Facts:

Confronting us is an undesignated petition[1] filed by Atty. Romulo B. Macalintal (Atty.

Macalintal), that questions the constitution of the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) as an
illegal and unauthorized progeny of Section
4,[2] Article VII of the Constitution:
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.
Grudgingly, petitioner throws us a bone by acknowledging that the invoked constitutional
provision does allow the "appointment of additional personnel."
Further, petitioner highlights our decision in Buac v. COMELEC[4] which peripherally
declared that "contests involving the President and the Vice-President fall within the
exclusive original jurisdiction of the PET,
Issues:
whether the constitution of the PET, composed of the Members of this Court, is
unconstitutional, and violates Section 4, Article VII and Section 12, Article VIII of the
Constitution.
Ruling:
Petitioner is unmistakably estopped from assailing the jurisdiction of the PET before which
tribunal he had ubiquitously appeared and had acknowledged its jurisdiction in 2004.
His failure... to raise a seasonable constitutional challenge at that time, coupled with his
unconditional acceptance of the Tribunal's authority over the case he was defending,
translates to the clear absence of an indispensable requisite for the proper invocation of this
Court's power of... judicial review. Even on this score alone, the petition ought to be
dismissed outright.
Although the subsequent adoption of the parliamentary form of government under the 1973
Constitution might have implicitly affected Republic Act No. 1793, the statutory set-up,
nonetheless, would now be deemed... revived under the present Section 4, paragraph 7, of
the 1987 Constitution.
Former Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno, in his separate opinion, was even more categorical:
The Court is unanimous on the issue of jurisdiction.It has no jurisdiction on the Tecson
andValdezpetitions.Petitioners cannot invoke Article VII, Section 4, par. 7 of the Constitution
which provides:
"The Supreme Court, sittingen bancshall 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."
The word "contest" in the provision means that the jurisdiction of this Court can only be
invoked after the election and proclamation of a President or Vice President.There can be
no "contest" before a winner is proclaimed
Justice Alicia Austria-Martinez
I agree with the majority opinion that these petitions should be dismissed outright for
prematurity.The Court has no... jurisdiction at this point of time to entertain said petitions.
The Supreme Court, as a Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), the Senate Electoral
Tribunal (SET) and House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET) are electoral
tribunals, each specifically and exclusively clothed with jurisdiction by the Constitution to act
respectively... as "sole judge of all contests relating to the election, returns, and
qualifications" of the President and Vice-President, Senators, and Representatives.
this Court has long recognized that these electoral tribunals exercise jurisdiction over
election... contests only after a candidate has already been proclaimed winner in an
election.
Unquestionably, the overarching framework affirmed in Tecson v. Commission on
Elections[19] is that the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction to decide presidential and
vice-presidential election protests while concurrently acting as an independent Electoral
Tribunal.
Last, ut magis valeat quam pereat - the Constitution is to be interpreted as a whole.
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.
On its face, the contentious constitutional provision does not specify the establishment of
the PET. But neither does it preclude, much less prohibit, otherwise. It entertains divergent
interpretations which, though unacceptable to petitioner, do not include his restrictive view

 one which really does not offer a solution.

Before we resort to the records of the Constitutional Commission, we discuss the framework
of judicial power mapped out in the Constitution. Contrary to petitioner's assertion, the
Supreme Court's constitutional mandate to act as sole judgeof election contests involving...
our country's highest public officials, and its rule-making authority in connection therewith, is
not restricted; it includes all necessary powers implicit in the exercise thereof.
For as the Supreme Court in Ocampo v. Cabangis pointed out "a grant of the legislative
power means a grant of all legislative power;... and a grant of the judicial power means a
grant of all the judicial power which may be exercised under the government."
The Court could not have been more explicit then on the plenary grant and exercise of
judicial power. Plainly, the abstraction of the Supreme Court acting as a Presidential
Electoral Tribunal from the unequivocal grant of jurisdiction in the last paragraph of Section
4,... Article VII of the Constitution is sound and tenable.
We feel that it will not be an intrusion into the separation of powers guaranteed to the
judiciary because this is strictly an adversarial and judicial proceeding.
FR. BERNAS. Precisely, this is necessary. Election contests are, by their nature, judicial.
Therefore, they are cognizable only by courts. If, for instance, we did not have a
constitutional provision on an electoral tribunal for the Senate or an electoral tribunal for...
the House, normally, as composed, that cannot be given jurisdiction over contests.
So, it became necessary to create a Presidential Electoral Tribunal. What we have done is
to... constitutionalize what was statutory but it is not an infringement on the separation of
powers because the power being given to the Supreme Court is a judicial power.[31]
Unmistakable from the foregoing is that the exercise of our power to judge presidential and
vice-presidential election contests, as well as the rule-making power adjunct thereto, is
plenary; it is not as restrictive as petitioner would interpret it.
Evidently, even the legislature cannot limit the judicial power to resolve presidential and
vice-presidential election contests and our rule-making power connected thereto.
To foreclose all arguments of petitioner, we reiterate that the establishment of the PET
simply constitutionalized what was statutory before the 1987 Constitution. The experiential
context of the PET in our country cannot be denied
To fill the void in the 1935 Constitution, the National Assembly enacted R.A. No. 1793,
establishing an independent PET to try, hear, and decide protests contesting the election of
President and Vice-President. The Chief Justice and the Associate Justices of the Supreme
Court... were tasked to sit as its Chairman and Members, respectively. Its composition was
extended to retired Supreme Court Justices and incumbent Court of Appeals Justices who
may be appointed as substitutes for ill, absent, or temporarily incapacitated regular
members.
R.A. No. 1793 was implicitly repealed and superseded by the 1973 Constitution which
replaced the bicameral legislature under the 1935 Constitution with the unicameral body of
a parliamentary government.
With the 1973 Constitution, a PET was rendered irrelevant, considering that the President
was not directly chosen by the people but elected from among the members of the National
Assembly, while the position of Vice-President was constitutionally non-existent.
In 1981, several modifications were introduced to the parliamentary system. Executive
power was restored to the President who was elected directly by the people. An Executive
Committee was formed to assist the President in the performance of his functions and
duties. Eventually,... the Executive Committee was abolished and the Office of Vice-
President was installed anew.
These changes prompted the National Assembly to revive the PET by enacting, on
December 3, 1985, Batas Pambansa Bilang (B.P. Blg.) 884, entitled "An Act Constituting an
Independent Presidential Electoral Tribunal to Try, Hear and Decide Election Contests in
the Office of the
President and Vice-President of the Philippines, Appropriating Funds Therefor and For
Other Purposes." This tribunal was composed of nine members, three of whom were the
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and two Associate Justices designated by him, while
the six were... divided equally between representatives of the majority and minority parties
in the Batasang Pambansa.
Aside from the license to wield powers akin to those of a court of justice, the PET was
permitted to recommend the prosecution of persons, whether public officers or private
individuals, who in its opinion had participated in any irregularity connected with the
canvassing and/or... accomplishing of election returns.
After the historic People Power Revolution that ended the martial law era and installed
Corazon Aquino as President, civil liberties were restored and a new constitution was
formed.
With R.A. No. 1793 as framework, the 1986 Constitutional Commission transformed the
then statutory PET into a constitutional institution, albeit without its traditional nomenclature:
FR. BERNAS. x x x.
x x x. So it became necessary to create a Presidential Electoral Tribunal. What we have
done is to constitutionalize what was statutory but it is not an infringement on the separation
of powers because the power being given to the Supreme Court is a judicial... power.[
Clearly, petitioner's bete noire of the PET and the exercise of its power are unwarranted.
His arguments that: (1) the Chief Justice and Associate Justices are referred to as
"Chairman" and "Members," respectively; (2) the PET uses a different seal; (3) the
Chairman is... authorized to appoint personnel; and (4) additional compensation is allocated
to the "Members," in order to bolster his claim of infirmity in the establishment of the PET,
are too superficial to merit further attention by the Court.
Obvious from the foregoing is the intent to bestow independence to the Supreme Court as
the PET, to undertake the Herculean task of deciding election protests involving presidential
and vice-presidential candidates in accordance with the process outlined by former Chief
Justice
Roberto Concepcion
This explicit grant of independence and of the plenary powers needed to discharge this
burden justifies the budget... allocation of the PET.
Doctrine of necessary implication - “that which is plainly implied in the language of
a statute is as much a part of it as that which is expressed”.

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.[36] 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 Court's exercise thereof... he Supreme
Court's 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
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.
MR. AZCUNA. Yes, they are not separate departments because the separate departments
are the legislative, the executive and the judiciary; but they are constitutional bodies.
Justices Adolfo S. Azcuna
Regalado E. Maambong
Section 1 of Republic Act No. 1793... has the effect of giving said defeated candidate the
legal right to contest judicially the election of the President-elect of Vice-President-elect and
to demand a recount of the votes case for the office involved in the litigation, as well as to
secure a judgment declaring that... he is the one elected president or vice-president, as the
case may be, and that, as such, he is entitled to assume the duties attached to said office.
And by providing, further, that the Presidential Electoral Tribunal "shall be composed of the
Chief Justice and the other ten
Members of the Supreme Court," said legislation has conferred upon such Court an
additional original jurisdiction of an exclusive character
Republic Act No. 1793 has not created a new or separate court. It has merely conferred
upon the Supreme Court the functions of a Presidential Electoral Tribunal.
In all of these instances, the court (court of first instance or municipal court) is only one,
although the functions may be distinct and, even, separate.
n other words, there is only one... court, although it may perform the functions pertaining to
several types of courts, each having some characteristics different from those of the others.
So too, the Presidential Electoral Tribunal is not inferior to... the Supreme Court, since it is
the same Court although the functions peculiar to said Tribunal are more limited in scope
than those of the Supreme Court in the exercise of its ordinary functions.
It merely connotes the imposition of additional duties upon the Members of the Supreme
Court.
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
Tribunal's functions as a special electoral court.
The set up embodied in the Constitution and statutes characterizes the resolution of
electoral contests as essentially an exercise of judicial power.
It is also beyond cavil that when the Supreme Court, as PET, resolves a presidential or
vice-presidential election contest, it performs what is essentially a judicial power.
With the explicit provision, the present Constitution has allocated to the Supreme Court, in
conjunction with latter's 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.
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.
WHEREFORE, the petition is DISMISSED. Costs against petitioner.
SO ORDERED.