04/02/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly furtive process by which the MOA-AD was designed and crafted runs contrary to and in excess of the legal authority, and amounts to a whimsical, capricious, oppressive, arbitrary and despotic exercise thereof. It illustrates a gross evasion of positive duty and a virtual refusal to perform the duty enjoined. The MOA-AD cannot be reconciled with the present Constitution and laws. Not only its specific provisions but the very concept underlying them, namely, the associative relationship envisioned between the GRP and the BJE, are unconstitutional , for the concept presupposes that the associated entity is a state and implies that the same is on its way to independence. While there is a clause in the MOA-AD stating that the provisions thereof inconsistent with the present legal framework will not be effective until that framework is amended, the same does not cure its defect. The inclusion of provisions in the MOAAD establishing an associative relationship between the BJE and the Central Government is, itself, a violation of the Memorandum of Instructions From The President dated March 1, 2001, addressed to the government peace panel. Moreover, as the clause is worded, it virtually guarantees that the necessary amendments to the Constitution and the laws will eventually be put in place. Neither the GRP Peace Panel nor the President herself is authorized to make such a guarantee. Upholding such an act would amount to authorizing a usurpation of the constituent powers vested only in Congress, a Constitutional Convention, or the people themselves through the process of initiative, for the only way that the Executive can ensure the outcome of the amendment process is through an undue influence or interference with that process. While the MOA-AD would not amount to an international agreement or unilateral declaration binding on the Philippines under international law, respondents' act of guaranteeing amendments is, by itself, already a constitutional violation that renders the MOA-AD fatally defective. WHEREFORE, respondents' motion to dismiss is DENIED. The main and intervening petitions are GIVEN DUE COURSE and hereby GRANTED. The Memorandum of Agreement on the Ancestral Domain Aspect of the GRP-MILF Tripoli Agreement on Peace of 2001 is declared contrary to law and the Constitution. SO ORDERED. Puno, C.J., Please see separate concurring opinion. Quisumbing, J., concur. Ynares-Santiago, J., see separate concurring opinion & concur with separate opinion of C.J. Puno. Carpio, J., see concurring opinion. Austria-Martinez, J., also concur were CJ's separate opinion. Corona, J., share the dissent of Mr. Justice Tinga. Azcuna, J., concur in a separate opinion. Tinga, J., dissent from the result. See separate opinion. Chico-Nazario, Velasco, Jr., Nachura, and Brion, JJ., Pls. see dissenting opinion. Reyes, J., certify that J. Reyes filed a separate opinion concurring with the majority. Leonardo-De Castro, J., concurring and Please see dissenting opinion. elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/47263 53/203