1/4/2021 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly controversy, warranting the Court's exercise of the power of judicial review. Indeed, whether under the traditional or the expanded setting, the power of judicial review is subject to certain limitations, one of which is that there must be an actual case or controversy calling for the exercise of judicial power.[7] In the recent case of Samahan ng mga Progresibong Kabataan (SPARK) v. Quezon City,[8] the Court expounded on this requisite, viz.: x x x [A]n actual case or controversy is one which ["]involves a conflict of legal rights, an assertion of opposite legal claims, susceptible of judicial resolution as distinguished from a hypothetical or abstract difference or dispute.["] In other words, "there must be a contrariety of legal rights that can be interpreted and enforced on the basis of existing law and jurisprudence." According to recent jurisprudence, in the Court's exercise of its expanded jurisdiction under the 1987 Constitution, this requirement is simplified "by merely requiring a prima facie showing of grave abuse of discretion in the assailed governmental act." Corollary to the requirement of an actual case or controversy is the requirement of ripeness. A question is ripe for adjudication when the act being challenged has had a direct adverse effect on the individual challenging it. For a case to be considered ripe for adjudication, it is a prerequisite that something has then been accomplished or performed by either branch before a court may come into the picture, and the petitioner must allege the existence of an immediate or threatened injury to himself as a result of the challenged action. Relatedly, in Ifurung v. Morales,[9] the Court explained that: [G]rave abuse of discretion arises when a lower court or tribunal patently violates the Constitution, the law, or existing jurisprudence. We have already ruled that petitions for certiorari and prohibition filed before the Court "are the remedies by which grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction on the part of any branch or instrumentality of the [g]overnment may be determined under the Constitution," and explained that "[w]ith respect to the Court, x x x the remedies of certiorari and prohibition are necessarily broader in scope and reach, and the writ of certiorari or prohibition may be issued to correct errors of jurisdiction committed not only by a tribunal, corporation, board or officer exercising judicial, quasi-judicial or ministerial functions, but also to set right, undo, and restrain any act of grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction by any branch or instrumentality of the [g]overnment, even if the latter does not exercise judicial, quasijudicial or ministerial functions." Thus, "[w]here an action of the legislative branch is seriously alleged to have infringed the Constitution, it becomes not only the right, but in fact the duty of the judiciary to settle the dispute. The question, thus, posed is judicial rather than political. The duty to https://elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/65669 4/60