Professional Documents
Culture Documents
SUPREME COURT
Manila
EN BANC
G.R. No. 83988 September 29, 1989
RICARDO C. VALMONTE AND UNION OF LAWYERS AND
ADVOCATES FOR PEOPLE'S RIGHTS (ULAP), petitioners,
vs.
GEN. RENATO DE VILLA AND NATIONAL CAPITAL REGION
DISTRICT COMMAND, respondents.
Ricardo C. Valmonte for himself and his co-petitioners.
PADILLA, J.:
This is a petition for prohibition with preliminary injunction and/or
temporary restraining order, seeking the declaration of checkpoints in
Valenzuela, Metro Manila or elsewhere, as unconstitutional and the
dismantling and banning of the same or, in the alternative, to direct
the respondents to formulate guidelines in the implementation of
checkpoints, for the protection of the people.
Petitioner Ricardo C. Valmonte sues in his capacity as citizen of the
Republic, taxpayer, member of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines
(IBP), and resident of Valenzuela, Metro Manila; while petitioner Union
of Lawyers and Advocates for People's Rights (ULAP) sues in its
capacity as an association whose members are all members of the IBP.
The factual background of the case is as follows:
On 20 January 1987, the National Capital Region District Command
(NCRDC) was activated pursuant to Letter of Instruction 02/87 of the
Philippine General Headquarters, AFP, with the mission of conducting
security operations within its area of responsibility and peripheral
areas, for the purpose of establishing an effective territorial defense,
maintaining peace and order, and providing an atmosphere conducive
to the social, economic and political development of the National
Capital Region. 1 As part of its duty to maintain peace and order, the
NCRDC installed checkpoints in various parts of Valenzuela, Metro
Manila.
Petitioners aver that, because of the installation of said checkpoints,
the residents of Valenzuela are worried of being harassed and of their
safety being placed at the arbitrary, capricious and whimsical
disposition of the military manning the checkpoints, considering that
their cars and vehicles are being subjected to regular searches and
check-ups, especially at night or at dawn, without the benefit of a
search warrant and/or court order. Their alleged fear for their safety
increased when, at dawn of 9 July 1988, Benjamin Parpon, a supply
officer of the Municipality of Valenzuela, Bulacan, was gunned down
allegedly in cold blood by the members of the NCRDC manning the
checkpoint along McArthur Highway at Malinta, Valenzuela, for ignoring
must yield to the demands of national security ignores the fact that the
Bill of Rights was intended precisely to limit the authority of the State
even if asserted on the ground of national security. What is worse is
that the searches and seizures are peremptorily pronounced to be
reasonable even without proof of probable cause and much less the
required warrant. The improbable excuse is that they are aimed at
'establishing an effective territorial defense, maintaining peace and
order, and providing an atmosphere conducive to the social, economic
and political development of the National Capital Region." For these
purposes, every individual may be stopped and searched at random
and at any time simply because he excites the suspicion, caprice,
hostility or malice of the officers manning the checkpoints, on pain of
arrest or worse, even being shot to death, if he resists.
I have no quarrel with a policeman flashing a light inside a parked
vehicle on a dark street as a routine measure of security and curiosity.
But the case at bar is different. Military officers are systematically
stationed at strategic checkpoint to actively ferret out suspected
criminals by detaining and searching any individual who in their
opinion might impair "the social, economic and political development
of the National Capital Region." It is incredible that we can sustain such
a measure. And we are not even under martial law.
Unless we are vigilant of our rights, we may find ourselves back to the
dark era of the truncheon and the barbed wire, with the Court itself a
captive of its own complaisance and sitting at the death-bed of liberty.
SARMIENTO, J., dissenting:
I join Justice Isagani Cruz in his dissent, delivered so staightforwardly
and eloquently. I am agreed that the existence alone of checkpoints
makes search done therein, unreasonable and hence, repugnant to the
Constitution.
The Charter says that the people enjoy the right of security of person,
home, and effects. (CONST., art. III, sec. 2.) It is also the bedrock the
right of the people to be left alone on which the regime of law and
constitutionalism rest. It is not, as the majority would put it, a matter of
"occasional inconveniences, discomfort and even irritation."
(Resolution, 4.) To say that it is, is so I submit to trivialize the plain
command of the Constitution.
Checkpoints, I further submit, are things of martial rule, and things of
the past. They first saw the light of day by virtue of General Order No.
66 (AUTHORIZING THE CHIEF OF CONSTABULARY TO ESTABLISH
CHECKPOINTS, UPDATE LISTS OF WANTED PERSONS AND CONDUCT
DRAGNET OPERATIONS AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES), a martial law
issuance, as amended by General Order No. 67 (AMENDING AND
AMPLIFYING PARAGRAPH 7 OF GENERAL ORDER NO. 66 DATED
SEPTEMBER 12, 1980), yet another martial law issuance. (See O.G.
4224-4226; 4226-4227 [Aug., 1983].) They are, so I strongly submit,
repressive measures, the same measures against which we had fought