Garcillano vs House of Representatives

       GR 170338, December 23, 2008

Facts:

    These are two (2) consolidated cases regarding the tapes ostensibly containing a wire tapped conversation purportedly between the President of the Philippines and a high-ranking official of the Commission on Elections (COMELEC). The tapes, notoriously referred to as the “Hello Garci” tapes, allegedly contained the President’s instructions to COMELEC Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano to manipulate in her favor results of the 2004 presidential elections. These recordings were to become the subject of heated legislative hearings conducted separately by committees of both House of Congress.

    Petitioner in GR 170338,Virgilio Garcillano, filed a petition to restrain the House Committees from using the tape recordings of the “illegally obtained” wiretap led conversations in their committee reports and for any purpose and be ordered that the said recordings be stricken off the records of the inquiry, and that respondent house committees desist from further using the recordings in any of the House proceedings.

    Petitioners in GR 179275, both retired justices in the CA, filed a petition seeking to bar the Senate from conducting its scheduled legislative inquiry, arguing that the inquiry violates RA 4200 and the Constitutional mandate regarding the publication of its rules of procedure in the conduct of inquiries in aid of legislation.

   Respondents in this particular case justified their non-observance of the constitutional mandate by arguing that the rules have never been amended since 1995 and despite that, they are published in booklet form available to anyone for free and accessible to the public at the Senate’s Internet web page.

Issue:

     Whether or not publication, in the Internet and in pamphlet form, of the Senate Rules of Procedure is deemed valid as publication mandated by the Constitution.

Held:

     Absence of any amendment to the rules cannot justify the Senate’s defiance of the clear and unambiguous language of Section 21, Article VI of the Constitution. The organic law instructs, without more, that the Senate or it’s committees may conduct inquiries in aid of legislation only in accordance with duly published rules of procedure, and does not make any distinction whether or not these rules have undergone amendments or revisions. The constitutional mandate to publish the said rules prevails over any custom, practice, or tradition followed by the Senate.

    The invocation by the respondents of the provisions of RA 8792 or the E-Commerce Act of 2000, to support their claim of valid publication through the Internet is all the more incorrect. RA 8792 considers an electronic data message or an electronic document only for evidentiary purposes. The law merely recognizes the admissibility in evidence (for being original) of electronic data messages and/or electronic documents. It does not make the Internet a medium for publishing laws, rules and regulations.

     Given this discussion, the respondent Senate Committees, therefore, could not, in violation of the Constitution, use its unpublished rules in the legislative inquiry subject of these consolidated cases. The conduct of inquiries in aid of legislation by the Senate has to be deferred until it shall have caused the publication of the rules, because it can do so only “in accordance with its duly published rules of procedure.”

      Petition in GR 170338 is dismissed and petition in GR 179275 is granted.