Pormento vs. Estrada
G.R. No. 191988, August 31, 2010
Facts:
Estrada was elected President of the Republic of the Philippines in the May 1998 elections. He sought the presidency again in the May 2010 elections. Pormento opposed Estrada’s candidacy and filed a petition for disqualification. COMELEC (Division) denied his petition as well as his subsequent Motion for Reconsideration (En Banc). Pormento then filed the present petition for certiorari before the Court. In the meantime, Estrada was able to participate as a candidate for President in the May 10, 2010 elections where he garnered the second highest number of votes.
Issue:
Issue:
Is Estrada disqualified to run for presidency in the May 2010 elections in view of the prohibition in the Constitution which states that: "[t]he President shall not be eligible for any reelection?
Held:
Private respondent was not elected President the second time he ran. Since the issue on the proper interpretation of the phrase any reelection will be premised on a persons second (whether immediate or not) election as President, there is no case or controversy to be resolved in this case. No live conflict of legal rights exists. There is in this case no definite, concrete, real or substantial controversy that touches on the legal relations of parties having adverse legal interests. No specific relief may conclusively be decreed upon by this Court in this case that will benefit any of the parties herein. As such, one of the essential requisites for the exercise of the power of judicial review, the existence of an actual case or controversy, is sorely lacking in this case.
As a rule, this Court may only adjudicate actual, ongoing controversies. The Court is not empowered to decide moot questions or abstract propositions, or to declare principles or rules of law which cannot affect the result as to the thing in issue in the case before it. In other words, when a case is moot, it becomes non-justiciable.
An action is considered moot when it no longer presents a justiciable controversy because the issues involved have become academic or dead or when the matter in dispute has already been resolved and hence, one is not entitled to judicial intervention unless the issue is likely to be raised again between the parties. There is nothing for the court to resolve as the determination thereof has been overtaken by subsequent events.
Assuming an actual case or controversy existed prior to the proclamation of a President who has been duly elected in the May 10, 2010 elections, the same is no longer true today. Following the results of that elections, private respondent was not elected President for the second time. Thus, any discussion of his reelection will simply be hypothetical and speculative. It will serve no useful or practical purpose.
As a rule, this Court may only adjudicate actual, ongoing controversies. The Court is not empowered to decide moot questions or abstract propositions, or to declare principles or rules of law which cannot affect the result as to the thing in issue in the case before it. In other words, when a case is moot, it becomes non-justiciable.
An action is considered moot when it no longer presents a justiciable controversy because the issues involved have become academic or dead or when the matter in dispute has already been resolved and hence, one is not entitled to judicial intervention unless the issue is likely to be raised again between the parties. There is nothing for the court to resolve as the determination thereof has been overtaken by subsequent events.
Assuming an actual case or controversy existed prior to the proclamation of a President who has been duly elected in the May 10, 2010 elections, the same is no longer true today. Following the results of that elections, private respondent was not elected President for the second time. Thus, any discussion of his reelection will simply be hypothetical and speculative. It will serve no useful or practical purpose.
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