04/02/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly enforcing.[74] This power of legal interpretation uniquely arises from the legal principle that the grant of executive power to the President is a grant of all powers necessary for the exercise of the power expressly given.[75] The scope of the presidential/executive interpretative power, however broadly it may be interpreted, has to be read together with the principle of checks and balances. In other words, the executive’s broad interpretative power does not signify that he possesses unfettered authority to exercise an independent power of legal interpretation. The scope of the President’s power of executive interpretation is at its broadest when exercised clearly within its own sphere of power and diminishes when it involves the power of the other branches of the government.[76] The degrees of presidential legal interpretation thus fluctuates from the very broad to the very narrow. To place my discussion in proper context and in simpler terms, when the President interprets a constitutional provision that grants him full discretionary authority to act on a matter, the Court generally defers to the President’s judgment on how the constitutional provision is to be interpreted and applied.[77] This is true in ordinary legal situations where a government agency in the executive, tasked to implement a particular law, is given the first opportunity to interpret and apply it even before a controversy as regards its implementation reaches the courts. In fact, the Executive branch is constantly engaged in legal interpretation in performing its multifarious duties. In instances when the executive interpretation finally reaches the judiciary, the courts may adopt a deferential attitude towards the construction placed on the statute by the executive officials charged with its execution. This reality is what we now know as the doctrine of contemporaneous construction.[78] In other words, even in the Court’s task of constitutional interpretation, it does not simply disregard the doctrine of contemporaneous construction and the executive power that it supports, since executive interpretation is a practical and inevitable premise in the execution of laws.[79] This recognition is, of course, constantly subject to the Court’s own power of judicial review to ensure that the executive’s interpretation is consistent with the letter and spirit of the law and the Constitution.[80] This understanding of the limits of executive interpretation is further qualified in a situation where the Court has already previously ruled on a particular legal issue affecting the implementation of laws. The Court’s ruling is not only binding on the lower courts under the principle of stare decisis,[81] but on the two co-equal branches of government as well,[82] in keeping with the doctrine of separation of powers.[83] Judicial review and the interpretation of our laws are powers peculiarly vested by the Constitution in the courts, which powers, the two other branches must respect.[84] Garafil misconstrued these legal parameters as well as the nature of executive interpretation when she took her positions in the present case. She should have recognized that the President’s power of executive interpretation is even expressly recognized by law. The Administrative Code provides: elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/60717 41/75