Pamil vs.

Watkins [367 US 488, 19 June 1961]

Facts:
Article 37 of the Declaration of Rights of the Maryland Constitution provides that "no
religious test ought ever to be required as a qualification for any office of profit or trust in this
State, other than a declaration of belief in the existence of God." Torcaso was appointed to the
office of Notary Public by the Governor of Maryland but was refused a commission to serve
because he would not declare his belief in God. He then brought the action in a Maryland Circuit
Court to compel issuance of his commission, charging that the State's requirement that he
declare this belief violated "the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the
United States." The Circuit Court rejected these federal constitutional contentions, and the
highest court of the State, the Court of Appeals, affirmed, holding that the state constitutional
provision is self-executing and requires declaration of belief in God as a qualification for office
without need for implementing legislation. Hence, the appeal.
Issue: Whether Torcaso may be denied his office unless he declares his religious beliefs.
Held: NO
When our Constitution was adopted, the desire to put the people "securely beyond the
reach" of religious test oaths brought about the inclusion in Article VI of that document of a
provision that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public
Trust under the United States." Not satisfied, however, with Article VI and other guarantees in
the original Constitution, the First Congress proposed and the States very shortly thereafter
adopted our Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment. That Amendment broke new
constitutional ground in the protection it sought to afford to freedom of religion, speech, press,
petition and assembly. With these, neither a State nor the Federal Government can
constitutionally force a person "to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion." Neither can
constitutionally pass laws or impose requirements which aid all religions as against non-
believers, and neither can aid those religions based on a belief in the existence of God as
against those religions founded on different beliefs. The fact that a person is not compelled to
hold public office cannot possibly be an excuse for barring him from office by state-imposed
criteria forbidden by the Constitution. This Maryland religious test for public office
unconstitutionally invades Torcaso's freedom of belief and religion and therefore cannot be
enforced against him.
Pamil vs. Teleron [GR L-34854, 20 November 1978] En Banc, Fernando (J): 4 concur, 4
concur in separate opinions, 3 dissent in separate opinions
Facts: Father Margarito R. Gonzaga, was, in 1971, elected to the position of municipal mayor of
Alburquerque, Bohol. Thereafter, he was duly proclaimed. A suit for quo warranto was then filed
by Fortunato R. Pamil, himself an aspirant for the office, for his disqualification based on the
Administrative Code provision, which providest that "In no case shall there be elected or
appointed to a municipal office ecclesiastics, soldiers in active service, persons receiving
salaries or compensation from provincial or national funds, or contractors for public works of the
municipality." The suit did not prosper as Judge Victorino C. Teleron, as Judge of the Court of
First Instance of Bohol (Branch III) sustained the right of Father Gonzaga to the office of
municipal mayor. He ruled that such statutory ineligibility was impliedly repealed by the Election
Code of 1971. The matter was then elevated to the Supreme Court Tribunal by Pamil.
Issue: Whether an ecclesiastic or a priest may be elected as a public official.
Held: NO
The challenged Administrative Code provision, certainly insofar as it declares ineligible
ecclesiastics to any elective or appointive office, is, on its face, inconsistent with the religious
freedom guaranteed by the Constitution. To so exclude them is to impose a religious test.
Torcaso v. Watkins, an American Supreme Court decision, has persuasive weight. What was
there involved was the validity of a provision in the Maryland Constitution prescribing that "no
religious test ought ever to be required as a disqualification for any office or profit or trust in this
State, other than a declaration of belief in the existence of God." Such a constitutional
requirement was assailed as contrary to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution
by an appointee to the office of notary public in Maryland, who was refused a commission as he
would not declare a belief in God. He failed in the Maryland Court of Appeals but prevailed in
the United States Supreme Court, which reversed the state court decision. It could not have
been otherwise. As emphatically declared by Justice Black: "this Maryland religious test for
public office unconstitutionally invades the appellant's freedom of belief and religion and
therefore cannot be enforced against him. The analogy appears to be obvious. In that case, it
was lack of belief in God that was a disqualification. Here being an ecclesiastic and therefore
professing a religious faith suffices to disqualify for a public office. There is thus an
incompatibility between the Administrative Code provision relied upon by Pamil and an express
constitutional mandate. It is not a valid argument against this conclusion to assert that under the
Philippine Autonomy Act of 1916, there was such a prohibition against a religious test, and yet
such a ban on holding a municipal position had not been nullified. It suffices to answer that no
question was raised as to its validity. Thus, the view that the Administrative Code provision is
inoperative by virtue of the mandate of the 1935 Constitution, similarly found in the present
Charter, failed to obtain the necessary eight votes needed to give it binding force. The attack on
the continuing effectivity of Section 2175 having failed, it must be given full force and
application.