TROCIO, RUCEL MAE A.

1 – VIADA

CALLEJA VS EXECUTIVE SECRETARY

GR NO 252578

Before this Court are 37 separate Petitions for Certiorari and/or Prohibition filed
under Rule 65 of the Rules of Court (Rules), all assailing the constitutionality of
Republic Act (R.A.) No. 11479 or the "Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020" (ATA).

Petitioners primarily assail the validity of Sections 4 to 12 of the ATA due to their
perceived facial vagueness and overbreadth that purportedly repress protected
speech. It is argued further that the unconstitutionality of the definition of terrorism
and its variants will leave it with "nothing to sustain its existence."

On September 23, 2020, respondent Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC) issued

Resolution No. 1070 automatically adopting the list of designated terrorists by the
UNSC as well as directing the concerned agencies to impose and implement the
relevant sanctions measures without delay, from the time of designation made by
the UNSC and its relevant Sanctions Committee. All throughout December 2020
up until April 2021, the ATC have been issuing Resolutions designating
individuals and particular organizations as terrorists.

ISSUES:

A. Preliminary issues
1. Whether petitioners have legal standing to sue;
2. Whether the issues raised in the petitions involve an actual and justiciable
controversy;
3. Whether petitioners' direct resort to the Supreme Court is proper;
4. Whether facial challenge is proper; and
5. Whether R.A. No. 11479 should already be declared unconstitutional in its
entirety if the Court finds that the definition of terrorism and the powers of the
ATC are constitutionally infirm.

Ruling
1. Whether petitioners have legal standing to sue;

Where the party challenges the constitutionality of a law, he or she must not only
show that the law is invalid, but that he has sustained or is in immediate or
imminent danger of sustaining some direct injury as a result of its enforcement,
and not merely that he suffers in some indefinite way. He or she must show that he
or she has been, or is about to be, denied some right or privilege to which he is
lawfully entitled, or that he or she is about to be subjected to some burdens or
penalties by reason of the statute complained of.

Considering the application of the contested provisions of the ATA and the threat
of the imposition of consequences associated with being a terrorist, several
petitioners including petitioners Carpio, Carpio-Morales, Casambre, RPM,
Anakbayan, Kilusang Mayo Uno, Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, and
GABRIELA have personal interests in the outcome of the consolidated petitions.
The Court finds that petitioners have sufficiently alleged the presence of credible
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threat of injury for being constant targets of "red-tagging" or "truth-tagging."

Therefore, they satisfy the requisites of the traditional concept of legal standing.

The Court finds that even if they had not come under the actual operation of the
ATA, there would still have been no legal standing impediments to grant due
course to the petitions because it partakes of a facial challenge in the context of
free speech and its cognate rights. It is clear that unlike in Southern Hemisphere,
the ATA presents a freedom of expression issue, and on this point, the
pronouncement in Disini v. Secretary of Justice is now the prevailing authority:
“A petitioner may for instance mount a "facial" challenge to the constitutionality
of a statute even if he claims no violation of his own rights under the assailed
statute where it involves free speech on grounds of overbreadth or vagueness of the
statute. The rationale for this exception is to counter the "chilling effect" on
protected speech that comes from statutes violating free speech. A person who
does not know whether his speech constitutes a crime under an overbroad or vague
law may simply restrain himself from speaking in order to avoid being charged of
a crime. The overbroad or vague law thus chills him into silence."

Besides, petitioners may be treated as non-traditional suitors who may bring suit in
representation of parties not before the Court. In Funa v. Villar, the rule on non-
traditional suitors was summarized:

(1) For taxpayers, there must be a claim of illegal disbursement of public funds or
that the tax measure is unconstitutional;
(2) For voters, there must be a showing of obvious interest in the validity of the
election law in question;
(3) For concerned citizens, there must be a showing that the issues raised are of
transcendental importance which must be settled at the earliest time; and
(4) For legislators, there must be a claim that the official action complained of
infringes their prerogatives as legislators.

These petitions involve matters of transcendental importance and constitutional

questions which must be addressed by this Court immediately. It is settled that
legal standing is a procedural technicality which this Court may choose to waive or
relax in cases involving transcendental importance to allow individuals or groups
to sue even though they may not have been personally injured by the operation of
the law.

2. Whether the issues raised in the petitions involve an actual and

justiciable controversy;
An actual case or controversy exists when there is a conflict of legal rights, an
assertion of opposite legal claims, susceptible of judicial resolution as
distinguished from a hypothetical or abstract difference or dispute. There must be a
contrariety of legal rights that can be interpreted and enforced on the basis of
existing law and jurisprudence. Corollary thereto, the case must not be moot or
academic, or based on extra-legal or other similar considerations not cognizable by
a court of justice. All these are in line with the well-settled rule that this Court does
not issue advisory opinions, nor does it resolve mere academic questions, abstract
quandaries, hypothetical or feigned problems, or mental exercises, no matter how
TROCIO, RUCEL MAE A. 1 – VIADA

challenging or interesting they may be.

Closely linked to this requirement is that the question must be ripe for
adjudication. For a case to be considered ripe for adjudication, it is a prerequisite
that something has been accomplished or performed by either branch before a
court may come into the picture, and the petitioner must allege the existence of an
immediate or threatened direct injury to himself as a result of the challenged
action.

The requisite of an actual case or controversy has been complied at least with
respect to certain issues falling within the purview of the delimited facial analysis
framework. The consolidated petitions, in challenging the ATA, present a
permissible facial challenge on the ATA in the context of the freedom of speech
and its cognate rights — and it is only on these bases that the Court will rule upon
the constitutionality of the law. Further, with respect to certain provisions of the
ATA, petitioners have sufficiently shown that there is a credible and imminent
threat of injury, as they may be subjected to the potential destructive consequences
of designation as well as possible detention and prosecution. In fact, the Court is
mindful that several of the petitioners have already come under the operation of the
ATA as they have been designated as terrorists.

3. Whether petitioners' direct resort to the Supreme Court is proper;

In the present petitions, there are serious and compelling reasons justifying direct
resort to this Court. Genuine issues involving the constitutionality of the ATA are
raised in the petitions which must be immediately addressed. The far-reaching
implications, which encompass both present and future generations, if these
constitutional issues remain unresolved, warrant the immediate action of this
Court. While the intention of the legislature in enacting the ATA is noble and
laudable, this Court cannot simply brush aside the perceived threats to fundamental
rights that petitioners raised.

To be clear, parties cannot acquire direct audience before this Court by merely
invoking the doctrine of transcendental importance if the matter they bring raises
issues of fact which require the presentation of evidence. It is when there are no
factual questions — or when there are extant factual issues but they are not
material to the constitutional issue — that direct recourse to this Court under
Section 5, Article VIII of the Constitution may be permitted. Otherwise, the
hierarchy of courts must be observed.

4. Whether facial challenge is proper; and

Meanwhile, a FACIAL challenge seeks the entire invalidation of a
statute because, in the words of United States v. Salerno, "no set of circumstances
exists under which the [statute] would be valid." the prevailing Philippine
jurisprudence is that facial challenges on legislative acts are permissible only if
they curtail the freedom of speech and its cognate rights based on overbreadth
and the void-for-vagueness doctrine. Facial challenges have not been recognized
as applicable to other provisions of the Constitution or the separation of powers.
On this point, iPhilippine jurisprudence on facial challenges developed in a
different trajectory from the American experience since Salerno. And the Court, at
TROCIO, RUCEL MAE A. 1 – VIADA

this time, finds it improper to expand the scope of facial challenges to all other
constitutional rights.

In Southern Hemisphere v. Anti-Terrorism Council, the Court said

“The overbreadth and vagueness doctrines then have special application only to
free speech cases. They are inapt for testing the validity of penal statutes. A facial
challenge is allowed to be made to a vague statute and to one which is overbroad
because of possible "chilling effect" upon protected speech. This rationale does not
apply to penal statutes. Criminal statutes have general in terrorem effect resulting
from their very existence, and, if facial challenge is allowed for this reason alone,
the State may well be prevented from enacting laws against socially harmful
conduct. Later in Disini v. Secretary of Justice, the Court categorically stated that
"when a penal statute encroaches upon the freedom of speech, a facial challenge
grounded on the void-for-vagueness doctrine is acceptable." Thus, in Disini, the
Court applied a facial analysis in invalidating Section 5 of the Cybercrime
Prevention Act based on the void-for-vagueness doctrine. Subsequently, the Court
ruled in Imbong vs. Ochoa that facial challenges may be launched to assail the
validity of statutes which concern cognate rights to the freedom of speech: "While
this Court has withheld the application of facial challenges to strictly penal statues,
it has expanded its scope to cover statutes not only regulating free speech, but also
those involving religious freedom, and other fundamental rights."

5. Whether R.A. No. 11479 should already be declared unconstitutional in its

entirety if the Court finds that the definition of terrorism and the powers of
the ATC are constitutionally infirm.
Petitioners aver that the essential provisions animating the ATA are impaired by
constitutionality which would leave the law without any reason to exist since its
legislative purpose can no longer be served. They suggest that without Section 4,
the crimes penalized in Sections 5 to 12 will lose their meaning as they are all
dependent on its definition of what constitutes terrorism. This issue is resolved by
the fact that the Court does not find the essential provisions of the ATA,
particularly the definition of terrorism under Section 4 of the ATA, absolutely
unconstitutional