May a petition for
certiorari be sustained to nullify or set aside a resolution passed by a local
legislative council merely expressing its sentiment for the expropriation of a
private property?
This was answered in the
negative in SPS. YUSAY vs. COURT OF APPEALS, G.R.No. 156684, April 6, 2011
The relevant portions of
the decision are quoted as follows:
xxx The petitioners owned a parcel of land with
an area of 1,044 square meters situated between Nueve de Febrero Street and
Fernandez Street in Barangay Mauway, Mandaluyong City. Half of their land they used as their
residence, and the rest they rented out to nine other families. Allegedly, the land was their only property
and only source of income.
On October 2, 1997, the Sangguniang Panglungsod
of Mandaluyong City adopted Resolution No. 552, Series of 1997, to authorize
then City Mayor Benjamin S. Abalos, Sr. to take the necessary legal steps for
the expropriation of the land of the petitioners for the purpose of developing
it for low cost housing for the less privileged but deserving city inhabitants.
xxx Notwithstanding that the enactment of
Resolution No. 552 was but the initial step in the City’s exercise of its power
of eminent domain granted under Section 19 of the Local Government Code
of 1991, the petitioners became alarmed, and filed a petition for certiorari and
prohibition in the RTC, praying for the annulment of Resolution No. 552 due to
its being unconstitutional, confiscatory, improper, and without force and
effect.
The City countered that Resolution No. 552 was a
mere authorization given to the City Mayor to initiate the legal steps towards
expropriation, which included making a definite offer to purchase the property
of the petitioners; hence, the suit of the petitioners was premature.xxx
For certiorari to prosper, therefore,
the petitioner must allege and establish the concurrence of the following
requisites, namely:
(a) The writ is directed against a
tribunal, board, or officer exercising judicial or quasi-judicial functions;
(b) Such tribunal, board, or officer has
acted without or in excess of jurisdiction, or with grave abuse of discretion
amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction; and
(c) There is no appeal or any plain,
speedy, and adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law.
The first requisite is that the
respondent tribunal, board, or officer must be exercising judicial or
quasi-judicial functions. Judicial function, according to Bouvier, is
the exercise of the judicial faculty or office; it also means the capacity to
act in a specific way which appertains to the judicial power, as one of the
powers of government. “The term,” Bouvier continues, “is used to describe
generally those modes of action which appertain to the judiciary as a
department of organized government, and through and by means of which it
accomplishes its purpose and exercises its peculiar powers.”
Based on the foregoing, certiorari did
not lie against the Sangguniang Panglungsod, which was not a part
of the Judiciary settling an actual controversy involving legally demandable
and enforceable rights when it adopted Resolution No. 552, but a legislative
and policy-making body declaring its sentiment or opinion.
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