04/02/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly Petitioners' legal standing is thus beyond doubt. In G.R. No. 183962, petitioners Ernesto Maceda, Jejomar Binay and Aquilino Pimentel III would have no standing as citizens and taxpayers for their failure to specify that they would be denied some right or privilege or there would be wastage of public funds. The fact that they are a former Senator, an incumbent mayor of Makati City, and a resident of Cagayan de Oro, respectively, is of no consequence. Considering their invocation of the transcendental importance of the issues at hand, however, the Court grants them standing. Intervenors Franklin Drilon and Adel Tamano, in alleging their standing as taxpayers, assert that government funds would be expended for the conduct of an illegal and unconstitutional plebiscite to delineate the BJE territory. On that score alone, they can be given legal standing. Their allegation that the issues involved in these petitions are of "undeniable transcendental importance" clothes them with added basis for their personality to intervene in these petitions. With regard to Senator Manuel Roxas, his standing is premised on his being a member of the Senate and a citizen to enforce compliance by respondents of the public's constitutional right to be informed of the MOA-AD, as well as on a genuine legal interest in the matter in litigation, or in the success or failure of either of the parties. He thus possesses the requisite standing as an intervenor. With respect to Intervenors Ruy Elias Lopez, as a former congressman of the 3rd district of Davao City, a taxpayer and a member of the Bagobo tribe; Carlo B. Gomez, et al., as members of the IBP Palawan chapter, citizens and taxpayers; Marino Ridao, as taxpayer, resident and member of the Sangguniang Panlungsod of Cotabato City; and Kisin Buxani, as taxpayer, they failed to allege any proper legal interest in the present petitions. Just the same, the Court exercises its discretion to relax the procedural technicality on locus standi given the paramount public interest in the issues at hand. Intervening respondents Muslim Multi-Sectoral Movement for Peace and Development, an advocacy group for justice and the attainment of peace and prosperity in Muslim Mindanao; and Muslim Legal Assistance Foundation Inc., a non-government organization of Muslim lawyers, allege that they stand to be benefited or prejudiced, as the case may be, in the resolution of the petitions concerning the MOA-AD, and prays for the denial of the petitions on the grounds therein stated. Such legal interest suffices to clothe them with standing. B. Mootness Respondents insist that the present petitions have been rendered moot with the satisfaction of all the reliefs prayed for by petitioners and the subsequent pronouncement of the Executive Secretary that "[n]o matter what the Supreme Court ultimately decides[,] the government will not sign the MOA."[92] In lending credence to this policy decision, the Solicitor General points out that the President had already disbanded the GRP Peace Panel.[93] In David v. Macapagal-Arroyo,[94] this Court held that the "moot and academic" elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/47263 17/203