Amid activist killings, Carpio reminds the Bench: SC is 'ultimate guardian' of people's rights
MANILA, Philippines — The Supreme Court has power to address issues concerning the bloody Calabarzon raids where nine activists were killed in law enforcers’ service of search warrants, retired Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio said in an opinion piece on Thursday.
In a strongly worded column in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the retired justice stressed that the 1987 Constitution empowers the SC to promulgate rules in protection of the people’s rights, a provision that is not included in previous charters.
Framers of the Constitution included this provision, which cloaks the SC with both a duty and a power, “the responsibility as the ultimate guardian of the constitutional rights of the people.”
This provision ensures that the SC can address gaps or inadequacies in the law by promulgating rules to protect the peoples’ rights concurrent with the exercise of its judicial power.
“These rules cannot be repealed, altered or supplemented by Congress, making them superior to laws passed by Congress,” the former justice pointed out.
Carpio listed three instances when the SC exercised these powers: in 2007, to promulgate the Rule on the Writ of Amparo, in 2008 for the Writ of Habeas Data and in 2010 for the Writ of Kalikasan.
The Writ of Amparo is meant to address extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances, while the Writ of Habeas Data gives protection to a person’s right to control information regarding himself.
The latest of these, the Writ of Kalikasan, is a remedy for those whose rights to a balanced ecology is violated or threatened.
Carpio noted that the Writ of Kalikasan in particular protects a constitutional right not found in the Bill of Rights, but in Declaration of Principles and State Policies of the Constitution.
“Thus the duty and power of the Supreme Court to protect and enforce constitutional rights cover not only the Bill of Rights but also rights found in other provisions of the Constitution,” he said.
Bloody Calabarzon raids
Carpio is the latest notable legal luminary to push the SC, where his former colleagues sit at the Bench, to address concerns on the use of search warrants on activists and dissenters.
Progressive groups have long been calling for a probe into courts they said have become “warrant factories.” Search warrants issued by these courts were used to arrest activists on what they claim are trumped up charges. In worse cases, as with the bloody Calabarzon raids on March 7, people were killed.
The retired justice pointed out that a violation of constitutional rights of the people during the enforcement of search warrants is an utmost concern of the SC.
The Bill of Rights holds that “no person shall be deprived of life… without due process of law.” Killings are obviously a deprivation of life and may also be a violation of the right against unreasonable searches, Carpio noted.
“The fact that the search warrants were served by police and military personnel, who are under the Executive branch of government, does not excuse the Supreme Court from investigating the killings, which happened while judicial warrants were being served,” the retired justice added.
Chief Justice Diosdado Peralta has ordered the Office of the Court Administrator to look into the issuance of warrants by the Manila courts that were implemented in the Calabarzon raids where nine were killed. The OCA report found that 63 applications were filed in Manila on the same day, and 42 were granted after two days of hearings.
Court Administrator Midas Marquez, however, distanced the court’s issuance of search warrants from law enforcers’ service — but groups have said the OCA cannot just draw this line between these two acts.
Carpio, taking a leaf from the phrase referenced to his former office, continued: “In ancient Greek theater, deus ex machina described the moment when the gods would descend from a mechanical device to resolve an insoluble plot at the end of the drama. The deus ex machina in the Constitution is when the gods of Padre Faura descend from their high perch to exercise their sacred duty and power to protect and enforce the constitutional rights of the people.”
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