19-01-16

For: Sir ECL

From: JMF
Re: Rule on impleading Congress as a whole

Of the four petitions before the Court, only G.R. No. 236145 impleaded the
Congress as party-respondent.

Section 7, Rule 3 of the Rules of Court requires that "parties in interest

without whom no final determination can be had of an action shall be
joined as plaintiffs or defendants." In Marmo, et al. v. Anacay,81 the Court
explained that:

[A] party is indispensable, not only if he has an interest in the subject

matter of the controversy, but also if his interest is such that a final decree
cannot be made without affecting this interest or without placing the
controversy in a situation where the final determination may be wholly
inconsistent with equity and good conscience. He is a person whose
absence disallows the court from making an effective, complete, or
equitable determination of the controversy between or among the
contending parties.82 (Citation omitted)

In these consolidated petitions, petitioners are questioning the

constitutionality of a congressional act, specifically the approval of the
President's request to extend martial law in Mindanao. Petitioners in G.R.
No. 235935 and 236155 have also put in issue the manner in which the
Congress deliberated upon the President's request for extension. Clearly,
therefore, it is the Congress as a body, and not just its leadership, which
has interest in the subject matter of these cases. Consequently, it was
procedurally incorrect for petitioners in G.R. Nos. 235935, 236061 and
236155 to implead only the Senate President and the House Speaker among
the respondents.

Arguably, Senator Aquilino Pimentel III and House Speaker Pantaleon

Alvarez can be said to have an interest in these cases, as representatives of
the Senate and the House of Representatives, respectively. However,
considering that one of their main contentions is that the "supermajority" of
the Congress gravely abused their discretion when they allegedly
railroaded the adoption of Resolution of Both Houses No. 4, it stands to
reason and the requirements of due process that petitioners in G.R. Nos.
235935 and 236061 should have impleaded the Congress as a
whole.83 Needless to say, the entire body of Congress, and not merely the
respective leaders of its two Houses, will be directly affected should We
strike down the extension of martial law. Thus, We hold that in cases
impugning the extension of martial law for lack of sufficient factual basis,
the entire body of the Congress, composed of the Senate and the House of
Representatives, must be impleaded, being an indispensable party thereto.

It is true that a party's failure to implead an indispensable party is not per

se a ground for the dismissal of the action, as said party may be added, by
order of the court on motion of the party or motu propio, at any stage of the
action or at such times as are just. However, it remains essential - as it is
jurisdictional - that an indispensable party be impleaded before judgment
is rendered by the court, as the absence of such indispensable party renders
all subsequent acts of the court null and void for want of authority to act,
not only as to the absent parties but even as to those present. 84 Joining
indispensable parties into an action is mandatory, being a requirement of
due process. In their absence, the judgment cannot attain real finality. 85

We are, thus, unprepared to trivialize the necessity to implead the entire

Congress as party-respondent in this proceeding, especially considering
that the factual scenario and the concomitant issues raised herein are novel
and unprecedented.

Nevertheless, inasmuch as the Congress was impleaded as a respondent in

G.R. No. 236145 and the OSG has entered its appearance and argued for all
the respondents named in the four consolidated petitions, the Court finds
that the "essential" and "jurisdictional" requirement of impleading an
indispensable party has been substantially complied with.