04/02/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly as earlier explained, there is really no MOA-AD to speak of since its perfection or effectivity was aborted by supervening events, to wit: the TRO the Court issued enjoining the Kuala Lumpur signing of the MOA and the subsequent change of mind of the President not to sign and pursue the covenant. To repeat, there is, from the start, or from the moment the first petition was interposed, no actual justiciable controversy to be resolved or dismissed, the MOA-AD having been unsigned. Be that as it may, there can hardly be any constitutional issue based on actual facts to be resolved with finality, let alone a grave violation of the Constitution to be addressed. Surely the Court cannot reasonably formulate guiding and controlling constitutional principles, precepts, doctrines or rules for future guidance of both bench and bar based on a non-existing ancestral domain agreement or by anticipating what the executive department will likely do or agree on in the future in the peace negotiating table. Some of my esteemed colleagues in the majority have expressed deep concern with the ramifications of a signed MOA-AD. Needless to stress, their apprehension as to such ramifications is highly speculative. Thus, judicial inquiry, assuming for the nonce its propriety, has to come later, again assuming that the peace instrument is eventually executed and challenged. At its present unsigned shape, the MOA-AD can hardly be the subject of a judicial review. The allegations of unconstitutionality are, for now, purely conjectural. The MOA-AD is only a part of a lengthy peace process that would eventually have culminated in the signing of a Comprehensive Compact. Per my count, the MOA-AD makes reference to a Comprehensive Compact a total of eight times. The last paragraph of the MOA-AD even acknowledges that, before its key provisions come into force, there would still be more consultations and deliberations needed by the parties, viz: Matters concerning the details of the agreed consensus [point] on Governance not covered under this Agreement shall be deferred to, and discussed during, the negotiations of the Comprehensive Compact. Separation of Powers to be Guarded Over and above the foregoing considerations, however, is the matter of separation of powers which would likely be disturbed should the Court meander into alien territory of the executive and dictate how the final shape of the peace agreement with the MILF should look like. The system of separation of powers contemplates the division of the functions of government into its three (3) branches: the legislative which is empowered to make laws; the executive which is required to carry out the law; and the judiciary which is charged with interpreting the law.[20] Consequent to the actual delineation of power, each branch of government is entitled to be left alone to discharge its duties as it sees fit.[21] Being one such branch, the judiciary, as Justice Laurel asserted in Planas v. Gil,[22] "will neither direct nor restrain executive [or legislative action]." Expressed in another perspective, the system of separated powers is designed to restrain one branch from inappropriate interference in the business,[23] or intruding upon the central prerogatives,[24] of another branch; it is a blend of courtesy and caution, "a self-executing safeguard against the encroachment or aggrandizement of one branch at the expense of the other."[25] But this is what the petitioners basically seek: through the overruling writs of the Court, to enjoin the Philippine Peace Negotiating Panel, or its equivalent, and elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/47263 182/203