Gamboa vs.

Finance Secretary Teves 652 SCRA 690

Full text: https://elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocs/1/37041

Facts;
On 28 February 2007, petitioner filed the instant petition for prohibition, injunction, declaratory relief, and
declaration of nullity of sale of the 111,415 PTIC shares. Petitioner claims, among others, that the sale of the 111,415
PTIC shares would result in an increase in First Pacific's common shareholdings in PLDT from 30.7 percent to 37
percent, and this, combined with Japanese NTT DoCoMo's common shareholdings in PLDT, would result to a total
foreign common shareholdings in PLDT of 51.56 percent which is over the 40 percent constitutional limit.

Issue:

Whether or not the petitioner’s choice of remedy was proper.

Held:

At the outset, petitioner is faced with a procedural barrier. Among the remedies petitioner seeks, only the
petition for prohibition is within the original jurisdiction of this court, which however is not exclusive but is concurrent
with the Regional Trial Court and the Court of Appeals. The actions for declaratory relief, injunction, and annulment of
sale are not embraced within the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. On this ground alone, the petition could
have been dismissed outright.

While direct resort to this Court may be justified in a petition for prohibition, the Court shall nevertheless
refrain from discussing the grounds in support of the petition for prohibition since on 28 February 2007, the
questioned sale was consummated when MPAH paid IPC P25,217,556,000 and the government delivered the
certificates for the 111,415 PTIC shares.

However, since the threshold and purely legal issue on the definition of the term "capital" in Section 11,
Article XII of the Constitution has far-reaching implications to the national economy, the Court treats the petition for
declaratory relief as one for mandamus.