EXECUTIVE CLEMENCIES

SECTION 19. Except in cases of impeachment, or as otherwise provided in this Constitution, the President
may grant reprieves, commutations and pardons, and remit fines and forfeitures, after conviction by final
judgment.

He shall also have the power to grant amnesty with the concurrence of a majority of all the Members of
the Congress.

EXCEPTION ART IX-C

SECTION 5. No pardon, amnesty, parole, or suspension of sentence for violation of election laws, rules,
and regulations shall be granted by the President without the favorable recommendation of the
Commission.
POWER OF AUGMENTATION
SECTION 25. (5) No law shall be passed authorizing any transfer of appropriations; however, the
President, the President of the Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Chief Justice of
the Supreme Court, and the heads of Constitutional Commissions may, by law, be authorized to augment
any item in the general appropriations law for their respective offices from savings in other items of their
respective appropriations.
JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT

Judicial power, traditional and expanded meaning

ART VIII Section 1. The judicial power shall be vested in one Supreme Court and in such lower courts as
may be established by law.
Judicial power includes the duty of the courts of justice to settle actual controversies involving rights
which are legally demandable and enforceable, and to determine whether or not there has been a grave
abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction on the part of any branch or
instrumentality of the Government.

Political Questions:
1. A political question is one the resolution of which has been vested by the Constitution exclusively in
either the people, in the exercise of their sovereign capacity, or in which full discretionary authority has
been delegated to a co-equal branch of the Government.
2. Thus, while courts can determine questions of legality with respect to governmental action, they
cannot review government policy and the wisdom thereof, for these questions have been vested by the
Constitution in the Executive and Legislative Departments.

REQUISITES FOR THE PROPER EXERCISE OF THE POWER OF JUDICIAL REVIEW

However, to prevent just about any person from seeking judicial interference in any official policy or act
with which he disagreed with, and thus hinders the activities of governmental agencies engaged in public
service, the United State Supreme Court laid down the more stringent direct injury test in Ex Parte
Levitt,[2] later reaffirmed in Tileston v. Ullman.[3] The same Court ruled that for a private individual to
invoke the judicial power to determine the validity of an executive or legislative action, he must show
that he has sustained a direct injury as a result of that action, and it is not sufficient that he has a
general interest common to all members of the public.

This Court adopted the direct injury test in our jurisdiction. In People v. Vera,[4] it held that the
person who impugns the validity of a statute must have a personal and substantial interest in the case
such that he has sustained, or will sustain direct injury as a result.
Doctrine of purposeful hesitation. [The doctrine that charges every court, including ths Sup. Court,] 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. [Drilon v. Lim, 235 SCRA 135
(1994)].

Doctrine of operative fact. [The doctrine that] nullifies the effects of an unconstitutional law by
recognizing that the existence of a statute prior to a determination of unconstitutionality is an operative
fact and may have consequences which cannot always be ignored. The past cannot always be erased by a
new judicial declaration. [It] is applicable when a declaration of unconstitutionality will impose an undue
burden on those who have relied on the invalid law. [Planters Products, Inc. v. Fertiphil Corp., GR 166006,
14 Mar. 2008]. See also Operative fact doctrine.