328 Phil. 1187
DAVIDE, JR., J.:
1. There were surreptitious and unauthorized insertion and addition of provisions in the Reconciled Bill which were made without the knowledge and conformity of the Senate panel, thereby derogating the orderly procedure essential to the legislative process and vitiating legislative consent;They then prayed that after due notice and hearing, an order be issued granting a writ of preliminary injunction enjoining, restraining, restricting, and forbidding the respondents therein (herein petitioners), their agents, officers, and employees from performing or undertaking any act in implementation or enforcement of R.A. No. 8050, or any of its provisions, or its Code of Ethics, during the pendency of the case, until further orders of the court; and that after trial on the merits, judgment be rendered: (a) declaring R.A. No. 8050 and its Code of Ethics null and void due to constitutional violations and transgressions; (b) granting a writ of prohibition against all the respondents therein enjoining and restraining them from enforcing or implementing R.A. No. 8050 or its Code of Ethics in whole or in part; and (c) making permanent the writ of preliminary injunction.
2. R.A. No. 8050 derogates and violates the fundamental right of every Filipino to reasonable safeguards against deprivation of life, liberty and property without due process of law in that it authorizes optometrists to engage in acts of practice within the zone of medical practice through permitted use in certain kinds of diagnostic pharmaceutical agents thereby exposing and subjecting those who avail of the services of optometrists to definite hazards which would inflict upon them impairment of vision, resultant blindness, or possible loss of life;
3. R.A. No. 8050 derogates and violates the principle against undue delegation of legislative power when it provides for a penalty of imprisonment for a maximum of eight years and a fine not exceeding P40,000.00 upon any person found violating any rule or regulation promulgated pursuant to said law;
4. R.A. No. 8050 suppresses truthful advertising concerning optical goods and services in violation of the guaranty of freedom of speech and press; and
5. R.A. No. 8050 employs vague ambiguous terms in defining prohibitions and restrictions, hence, it falls within the ambit of void-for-vagueness doctrine which safeguards the guaranty of due process of law.
(1) No proper ground exists to warrant the issuance of a writ asAt the hearing of the application for a writ of preliminary injunction, the parties indicated their intention to present witnesses in support of their respective positions. Nevertheless, the trial court, finding such procedure "not [to be] conducive to the summary procedure appropriate to the auxiliary remedy of preliminary injunction," merely directed the parties to submit their other arguments in writing with supporting evidence, after which the application for a writ of preliminary injunction would be deemed submitted for resolution.[11] The parties complied therewith.
(a) petitioners therein do not possess the requisite right as would entitle them to the relief demanded;
(b) petitioners have unquestionably not shown their legal existence or capacity to file the case, much less their authority to file it in a representative capacity; and
(c) petitioners have misled the court into believing that an act is being done in the implementation of R.A. No. 8050 tending to make the judgment ineffectual;
(2) The implementation of R.A. No. 8050 carries no injurious effect; and
(3) Petitioners failed to overcome the presumption of constitutionality in favor of R.A. No. 8050.
PREMISES CONSIDERED, the Court grants the writ of preliminary injunction prayed for until further orders of the Court, respondents and their officials, agents and employees, are restrained, enjoined, and prohibited from undertaking in any form or manner, the enforcement or implementation of the Revised Optometry Law [R.A. 8050] or any regulation or Code of Ethics issued thereunder.We quote its ratiocinations to support the above disposition:
Let the writ issue upon filing with this Court a bond in the amount of ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND [P100,000.00] PESOS in favor of respondents, conditioned upon payment of damages sustained by respondents in case the writ is later adjudged to have been improvidently or improperly issued.
Viewing the petition as a whole, which is duly verified, particularly the constitutional infirmities alleged by the petitioners, and the supporting exhibits, the court is inclined to find prima facie, that petitioners have legal rights affected by the Revised Optometry Law, and that in its operation, said Law is likely to inflict serious and irreparable injury to such legal rights.On 1 September 1995, respondent Judge Colet issued a Writ of Preliminary Injunction,[14] the dispositive portion of which reads:
There is clear public right that laws enacted for the governance of citizens should be the product of the untrammeled will of the people’s representatives in Congress. Petitioners contend and have adduced at least sufficient evidence to support this order that, in the Revised Optometry Law, approved by the two Houses of Congress, there is a showing that at least one major paragraph imposing penalties on corporate officers, was surreptitiously "smuggled" into the measure, because the clear tenor and the content of the provision (Sec. 33) as agreed upon in the Bicameral Conference Committee, duly reflected in its Minutes (Exhs. "S" and "T") did not include such paragraph. The fraud upon the legislative process thus practiced through surreptitious and insidious tampering, manifestly contravenes and violates said public right, which violation petitioners as members of the Philippine body politic, have the status and standing to vindicate by the present petition for extraordinary legal remedies. (See the rulings in Tanada v. Tuvera, 136 SCRA 27, particularly pp. 36-37, citing Severino v. Governor-General, Phil. 366, 378).
Similarly, there is likewise a public right that the laws enacted for the public good should in truth and in fact promote the public good. Such public right would be negated and violated if, as petitioners allege, the Revised Optometry Law which is intended to provide our people with better opportunities and better facilities for better vision, institutes a practice which in its actual operation, exposes persons availing of optometric services to serious risk of impairment of vision, possible loss of sight and even possible loss of life, through administration by optometrists of DPA’s. If this be true, the law under question violates that public right, because it permits inflicting of serious injury upon our people using services of optometrists. After examining the different exhibits submitted by petitioners, in which trained experts in our government agencies themselves attest to the dire consequences that persons on whom DPA’s are used may suffer, the Court finds prima facie basis for danger of irreparable injury to public health, which the Court should forestall in the exercise of prudence by a preliminary writ of injunction, pending full inquiry and thorough determination after trial. Apart from the public rights, which petitioners are entitled to assert in this action, there are also private individual rights of petitioners which the Revised Optometry Law tends to injure, and which would be injured irreparably with the actual operation of said law.
Hardest hit in this regard are the optometrists, whose vested right to continue in the practice is virtually bludgeoned by the Revised Optometrist Law, as virtually admitted by respondents in their Opposition. On the one hand, the revised concept of the practice of optometry [Sec. 4] mandates as standard, the use of DPA’s in optometric examination. For this reason, said Law authorizes virtual suspension of the licenses of the present crop of optometrists, until after they shall have re-trained and qualified to use DPA’s [Sec. 31]. In case such optometrists insist on practicing without the mandatory training, their practice could be viewed as substandard if they would avoid use of DPA’s [Sec. 4]. Alternatively, if they use DPA’s before they are qualified through mandatory training, they could incur criminal liability [Secs. 32 and 33]. In either case, their use of DPA’s without or after qualifying training, would expose them to malpractice suits from persons who might have sustained injury through the use of DPA’s. Again, they might not have the option of refraining from the use of DPA’s, since they could face an ethics charge for substandard practice in not using DPA’s in their practice.
Finally, even petitioner Acebedo Co. would suffer injury in its operations because its activities, based on the affidavits submitted as exhibits, would surely touch the boundaries of conduct prohibited and penalized in the Revised Optometry Law. For one thing, its right to continue in employment, the optometrists working in its optical shop clinics [including affiant petitioners] might be injured through a criminal charge that such employment constitutes a prohibited indirect practice of optometry within the strictures of Section 5 in relation to Sec. 32. Or its advertising of optical goods and wares, which is its right under the general law and the Constitution, could be charged as an offense under Section 32 and subjected to penalty under Section 33. These restraints, which could seriously prejudice existing legal rights, entitle the petitioner corporation to the extraordinary remedy of declaratory relief, and to preliminary injunction pending the holding of a trial on the merits. The Court understands that petitioner could have adduced more evidence than what appears especially on the matter of the jeopardy to public health as a result of changes of optometric practice introduced by the Revised Optometry Law. But as the Court understands it, preponderance is not required for evidentiary support for the grant of preliminary injunction. As the rule stands, a "sampling" of relevant evidence is enough, so as to give the Court a justification for the issuance of the writ [See Olalio v. Hizon, 196 SCRA 665; Syndicated Media Access vs. CA, 219 SCRA 794].
Jurisprudence likewise supports the grant of preliminary writs of injunction, to maintain the status quo, in suits questioning the constitutionality of laws with demonstrable prejudice of legal rights [J.M. & Co. v. CA, 3 SCRA 696].
On the basis of the main petition, which is for declaratory relief directed at the nullification of R.A. 8050 on constitutional grounds, and for a writ of prohibition, likewise premised on the nullity of said law due to constitutional infirmities, the Court finds that the whole or part of the relief which petitioners are seeking and to which prima facie they are entitled, consists in restraining the enforcement or implementation of the law.
The Court likewise concludes, on its finding that both public rights would be prejudiced by the operation of R.A. 8050, that its enforcement pendente would inflict substantial injustice to petitioners.[13]
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED by the undersigned that, until further orders, you, the said defendants, and all your attorneys, representatives, agents, and any other person assisting you refrain from enforcing and/or implementing R.A. No. 8050 or its Code of Ethics.The petitioners then filed this special civil action for certiorari and prohibition with a prayer for a writ of preliminary injunction and/or temporary restraining order and alleged that:
As we see it, the assigned errors quoted above may be reduced to two key issues, viz.:I
RESPONDENT JUDGE GRAVELY ABUSED HIS DISCRETION AND/OR ACTED WITHOUT OR IN EXCESS OF JURISDICTION IN FINDING THAT PRIVATE RESPONDENTS HAVE LOCUS STANDI TO FILE THE PETITION A QUO.II
RESPONDENT JUDGE GRAVELY ABUSED HIS DISCRETION AND/OR ACTED IN EXCESS OF JURISDICTION IN DECREEING THAT PRIMA FACIE EVIDENCE OF UNCONSTITUTIONALITY/INVALIDITY OF R.A. 8050 EXISTS WHICH WARRANT THE ENJOINMENT OF ITS IMPLEMENTATION.III
RESPONDENT JUDGE GRAVELY ABUSED HIS DISCRETION AND/OR ACTED IN EXCESS OF JURISDICTION IN PRELIMINARILY ENJOINING R.A. 8050 ON MERE ALLEGATIONS BY PRIVATE RESPONDENTS THAT THE SAME WOULD BRING INJURIOUS EFFECTS TO THE HEALTH AND SAFETY OF THE PUBLIC.IV
RESPONDENT JUDGE GRAVELY ABUSED HIS DISCRETION AND/OR ACTED WITHOUT OR IN EXCESS OF JURISDICTION IN ISSUING THE WRIT OF PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION.
(1) The locus standi of the private respondents to question the constitutionality of R.A. No. 8050; andThe petitioners maintain that for a party to have locus standi to question the validity of a statute, he must have a personal and substantial interest in the case such that he has sustained or will sustain direct injury as a result of its enforcement.[15] In this light, the private respondents do not have the requisite personal and substantial interest to assail the constitutionality of R.A. No. 8050 for, per the certifications of the SEC, private respondents COA and ACMO are not registered associations; and two of the alleged presidents of the respondent associations are not duly registered optometrists as certified to by the PRC. Finally, the petitioners aver, the private respondents did not allege in their petition in Civil Case No. 95-74770, and in their Rejoinder to the Opposition therein, their capacity to bring suit as required by Section 4, Rule 8 of the Rules of Court.
(2) The absence of a valid cause of action for either declaratory relief or prohibition.
We stress at the outset that the lower court had jurisdiction to consider the constitutionality of Section 187, this authority being embraced in the general definition of the judicial power to determine what are the valid and binding laws by the criterion of their conformity to the fundamental law. Specifically, BP 129 vests in the regional trial courts jurisdiction over all civil cases in which the subject of the litigation is incapable of pecuniary estimation, even as the accused in a criminal action has the right to question in his defense the constitutionality of a law he is charge with violating and of the proceedings taken against him, particularly as they contravene the Bill of Rights. Moreover, Article X, Section 5(2), of the Constitution vests in the Supreme Court appellate jurisdiction over final judgments and orders of lower courts in all cases in which the constitutionality or validity of any treaty, international or executive agreement, law, presidential decree, proclamation, order, instruction, ordinance, or regulation is in question.WHEREFORE, the instant petition is GRANTED. The challenged order of 25 August 1995 of respondent Judge Angel V. Colet in Civil Case No. 95-74770 granting the application for the issuance of a writ of preliminary injunction, and the writ of preliminary injunction issued on 1 September 1995 are hereby ANNULLED and SET ASIDE.
In the exercise of this jurisdiction, lower courts are advised to act with the utmost circumspection, bearing in mind the consequences of a declaration of unconstitutionality upon the stability of laws, no less than on the doctrine of separation of powers. As the questioned act is usually the handiwork of the legislative or the executive departments, or both, it will be prudent for such courts, if only out of a becoming modesty, to defer to the higher judgment of this Court in the consideration of its validity, which is better determined after a thorough deliberation of a collegiate body and with the concurrence of the majority of those who participated in its discussion.
It is also emphasized that every court, including this Court, is charged with the duty of a purposeful hesitation before declaring a law unconstitutional, on the theory that the measure was first carefully studied by the executive and legislative departments and determined by them to be in accordance with the fundamental law before it was finally approved. To doubt is to sustain. The presumption of constitutionality can be overcome only by the clearest showing that there was indeed an infraction of the Constitution, and only when such a conclusion is reached by the required majority may the Court pronounce, in the discharge of the duty it cannot escape, that the challenged act be struck down.