy must be a deed, will, contract or other written instrument,
statute, executive order or regulation, or ordinance; second, the terms of said
documents and the validity thereof are doubtful and require judicial
construction; third, there must have been no breach of the documents in
question; fourth, there must be an actual justiciable controversy or the
"ripening seeds" of one between persons whose interests are adverse;
fifth, the issue must be ripe for judicial determination; and sixth, adequate
relief is not available through other means or other forms of action or
proceeding.
Based on a judicious review of the
records, the Court observes that while the first, second, and third
requirements appear to exist in this case, the fourth, fifth, and sixth
requirements, however, remain wanting.
As to the fourth requisite, there is
serious doubt that an actual justiciable controversy or the "ripening
seeds" of one exists in this case.
Pertinently, a justiciable controversy
refers to an existing case or controversy that is appropriate or ripe for
judicial determination, not one that is conjectural or merely
anticipatory. Corollary thereto, by "ripening seeds" it is
meant, not that sufficient accrued facts may be dispensed with, but that a
dispute may be tried at its inception before it has accumulated the asperity,
distemper, animosity, passion, and violence of a full blown battle that looms
ahead. The concept describes a state of facts indicating imminent and
inevitable litigation provided that the issue is not settled and stabilized by
tranquilizing declaration.
A perusal of private respondents’
petition for declaratory relief would show that they have failed to demonstrate
how they are left to sustain or are in immediate danger to sustain some direct
injury as a result of the enforcement of the assailed provisions of RA 9372.
Not far removed from the factual milieu in the Southern Hemisphere cases,
private respondents only assert general interests as citizens, and taxpayers
and infractions which the government could prospectively commit if the
enforcement of the said law would remain untrammeled. As their petition would
disclose, private respondents’ fear of prosecution was solely based on remarks
of certain government officials which were addressed to the general public.
They, however, failed to show how these remarks tended towards any
prosecutorial or governmental action geared towards the implementation of RA
9372 against them. In other words, there was no particular, real or imminent
threat to any of them. As held in Southern Hemisphere:
Without any justiciable controversy, the
petitions have become pleas for declaratory relief, over which the Court has no
original jurisdiction. Then again, declaratory actions characterized by
"double contingency," where both the activity the petitioners intend
to undertake and the anticipated reaction to it of a public official are merely
theorized, lie beyond judicial review for lack of ripeness.
The possibility of abuse in the
implementation of RA 9372does not avail to take the present petitions out of
the realm of the surreal and merely imagined. Such possibility is not peculiar
to RA 9372 since the exercise of any power granted by law may be abused.
Allegations of abuse must be anchored on real events before courts may step in
to settle actual controversies involving rights which are legally demandable
and enforceable.
Thus, in the same light that the Court
dismissed the SC petitions in the Southern Hemisphere cases on the basis of,
among others, lack of actual justiciable controversy (or the ripening seeds of
one), the RTC should have dismissed private respondents’ petition for
declaratory relief all the same.
It is well to note that private
respondents also lack the required locus standi to mount their constitutional
challenge against the implementation of the above-stated provisions of RA 9372
since they have not shown any direct and personal interest in the case. While
it has been previously held that transcendental public importance dispenses
with the requirement that the petitioner has experienced or is in actual danger
of suffering direct and personal injury, it must be stressed that cases
involving the constitutionality of penal legislation belong to an altogether
different genus of constitutional litigation. Towards this end, compelling
State and societal interests in the proscription of harmful conduct necessitate
a closer judicial scrutiny of locus standi, as in this case. To rule
otherwise, would be to corrupt the settled doctrine of locus standi, as every
worthy cause is an interest shared by the general public.
As to the fifth requisite for an action
for declaratory relief, neither can it be inferred that the controversy at hand
is ripe for adjudication since the possibility of abuse, based on the
above-discussed allegations in private respondents’ petition, remain
highly-speculative and merely theorized. It is well-settled that a question is
ripe for adjudication when the act being challenged has had a direct adverse
effect on the individual challenging it. This private respondents failed
to demonstrate in the case at bar.
Finally, as regards the sixth requisite,
the Court finds it irrelevant to proceed with a discussion on the availability
of adequate reliefs since no impending threat or injury to the private
respondents exists in the first place.
All told, in view of the absence of the
fourth and fifth requisites for an action for declaratory relief, as well as
the irrelevance of the sixth requisite, private respondents’ petition for
declaratory relief should have been dismissed. Thus, by giving due course to
the same, it cannot be gainsaid that the RTC gravely abused its discretion.” (Republic
of the Philippines v. Herminio Harry Roque, et. al., G.R. No. 204603 [2013])
