04/02/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly disbanded by the President, along with the resounding declaration that "the MOA-AD will not be signed in its present form, or in any other form." The Memorandum issued by Executive Secretary Ermita to the Solicitor General is unequivocal: "No matter what the Supreme Court ultimately decides, the government will not sign the MOA." The subsequent events were sufficient to alter the course of these judicial proceedings. The President's decision not to sign the MOA-AD may even be interpreted as a rectification of flawed peace negotiations by the panel. But to this Court, it is clearly a supervening event that affects the ripeness of the case for adjudication. With an abandoned and unsigned MOA-AD and a dissolved peace Panel, any purported controversy has virtually disappeared. Judicial review cannot be exercised where the incipient actual controversy does not remain extant until the termination of the case; this Court cannot provide reliefs for controversies that are no longer there. After the mandamus aspect of the initial petitions had been satisfied, what remains are basically the petitions for certiorari and prohibition.[26] The reliefs prayed for include the declaration of nullity of the MOA-AD and the prohibition on the members of the Peace Panel from signing the MOA-AD. These reliefs are unavailing, because the peace Panel has been dissolved and, by the nature of things, rendered permanently unable to sign any agreement. On the other hand, the MOA-AD sought to be nullified does not confer any rights nor imposes any duties. It is, as of today, non-existent. In Montesclaros v. COMELEC,[27] we held that a proposed bill is not subject to judicial review, because it is not a law. A proposed bill creates no right and imposes no duty legally enforceable by the Court. A proposed bill having no legal effect violates no constitutional right or duty. The Court has no power to declare a proposed bill constitutional or unconstitutional because that would be in the nature of rendering an advisory opinion on a proposed act of Congress. This ruling finds a parallel in a proposed agreement to be entered into by the Executive Department which has been aborted, unsigned, and "will not be signed in its present form or in any other form." iii. Mootness A moot and academic case is one that ceases to present a justiciable controversy by virtue of supervening events, so that a declaration thereon would be of no practical value. Generally, courts decline jurisdiction over such case, or dismiss it on ground of mootness.[28] Thus, in Gonzales v. Narvasa,[29] where the constitutionality of the creation of the Preparatory Commission on Constitutional Reform (PCCR) was questioned, the Court dismissed the petition because by then, the PCCR had ceased to exist, having finished its work and having submitted its recommendations to then President Estrada. In Abbas v. COMELEC,[30] we refused to rule on a perceived potential conflict between provisions of the Muslim Code and those of the national law. However, it is axiomatic that courts will decide cases, otherwise moot and academic, elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/47263 195/203