MAKALINTAL VS PET

FACTS:

A petition was filed by Atty. Macalintal questioning the constitution of the Presidential Electoral Tribunal
(PET) as an illegal and unauthorized progeny of Section 4, Article VII of the Constitution which
provides: The Supreme Court, sitting en banc, shall be the sole judge of all contests relating to the
election, returns, and qualifications of the President or Vice-President, and may promulgate its rules
for the purpose. While SC is "authorized to promulgate its rules for the purpose," he chafes at the
creation of a purportedly "separate tribunal" complemented by a budget allocation, a seal, a set of
personnel and confidential employees, to effect the constitutional mandate. He also contends that the
constitution of the PET, with the designation of the Members of the Court as Chairman and Members
thereof, contravenes Section 12, Article VIII, which prohibits the designation of Members of the SC
and of other courts to any agency performing quasi-judicial or administrative functions.

ISSUE

I. Whether the creation of the presidential electoral tribunal is unconstitutional for being a
violation of paragraph 7, section 4 of article vii of the 1987 constitution.
II. Whether the designation of members of the supreme court as members of the presidential
electoral tribunal is unconstitutional for being a violation of section 12, article viii of the
1987 constitution.

HELD

ut magis valeat quam pereat the Constitution is to be interpreted as a whole. We intoned thus in the
landmark case of Civil Liberties Union v. Executive Secretary:23

It is a well-established rule in constitutional construction that no one provision of the

Constitution is to be separated from all the others, to be considered alone, but that all the
provisions bearing upon a particular subject are to be brought into view and to be so
interpreted as to effectuate the great purposes of the instrument. Sections bearing on a
particular subject should be considered and interpreted together as to effectuate the whole
purpose of the Constitution and one section is not to be allowed to defeat another, if by
any reasonable construction, the two can be made to stand together.

In other words, the court must harmonize them, if practicable, and must lean in favor of a construction
which will render every word operative, rather than one which may make the words idle and nugatory.

Section 4, Article VII of the Constitution, the provision under scrutiny, should be read with
other related provisions of the Constitution such as the parallel provisions on the Electoral
Tribunals of the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Contrary to petitioners assertion, the Supreme Courts constitutional mandate to act as sole judge
of election contests involving our countrys highest public officials, and its rule-making
authority in connection therewith, is not restricted; it includes all necessary powers implicit in
the exercise thereof.
The conferment of additional jurisdiction to the Supreme Court, with the duty characterized as an
"awesome" task, includes the means necessary to carry it into effect under the doctrine of necessary
implication. We cannot overemphasize that the abstraction of the PET from the explicit grant of power
to the Supreme Court, given our abundant experience, is not unwarranted.

A plain reading of Article VII, Section 4, paragraph 7, readily reveals a grant of authority to the Supreme
Court sitting en banc. In the same vein, although the method by which the Supreme Court exercises
this authority is not specified in the provision, the grant of power does not contain any limitation on the
Supreme Courts exercise thereof. The Supreme Courts method of deciding presidential and vice-
presidential election contests, through the PET, is actually a derivative of the exercise of the
prerogative conferred by the aforequoted constitutional provision. Thus, the subsequent directive in
the provision for the Supreme Court to "promulgate its rules for the purpose."

The conferment of full authority to the Supreme Court, as a PET, is equivalent to the full authority
conferred upon the electoral tribunals of the Senate and the House of Representatives, i.e., the Senate
Electoral Tribunal (SET) and the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET),37 which we
have affirmed on numerous occasions.38

Particularly cogent are the discussions of the Constitutional Commission on the parallel provisions of
the SET and the HRET. The discussions point to the inevitable conclusion that the different electoral
tribunals, with the Supreme Court functioning as the PET, are constitutional bodies, independent of
the three departments of government Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary but not separate
therefrom.

By the same token, the PET is not a separate and distinct entity from the Supreme Court, albeit it has
functions peculiar only to the Tribunal. It is obvious that the PET was constituted in implementation of
Section 4, Article VII of the Constitution, and it faithfully complies not unlawfully defies the
constitutional directive. The adoption of a separate seal, as well as the change in the nomenclature of
the Chief Justice and the Associate Justices into Chairman and Members of the Tribunal, respectively,
was designed simply to highlight the singularity and exclusivity of the Tribunals functions as a special
electoral court.

II

Section 12, Article VIII of the Constitution reads:

SEC. 12. The Members of the Supreme Court and of other courts established by law shall not be
designated to any agency performing quasi-judicial or administrative functions.

The set up embodied in the Constitution and statutes characterizes the resolution of electoral
contests as essentially an exercise of judicial power.

With the explicit provision, the present Constitution has allocated to the Supreme Court, in conjunction
with latters exercise of judicial power inherent in all courts,48 the task of deciding presidential and vice-
presidential election contests, with full authority in the exercise thereof. The power wielded by PET is
a derivative of the plenary judicial power allocated to courts of law, expressly provided in the
Constitution. On the whole, the Constitution draws a thin, but, nevertheless, distinct line between the
PET and the Supreme Court.

If the logic of petitioner is to be followed, all Members of the Court, sitting in the Senate and House
Electoral Tribunals would violate the constitutional proscription found in Section 12, Article VIII. Surely,
the petitioner will be among the first to acknowledge that this is not so. The Constitution which, in
Section 17, Article VI, explicitly provides that three Supreme Court Justices shall sit in the Senate and
House Electoral Tribunals, respectively, effectively exempts the Justices-Members thereof from the
prohibition in Section 12, Article VIII. In the same vein, it is the Constitution itself, in Section 4, Article
VII, which exempts the Members of the Court, constituting the PET, from the same prohibition.

We have previously declared that the PET is not simply an agency to which Members of the Court
were designated. Once again, the PET, as intended by the framers of the Constitution, is to be an
institution independent, but not separate, from the judicial department, i.e., the Supreme Court.
McCulloch v. State of Maryland49 proclaimed that "[a] power without the means to use it, is a nullity."
The vehicle for the exercise of this power, as intended by the Constitution and specifically mentioned
by the Constitutional Commissioners during the discussions on the grant of power to this Court, is the
PET. Thus, a microscopic view, like the petitioners, should not constrict an absolute and constitutional
grant of judicial power.