04/02/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly Constitution, laws, rules and regulations as standards, to determine disputes and violations of constitutional, and statutory rights; the legislature and the executive, on the other hand, look forward to address present and future situations and developments, with their actions limited by existing constitutional, statutory and regulatory parameters that the courts are duty-bound to safeguard. Thus, if this Court can speak at all on the substance of future talks, this can only be by way of a reminder that the government's positions can only be within constitutional and statutory parameters and subject to the strict observance of required constitutional and statutory procedures if future changes to the constitution and to current statutes are contemplated. iv. Mootness and Paramount Public Interest In justifying the application of the exception on the basis of paramount public interest, the ponencia noted that the MOA-AD involved a significant part of the country's territory and wide-ranging political modifications for affected local government units. It also claimed that the need for further legal enactments provides impetus for the Court to provide controlling principles to guide the bench, the bar, the public and the government and its negotiating entity.[18] Unfortunately, the ponencia's justifications on these points practically stopped at these statements. Suprisingly, it did not even have an analysis of what the paramount public interest is and what would best serve the common good under the failed signing of the MOA-AD. We note, as a matter of judicial experience, that almost all cases involving constitutional issues filed with this Court are claimed to be impressed with public interest. It is one thing, however, to make a claim and another thing to prove that indeed an interest is sufficiently public, ripe, and justiciable to claim the attention and action of this Court. It must be considered, too, that while issues affecting the national territory and sovereignty are sufficiently weighty to command immediate attention, answers and solutions to these types of problems are not all lodged in the Judiciary; more than not, these answers and solutions involve matters of policy that essentially rest with the two other branches of government under our constitutional system,[19] with the Judiciary being called upon only where disputes and grave abuse of discretion arise in the course applying the terms of the Constitution and in implementing our laws.[20] Where policy is involved, we are bound by our constitutional duties to leave the question for determination by those duly designated by the Constitution - the Executive, Congress, or the people in their sovereign capacity. In the present case, the peace and order problems of Mindanao are essentially matters for the Executive to address,[21] with possible participation from Congress and the sovereign people as higher levels of policy action arise. Its search for solutions, in the course of several presidencies, has led the Executive to the peace settlement process. As has been pointed out repetitively in the pleadings and the oral arguments, the latest move in the Executive's quest for peace - the MOA-AD would have not been a good deal for the country if it had materialized. This Court, however, seasonably intervened and aborted the planned signing of the agreement. The Executive, for its part, found it wise and appropriate to fully heed the signals from our initial action and from the public outcry the MOA-AD generated; it backtracked at the earliest opportunity in a manner consistent with its efforts to avoid or minimize bloodshed while preserving the peace process. At the moment, elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/47263 125/203