G.R. No.

L-5279 October 31, 1955

PHILIPPINE ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES, ETC
vs.
SECRETARY OF EDUCATION and the BOARD OF TEXTBOOKS,
Manuel C. Briones, Vicente G. Sinco, Manuel V. Gallego and Enrique M. Fernando for petitioner.
Office of the Solicitor General Pompeyo Diaz and Assistant Solicitor General Francisco
Carreon for respondents.
FACTS:
The Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities made a petition that Acts No.2706 othe
rwise known as the Act making the Inspection and Recognition of private schools and colleges
obligatory for the Secretary of Public Instruction and was amended by Act No.
3075 and Commonwealth Act No. 180 be declared unconstitutional on the grounds that 1) the
act deprives the owner of the school and colleges as well as teachers and parents of liberty
and property without due process of Law; 2) it will also deprive the parents of their Natural
Rights and duty to rear their children for civic efficiency and 3) its provisions conferred on the
Secretary of Education unlimited powers and discretion to prescribe rules and standards
constitute towards unlawful delegation of Legislative powers. Section 1 of Act No. 2706
It shall be the duty of the Secretary
of Public Instruction to maintain a general standard of efficiency in all private schools and
colleges of the Philippines so that the same shall furnishadequate instruction to the public, in
accordance with the class and grade of instruction givenin them, and for this purpose said
Secretary or his duly authorized representative shall have authority to advise, inspect, and
regulate said schools and colleges in order to determine the
efficiency of instruction given in the same,
The petitioner also complain that securing a permit to the Secretary of Education
beforeopening a school is not originally included in the original Act 2706. And in support to the
firstproposition of the petitioners they contended that the Constitution guaranteed the right of
a

citizen to own and operate a school and any law requiring previous governmental approval or
permit before such person could exercise the said right On the other hand, the defendant
Legal Representative submitted a memorandum contending that 1) the matters presented
no justiciable controversy exhibiting unavoidable necessity of deciding the constitutional
question;2) Petitioners are in estoppels to challenge the validity of the said act and 3) the Act
is constitutionally valid. Thus, the petition for prohibition was dismissed by the court.

ISSUE: Whether or not Act No. 2706 as amended by Act no. 3075 and Commonwealth Act no.
180 maybe declared void and unconstitutional?
RATIO DECIDENTI:
The Petitioner suffered no wrong under the terms of law and needs no relief in the form they
seek to obtain. Moreover, there is no justiciable controversy presented before the court. It is
an established principle that to entitle a private individual immediately in danger of sustaining
a direct injury and it is not sufficient that he has merely invoke the judicial power to
determined the validity of executive and legislative action he must show that he has sustained
common interest to all members of the public. Furthermore, the power of the courts to declare
a law unconstitutional arises only when the interest of litigant require the use of judicial
authority for their protection against actual interference. As such, Judicial Power is limited to
the decision of actual cases and controversies and the authority to pass on the validity
of statutes is incidental to the decisions of such cases where conflicting claims under the
constitution and under the legislative act assailed as contrary to the constitution but it is
legitimate only in the last resort and it must be necessary to determined a real and vital
controversy between litigants. Thus, actions like this are brought for a positive purpose to
obtain actual positive relief and the court does not sit to adjudicate a mere academic question
to satisfy scholarly interest therein. The court however, finds the defendant position to be
sufficiently sustained and state that the petitioner remedy is to challenge the regulation not to
invalidate the law because it needs no argument to show that abuse by officials entrusted with
the execution of the statute does not per se demonstrate the unconstitutionality of such
statute. On this phase of the litigation the court conclude that there has been no undue

delegation of legislative power even if the petitioners appended a list of circulars and
memoranda issued by the Department of Education they fail to indicate which of such official
documents was constitutionally objectionable for being capricious or pain nuisance. Therefore,
the court denied the petition for prohibition