04/02/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly original jurisdiction on the United States Supreme Court to issue the writ of mandamus, was unconstitutional as the court's jurisdiction is mainly appellate. Today Marbury v. Madison is remembered for the institution of the power of judicial review, and so that there can be no doubt of this power of our Court, we in this country have enshrined its principle in Art. VIII, §1. Now, the exercise of judicial review can result either in the invalidation of an act of Congress or in upholding it. Hence, the checking and legitimating functions of judicial review so well mentioned in the decisions[7] of this Court. To decline, therefore, the exercise of jurisdiction where there is no genuine controversy is not to show timidity but respect for the judgment of a coequal department of government whose acts, unless shown to be clearly repugnant to the fundamental law, are presumed to be valid. The polestar of constitutional adjudication was set forth by Justice Laurel in the Angara case when he said that "this power of judicial review is limited to actual cases and controversies to be exercised after full opportunity of argument by the parties, and limited further to the constitutional question raised or the very lis mota, presented."[8] For the exercise of this power is legitimate only in the last resort, and as a necessity in the determination of real, earnest, and vital controversy between individuals.[9] Until, therefore, an actual case is brought to test the constitutionality of the IPRA, the presumption of constitutionality, which inheres in every statute, must be accorded to it. Justice Kapunan, on the other hand, cites the statement in Severino v. Governor General,[10] reiterated in Tanada v. Tuvera,[11] that "when the question is one of public right and the object of mandamus to procure the enforcement of a public duty, the people are regarded as the real party in interest, and the relator at whose instigation the proceedings are instituted need not show that he has any legal or special interest in the result, it being sufficient that he is a citizen and as such is interested in the execution of the laws." On the basis of this statement, he argues that petitioners have standing to bring these proceedings.[12] In Severino v. Governor General,[13] the question was whether mandamus lay to compel the Governor General to call a special election on the ground that it was his duty to do so. The ruling was that he did not have such a duty. On the other hand, although mandamus was issued in Tanada v. Tuvera, it was clear that petitioners had standing to bring the suit, because the public has a right to know and the failure of respondents to publish all decrees and other presidential issuances in the Official Gazette placed petitioners in danger of violating those decrees and issuances. But, in this case, what public right is there for petitioners to enforce when the IPRA does not apply to them except in general and in common with other citizens. For the foregoing reasons I vote to dismiss the petition in this case. [1] Lopez v. Roxas, 17 SCRA 756, 761 (1966). [2] Muskrat v. United States, 279 U.S. 346, 55 L.Ed. 246 (1911). elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/36882 132/148