Kilosbayan Vs Guingona

10/21/2020 SUPREME COURT REPORTS ANNOTATED VOLUME 232
110 SUPREME COURT REPORTS ANNOTATED

Kilosbayan, Incorporated vs. Guingona, Jr.
*
G.R. No. 113375. May 5, 1994.
KILOSBAYAN, INCORPORATED, JOVITO R. SALONGA,

CIRILO A. RIGOS, ERME CAMBA, EMILIO C. CAPULONG,
JR., JOSE T. APOLO, EPHRAIM TENDERO, FERNANDO
SANTIAGO, JOSE ABCEDE, CHRISTINE TAN, FELIPE L.
GOZON, RAFAEL G. FERNANDO, RAOUL V. VICTORINO,
JOSE CUNANAN, QUINTIN S. DOROMAL, SEN. FREDDIE
WEBB, SEN. WIGBERTO TAÑADA, and REP. JOKER P.
ARROYO, petitioners, vs. TEOFISTO GUINGONA, JR., in his
capacity as Executive Secretary, Office of the President; RENATO
CORONA, in his capacity as Assistant Executive Secretary and
Chairman of the Presidential Review Committee on the Lotto,
Office of the President; PHILIPPINE CHARITY SWEEPSTAKES
_______________
13 MB Finance Corporation v. Abesamis, G.R. No. 93875, 22 March 1991, 195

SCRA 592.
* EN BANC.
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VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 111

OFFICE; and PHILIPPINE GAMING MANAGEMENT

CORPORATION, respondents.
Remedial Law; Actions; Parties; A party’s standing before the court is

a procedural technicality which it may, in the exercise of its discretion, set
aside in view of the importance of the issues raised.—The preliminary issue
on the locus standi of the petitioners should, indeed, be resolved in their
favor. A party’s standing before this Court is a procedural technicality which
it may, in the exercise of its discretion, set aside in view of the importance
of the issues raised. In the landmark Emergency Powers Cases, this Court
brushed aside this technicality because “the transcendental importance to the
public of these cases demands that they be settled promptly and definitely,
brushing aside, if we must, technicalities of procedure.
central.com.ph/sfsreader/session/0000017549cdf6211fbc6796003600fb002c009e/t/?o=False 1/74
Same; Same; Same; Objections to taxpayers’ suits for lack of sufficient

personality standing or interest are, however, in the main procedural
matters.—“Objections to taxpayers’ suits for lack of sufficient personality
standing or interest are, however, in the main procedural matters.
Considering the importance to the public of the cases at bar, and in keeping
with the Court’s duty, under the 1987 Constitution, to determine whether or
not the other branches of government have kept themselves within the limits
of the Constitution and the laws and that they have not abused the discretion
given to them, this Court has brushed aside technicalities of procedure and
has taken cognizance of these petitions.”
Constitutional Law; Franchise; It is a settled rule that in all grants by

the government to individuals or corporations of rights, privileges and
franchises, the words are to be taken most strongly against the grantee.—
No interpretation of the said provision to relax or circumvent the prohibition
can be allowed since the privilege to hold or conduct charity sweepstakes
races, lotteries, or other similar activities is a franchise granted by the
legislature to the PCSO. It is a settled rule that “in all grants by the
government to individuals or corporations of rights, privileges and
franchises, the words are to be taken most strongly against the grantee . . . .
[o]ne who claims a franchise or privilege in derogation of the common
rights of the public must prove his title thereto by a grant which is clearly
and definitely expressed, and he cannot enlarge it by equivocal or doubtful
provisions or by probable inferences. Whatever is not unequivocally granted
is withheld. Nothing passes by mere implication.”
112
Same; Same; Same; The PCSO cannot share its franchise with another
by way of collaboration, association or joint venture.—In short then, by the
exception explicitly made in paragraph B, Section 1 of its charter, the PCSO
cannot share its franchise with another by way of collaboration, association
or joint venture. Neither can it assign, transfer, or lease such franchise. It has
been said that “the rights and privileges conferred under a franchise may,
without doubt, be assigned or transferred when the grant is to the grantee
and assigns, or is authorized by statute. On the other hand, the right of
transfer or assignment may be restricted by statute or the constitution, or be
made subject to the approval of the grantor or a governmental agency, such
as a public utilities commission, except that an existing right of assignment
cannot be impaired by subsequent legislation.”
Same; Same; Same; The challenged Contract of Lease violates or

contravenes the exception in Section 1 of R.A. No. 1169, as amended by B.P.
Blg. 42.—We agree with the petitioners that it does, notwithstanding its
denomination or designation as a Contract of Lease. We are neither
convinced nor moved or fazed by the insistence and forceful arguments of
the PGMC that it does not because in reality it is only an independent

contractor for a piece of work, i.e., the building and maintenance of a lottery
system to be used by the PCSO in the operation of its lottery franchise.
Whether the contract in question is one of lease or whether the PGMC is
merely an independent contractor should not be decided on the basis of the
title or designation of the contract but by the intent of the parties, which may
be gathered from the provisions of the contract itself. Animus hominis est
anima scripti. The intention of the party is the soul of the instrument. In
order to give life or effect to an instrument, it is essential to look to the
intention of the individual who executed it. And, pursuant to Article 1371 of
the Civil Code, “to determine the intention of the contracting parties, their
contemporaneous and subsequent acts shall be principally considered.” To
put it more bluntly, no one should be deceived by the title or designation of
a contract.
Same; Same; Same; Same; The contract is not in reality a contract of

lease but one where the statutorily proscribed collaboration or association
or joint venture exists between the contracting parties.—A careful analysis
and evaluation of the provisions of the contract and a consideration of the
contemporaneous acts of the PCSO and PGMC indubitably disclose that the
contract is not in reality a contract of lease under which the PGMC is
merely an independent contractor for a piece of work, but one where the
statutorily proscribed collaboration or association, in the least, or joint
venture, at the most, exists between the
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VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 113
contracting parties. Collaboration is defined as the acts of working together

in a joint project. Association means the act of a number of persons in
uniting together for some special purpose or business. Joint venture is
defined as an association of persons or companies jointly undertaking some
commercial enterprise; generally all contribute assets and share risks. It
requires a community of interest in the performance of the subject matter, a
right to direct and govern the policy in connection therewith, and duty,
which may be altered by agreement to share both in profit and losses.
Same; Same; Same; Same; Court declares the contract of lease invalid
for being contrary to law.—We thus declare that the challenged Contract of
Lease violates the exception provided for in paragraph B, Section 1 of R.A.
No. 1169, as amended by B.P. Blg. 42, and is, therefore, invalid for being
contrary to law. This conclusion renders unnecessary further discussion on
the other issues raised by the petitioners.
CRUZ, J., Concurring Opinion:
Constitutional Law; Franchise; PGMC is plainly a partner of PCSO in

violation of law no matter how PGMC’s assistance is called or the contract
is denominated.—And when PCSO does avail itself of such assistance, how
will it be operating the lottery? Undoubtedly, it will be doing so “in
collaboration, association or joint venture” with PGMC, which, let it be
added, will not be serving as a mere “hired help” of PCSO subject to its
control. PGMC will be functioning independently in the discharge of its
own assigned role as stipulated in detail under the contract. PGMC is plainly
a partner of PCSO in violation of law, no matter how PGMC’s assistance is
called or the contract is denominated.
PADILLA, J., Separate Concurring Opinion:
Constitutional Law; Franchise; The contract of lease is a joint venture

between PCSO and PGMC.—On a slightly different plane and, perhaps
simplified, I consider the agreement or arrangement between the PCSO and
PGMC a joint venture because each party to the contract contributes its
share in the enterprise or project. PGMC contributes its facilities, equipment
and know-how (expertise). PCSO contributes (aside from its charter) the
market, directly or through dealers—and this to me is most important—in
the totality or mass of the Filipino gambling elements who will invest in
lotto tickets. PGMC will get its 4.9% of gross receipts (with assumption of
certain risks in the course of
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lotto operations); the residue of the whole exercise will go to PCSO. To any
person with a minimum of business know-how, this is a joint venture
between PCSO and PGMC, plain and simple.
MELO, J., Dissenting Opinion:
Constitutional Law; Franchise; The contract of lease does not involve

the disbursement of public funds but of strictly corporate money.—The case
before us is not a challenge to the validity of a statute or an attempt to
restrain expenditure of public funds pursuant to an alleged invalid
congressional enactment. What petitioners ask us to do is to nullify a simple
contract of lease entered into by a government-owned corporation with a
private entity. That contract, as earlier pointed out, does not involve the
disbursement of public funds but of strictly corporate money. If every
taxpayer, claiming to have interest in the contract, no matter how remote,
could come to this Court and seek nullification of said contract, the day may
come when the activities of government corporate entities will ground to a
standstill on account of nuisance suits filed against them by persons whose
supposed interest in the contract is as remote and as obscure as the interest
of any man in the street. The dangers attendant thereto are not hard to
discern and this Court must not allow them to come to pass.
Same; Same; By considering the present case as a taxpayer’s suit could

not cure the lack of locus standi on the part of petitioners.—Any effort to
infuse personality on petitioners by considering the present case as a
“taxpayer’s suit” could not cure the lack of locus standi on the part of
petitioners. As understood in this jurisdiction, a “taxpayer’s suit” refers to a
case where the act complained of directly involves the illegal disbursement
of public funds derived from taxation (Pascual vs. Secretary of Public
Works, 110 Phil. [1960] 331; Maceda vs. Macaraig, 197 SCRA [1991];
Lozada vs. COMELEC, 120 SCRA [1983] 337; Dumlao vs. COMELEC, 95
SCRA [1980] 392; Gonzales vs. Marcos, 65 SCRA [1975] 624). It cannot
be overstressed that no public fund raised by taxation is involved in this
case. In fact, it is even doubtful if the rentals which the PCSO will pay to
the lessor for its operation of the lottery system may be regarded as “public
fund”.
PUNO, J., Dissenting Opinion:
Constitutional Law; Franchise; Courts are neither free to decide all

kinds of cases dumped into their laps nor are they free to open their doors to
all parties or entities claiming a grievance.—As we held thru the ground
breaking ponencia of Mr. Justice Cruz in Daza v. Singson,
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VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 115
this provision no longer precludes the Court from resolving political

questions in proper cases. But even perusing this provision as a
constitutional warrant for the court to enter the once forbidden political
thicket, it is clear that the requirement of locus standi has not been
jettisoned by the Constitution for it still commands courts in no uncertain
terms to settle only “actual controversies involving rights which are legally
demandable and enforceable.” Stated otherwise, courts are neither free to
decide all kinds of cases dumped into their laps nor are they free to open
their doors to all parties or entities claiming a grievance. The rationale for
this constitutional requirement of locus standi is by no means trifle. It is
intended “to assure a vigorous adversary presentation of the case, and,
perhaps more importantly to warrant the judiciary’s overruling the
determination of a coordinate, democratically elected organ of government.”
SPECIAL CIVIL ACTION for prohibition and injunction.
The facts are stated in the opinion of the Court.

Jovito R. Salonga, Fernando Santiago, Emilio C. Capulong,
Jr. and Felipe L. Gozon for petitioners.
Renato L. Cayetano and Eleazar B. Reyes for PGMC.
Gamaliel G. Bongco, Oscar Karaan and Jedideoh Sincero for

intervenors.
DAVIDE, JR., J.:
This is a special civil action for prohibition and injunction, with a

prayer for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction,
which seeks to prohibit and restrain the implementation of the
“Contract of Lease” executed by the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes
Office (PCSO) and the Philippine Gaming Management Corporation
(PGMC) in connection with the on-line lottery system, also known
as “lotto.”
Petitioner Kilosbayan, Incorporated (KILOSBAYAN) avers that
it is a non-stock domestic corporation composed of civicspirited
citizens, pastors, priests, nuns, and lay leaders who are committed to
the cause of truth, justice, and national renewal. The rest of the
petitioners, except Senators Freddie Webb and Wigberto Tañada and
Representative Joker P. Arroyo, are suing in their capacities as
members of the Board of Trustees of KILOSBAYAN and as
taxpayers and concerned citizens. Sena-
116

tors Webb and Tañada and Representative Arroyo are suing in their
capacities as members of Congress and as taxpayers and concerned
citizens of the Philippines.
The pleadings of the parties disclose the factual antecedents
which triggered off the filing of this petition.
Pursuant to Section 1 of the charter of the PCSO (RA. No. 1169,
as amended by B.P. Blg. 42) which grants it the authority to hold and
conduct “charity sweepstakes races, lotteries and other similar
activities,” the PCSO decided to establish an on-line lottery system
for the purpose of increasing its revenue base and diversifying its
sources of funds. Sometime before March 1993, after learning that
the PCSO was interested in operating an online lottery system, the
Berjaya Group Berhad, “a multinational company and one of the ten
largest public companies in Malaysia,” long “engaged in, among
others, successful lottery operations in Asia, running both Lotto and
Digit games, thru its subsidiary, Sports Toto Malaysia,” with its
“affiliate, the International Totalizator Systems, Inc., an American
public company engaged in the international sale or provision of
computer systems, softwares, terminals, training and other technical
services to the gaming industry,” “became interested to offer its
services and resources to PCSO.” As an initial step, Berjaya Group
Berhad (through its individual nominees) organized with some
Filipino investors in March 1993 a Philippine corporation known as
the Philippine Gaming Management Corporation (PGMC), which
“was intended to be the medium through which the technical and
management services1 required for the project would be offered and

delivered to PCSO.”
Before August 1993, the PCSO formally issued a Request for
Proposal (RFP)2
for the Lease Contract of an on-line lottery system
for the PCSO. Relevant provisions of the RFP are the following:
“1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

xxx
1.2. PCSO is seeking a suitable contractor which shall build, at

its own expense, all the facilities (‘Facilities’) needed to
_______________
1 PGMC’s Comment, 3-4; Rollo, 181-182.

2 Annex “A,” Id.; Id., 207-220.
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VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 117

operate and maintain a nationwide on-line lottery system.

PCSO shall lease the Facilities for a fixed percentage of
quarterly gross receipts. All receipts from ticket sales shall
be turned over directly to PCSO. All capital, operating
expenses and expansion expenses and risks shall be for the
exclusive account of the Lessor.
xxx
1.4. The lease shall be for a period not exceeding fifteen (15)
years.
1.5. The Lessor is expected to submit a comprehensive
nationwide lottery development plan (‘Development Plan’)
which will include the game, the marketing of the games,
and the logistics to introduce the games to all the cities and
municipalities of the country within five (5) years.
xxx
1.7. The lessor shall be selected based on its technical expertise,
hardware and software capability, maintenance support, and
financial resources. The Development Plan shall have a
substantial bearing on the choice of the Lessor. The Lessor
shall be a domestic corporation, with at least sixty percent
(60%) of its shares owned by Filipino shareholders.
xxx
The Office of the President, the National Disaster Control
Coordinating Council, the Philippine National Police, and
the National Bureau of Investigation shall be authorized to
use the nationwide telecommunications system of the
Facilities Free of Charge.
1.8. Upon expiration of the lease, the Facilities shall

3
be owned
by PCSO without any additional consideration.
xxx
2.2. OBJECTIVES
The objectives of PCSO in leasing the Facilities from a
private entity are as follows:
xxx
2.2.2. Enable PCSO to operate a nationwide on-line Lottery

system at no expense or risk to the government. x x x
2.4. DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE LESSOR

xxx
________________
3 Rollo, 210-211.
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2.4.2. THE LESSOR

The Proponent is expected to furnish and maintain the
Facilities, including the personnel needed to operate the
computers, the communications network and sales offices
under a build-Lease basis. The printing of tickets shall be
undertaken under the supervision and control of PCSO. The
Facilities shall enable PCSO to computerize the entire
gaming system.
The Proponent is expected to formulate and design
consumer-oriented Master Games Plan suited to the
marketplace, especially geared to Filipino gaming habits
and preferences. In addition, the Master Games Plan is
expected to include a Product Plan for each game and
explain how each will be introduced into the market. This
will be an integral part of the Development Plan which
PCSO will require from the Proponent.
xxx
The Proponent is expected to provide upgrades to
modernize the entire gaming system over the life of the
lease contract
The Proponent is expected 4to provide technology transfer to
PCSO technical personnel.
xxx
7. GENERAL GUIDELINES FOR PROPONENTS

xxx
Finally, the Proponent must be able to stand the acid test of
proving that it is an entity able to take on the role of
responsible maintainer of the on-line lottery system, and

able to achieve PCSO’s goal of formalizing 5 an on-line
lottery system to achieve its mandated objective.
xxx
16. DEFINITION OF TERMS
Facilities: All capital equipment, computers, terminals,
software, nationwide telecommunication network, ticket
_______________
4 Rollo, 213.
5 Id., 215.
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VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 119

sales offices, furnishings, and fixtures; printing costs; cost

of salaries and wages; advertising and promotion expenses;
maintenance costs; expansion and replacement costs;
security and insurance, and all other related expenses 6
needed to operate nationwide on-line lottery system.”
Considering the above citizenship requirement, the PGMC claims

that the Berjaya Group “undertook to reduce its equity stakes in
PGMC to 40%,” by selling 35% out of the original 75% foreign
stockholdings to local investors. 7
On 15 August 1993, PGMC submitted its bid to the PCSO.
The bids were evaluated by the Special Pre-Qualification Bids
and Awards Committee (SPBAC) for the on-line lottery and its8 Bid
Report was thereafter submitted to the Office of the President. The
submission was preceded by complaints 9
by the Committee’s
Chairperson, Dr. Mita Pardo de Tavera.
On 21 October 1993, the Office of the President announced that
it had given the respondent PGMC the go-signal to operate the
country’s on-line lottery system and that the corresponding
implementing contract would be submitted not later than 8
November 101993 “for final clearance and approval by the Chief
Executive.” This announcement was published in the Manila
Standard, Philippine
11
Daily Inquirer, and the Manila Times on 29
October 1993.
On 4 November 1993, KILOSBAYAN sent an open letter to
President Fidel V. Ramos strongly opposing the setting up of the on-
line lottery system
12
on the basis of serious moral and ethical
considerations.
At the meeting of the Committee on Games and Amusements of
the Senate on 12 November 1993, KILOSBAYAN reiterated its
________________
6 Id., 220.
7 PGMC’s Comment, 7; Rollo, 184.
8 Annex “P” of Petition.
9 Annexes “L” and “N” of Petition.
10 Petition, 9; Rollo, 10. The announcement also stated that GTech Philippines,
Inc. and the Tanjong Public Limited Company had likewise been authorized to
operate separate lotto systems.
11 Id.;Id.
12 Annex “C” of Petition.
120

vigorous opposition to 13 the on-line lottery on account of its

immorality and illegality.
On 19 November 1993, the media reported that despite the
opposition, “Malacañang will push through with the operation of an
on-line lottery system nationwide” and that it is actually the
respondent PCSO which will operate 14the lottery while the winning
corporate bidders are merely “lessors.”
On 1 December 1993, KILOSBAYAN requested copies of all
documents pertaining to the lottery award from Executive Secretary
Teofisto Guingona, Jr. In his answer of 17 December 1993, the
Executive Secretary informed KILOSBAYAN that the requested15
documents would be duly transmitted before the end of the month.
However, on that same date, an agreement denominated as “Contract
of Lease”16
was finally executed by respondent PCSO and respondent
PGMC. The President, per the press statement issued 17
by the Office
of the President, approved it on 20 December 1993.
In view of their materiality and relevance, we quote the following
salient provisions of the Contract of Lease:
“1. DEFINITIONS
The following words and terms shall have the following
respective meanings:
1.1 Rental Fee—Amount to be paid by PCSO to the LESSOR

as compensation for the fulfillment of the obligations of the
LESSOR under this Contract, including, but not limited to
the lease of the Facilities.
xxx
1.3 Facilities—All capital equipment, computers, terminals,
software (including source codes for the On-line Lottery
application software for the terminals, telecommunications
and central systems), technology, intellectual property
rights, telecommunications net-
_______________
13 Petition, 10; Rollo, 11. The meeting was called to deliberate on the proposed
nationwide on-line lottery program.
14 Id.; Id.
15 Id.; Id.
16 Annex “J” of Petition.
17 Annex “H” of Petition.
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VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 121

work, and furnishings and fixtures.

1.4 Maintenance and Other Costs—All costs and expenses
relating to printing, manpower, salaries and wages,
advertising and promotion, maintenance, expansion and
replacement, security and insurance, and all other related
expenses needed to operate an On-Line Lottery System,
which shall be for the account of the LESSOR. All
expenses relating to the setting-up, operation and
maintenance of ticket sales offices of dealers and retailers
shall be borne by PCSO’s dealers and retailers.
1.5 Development Plan—The detailed plan of all games, the
marketing thereof, number of players, value of winnings
and the logistics required to introduce the games, including
the Master Games Plan as approved by PCSO, attached
hereto as Annex “A”, modified as necessary by the
provisions of this Contract.
xxx
1.8 Escrow Deposit—The proposal deposit in the sum of Three
Hundred Million Pesos (P300,000,000.00) submitted by the
LESSOR to PCSO pursuant to the requirements of the
Request for Proposals.
2. SUBJECT MATTER OF THE LEASE The LESSOR shall

build, furnish and maintain at its own expense and risk the
Facilities for the On-Line Lottery System of PCSO in the
Territory on an exclusive basis. The LESSOR shall bear all
Maintenance and Other Costs as defined herein.
xxx
3. RENTAL FEEFor and in consideration of the performance
by the LESSOR of its obligations herein, PCSO shall pay
LESSOR a fixed Rental Fee equal to four point nine percent
(4.9%) of gross receipts from ticket sales, payable net of
taxes required by law to be withheld, on a semi-monthly
basis. Goodwill, franchise and similar fees shall belong to
PCSO.
4. LEASE PERIOD
The period of the lease shall commence ninety (90) days
from the date of effectivity of this Contract and shall run for
a period of eight (8) years thereafter, unless sooner termi-
122

nated in accordance with this Contract.

5. RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS OF PCSO AS OPERATOR
OF THE ON-LINE LOTTERY SYSTEM
PCSO shall be the sole and individual operator of the OnLine Lottery
System. Consequently:
5.1 PCSO shall have sole responsibility to decide whether to

implement, fully or partially, the Master Games Plan of the
LESSOR. PCSO shall have the sole responsibility to
determine the time for introducing new games to the
market. The Master Games Plan included in Annex “A”
hereof is hereby approved by PCSO.
5.2 PCSO shall have control over revenues and receipts of
whatever nature from the On-Line Lottery System. After
paying the Rental Fee to the LESSOR, PCSO shall have
exclusive responsibility to determine the Revenue
Allocation Plan; Provided, that the same shall be consistent
with the requirement of R.A. No. 1169, as amended, which
fixes a prize fund of fifty five percent (55%) on the average.
5.3 PCSO shall have exclusive control over the printing of
tickets, including but not limited to the design, text, and
contents thereof.
5.4 PCSO shall have sole responsibility over the appointment
of dealers or retailers throughout the country. PCSO shall
appoint the dealers and retailers in a timely manner with
due regard to the implementation timetable of the On-Line
Lottery System. Nothing herein shall preclude the LESSOR
from recommending dealers or retailers for appointment by
PCSO, which shall act on said recommendation within
forty-eight (48) hours.
5.5 PCSO shall designate the necessary personnel to monitor
and audit the daily performance of the OnLine Lottery
System. For this purpose, PCSO designees shall be given,
free of charge, suitable and adequate space, furniture and
fixtures, in all offices of the LESSOR, including but not
limited to its headquarters, alternate site, regional and area
offices.
5.6 PCSO shall have the responsibility to resolve, and exclusive
jurisdiction over, all matters involving the operation of the
On-Line Lottery System not other-
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VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 123

wise provided in this Contract.

5.7 PCSO shall promulgate procedural and coordinating rules
governing all activities relating to the On-Line Lottery
System.
5.8 PCSO will be responsible for the payment of prize monies,
commissions to agents and dealers, and taxes and levies (if
any) chargeable to the operator of the On-line Lottery
System. The LESSOR will bear all other Maintenance and
Other Costs, except as provided in Section 1.4.
5.9 PCSO shall assist the LESSOR in the following:
5.9.1 Work permits for the LESSOR’S staff;

5.9.2 Approvals for importation of the Facilities;
5.9.3 Approvals and consents for the On-Line Lottery System;
and
5.9.4 Business and premises licenses for all offices of the
LESSOR and licenses for the telecommunications network.
5.10 In the event that PCSO shall pre-terminate this Contract or

suspend the operation of the On-Line Lottery System, in
breach of this Contract and through no fault of the
LESSOR, PCSO shall promptly, and in any event not later
than sixty (60) days, reimburse the LESSOR the amount of
its total investment cost associated with the OnLine Lottery
System, including but not limited to the cost of the
Facilities, and further compensate the LESSOR for loss of
expected net profit after tax, computed over the unexpired
term of the lease.
6. DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE LESSOR

The LESSOR is one of not more than three (3) lessors of
similar facilities for the nationwide On-Line Lottery System
of PCSO. It is understood that the rights of the LESSOR are
primarily those of a lessor of the Facilities, and
consequently, all rights involving the business aspects of the
use of the Facilities are within the jurisdiction of PCSO.
During the term of the lease, the LESSOR shall:
6.1 Maintain and preserve its corporate existence, rights and

privileges, and conduct its business in an orderly, efficient,
and customary manner.
124

6.2 Maintain insurance coverage with insurers acceptable to

PCSO on all Facilities.
6.3 Comply with all laws, statutes, rules and regulations, orders
and directives, obligations and duties by which it is legally
bound.
6.4 Duly pay and discharge all taxes, assessments and
government charges now and hereafter imposed of
whatever nature that may be legally levied upon it.
6.5 Keep all the Facilities in fail safe condition and, if
necessary, upgrade, replace and improve the Facilities from
time to time as new technology develops, in order to make
the On-Line Lottery System more costeffective and/or
competitive, and as may be required by PCSO. PCSO shall
not impose such requirements unreasonably nor arbitrarily.
6.6 Provide PCSO with management terminals which will
allow real-time monitoring of the On-Line Lottery System.
6.7 Upon effectivity of this Contract, commence the training of
PCSO and other local personnel and the transfer of
technology and expertise, such that at the end of the term of
this Contract, PCSO will be able to effectively take-over the
Facilities and efficiently operate the On-Line Lottery
System.
6.8 Undertake a positive advertising and promotions campaign
for both institutional and product lines without engaging in
negative advertising against other lessors.
6.9 Bear all expenses and risks relating to the Facilities
including, but not limited to, Maintenance and Other Costs
and;
xxx
6.10 Bear all risks if the revenues from ticket sales, on an
annualized basis, are insufficient to pay the entire prize
money.
6.11 Be, and is hereby, authorized to collect and retain for its
own account, a security deposit from dealers and retailers,
in an amount determined with the approval of PCSO, in
respect of equipment supplied by the LESSOR. PCSO’s
approval shall not be unreasonably withheld. x x x
6.12 Comply with procedural and coordinating rules issued by
PCSO.
125
VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 125

7. REPRESENTATIONS AND WARRANTIES
The LESSOR represents and warrants that:
7.1 The LESSOR is a corporation duly organized and existing under

the laws of the Republic of the Philippines, at least sixty percent
(60%) of the outstanding capital stock of which is owned by
Filipino shareholders. The minimum required Filipino equity
participation shall not be impaired through voluntary or involuntary
transfer, disposition, or sale of shares of stock by the present
stockholders.
7.2 The LESSOR and its Affiliates have the full corporate and legal
power and authority to own and operate their properties and to
carry on their business in the place where such properties are now
or may be conducted. x x x
7.3 The LESSOR has or has access to all the financing and funding
requirements to promptly and effectively carry out the terms of this
Contract. x x x
7.4 The LESSOR has or has access to all the managerial and technical
expertise to promptly and effectively carry out the terms of this
Contract. x x x x x x
10. TELECOMMUNICATIONS NETWORK

The LESSOR shall establish a telecommunications network that
will connect all municipalities and cities in the Territory in
accordance with, at the LESSOR’S option, either of the LESSOR’S
proposals (or a combinations of both such proposals) attached
hereto as Annex “B,” and under the following PCSO schedule:
xxx
PCSO may, at its option, require the LESSOR to establish the
telecommunications network in accordance with the above
Timetable in provinces where the LESSOR has not yet installed
terminals. Provided, that such provinces have existing nodes. Once
a municipality or city is serviced by land lines of a licensed public
telephone company, and such lines are connected to Metro Manila,
then the obligation of the LESSOR to connect such municipality or
city through a telecommunications network shall cease with respect
to such municipality or city.
126

The voice facility will cover the four offices of the Office of
the President, National Disaster Control Coordinating
Council, Philippine National Police and the National
Bureau of Investigation, and each city and municipality in
the Territory except Metro Manila, and those cities and
municipalities which have easy telephone access from these
four offices. Voice calls from the four offices shall be
transmitted via radio or VSAT to the remote municipalities

which will be connected to this voice facility through wired
network or by radio. The facility shall be designed to
handle four private conversations at any one time.
xxx
13. STOCK DISPERSAL PLAN Within two (2) years from the
effectivity of this Contract, the LESSOR shall cause itself
to be listed in the local stock exchange and offer at least
twenty five percent (25%) of its equity to the public.
14. NON-COMPETITION
The LESSOR shall not, directly or indirectly, undertake any
activity or business in competition with or adverse to the
On-line Lottery System of PCSO unless it obtains the
latter’s prior written consent thereto.
15. HOLD HARMLESS CLAUSE
15.1 The LESSOR shall at all times protect and defend, at its
cost and expense, PCSO from and against any and all
liabilities and claims for damages and/or suits for or by
reason of any deaths of, or any injury or injuries to any
person or persons, or damages to property of any kind
whatsoever, caused by the LESSOR, its subcontractors, its
authorized agents or employees, from any cause or causes
whatsoever.
15.2 The LESSOR hereby covenants and agrees to indemnify
and hold PCSO harmless from all liabilities, charges,
expenses (including reasonable counsel fees) and costs on
account of or by reason of any such death or deaths, injury
or injuries, liabilities, claims, suits or losses caused by the
LESSOR’S fault or negligence.
15.3 The LESSOR shall at all times protect and defend, at its
own cost and expense, its title to the facilities and PCSO’s
interest therein from and against any
127
VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 127

and all claims for the duration of the Contract until transfer
to PCSO of ownership of the serviceable Facilities.
16. SECURITY
16.1 To ensure faithful compliance by the LESSOR with the

terms of the Contract, the LESSOR shall secure a
Performance Bond from a reputable insurance company or
companies acceptable to PCSO.
16.2 The Performance Bond shall be in the initial amount of
Three Hundred Million Pesos (P300,000.000.0). to its U.S.
dollar equivalent, and shall be renewed to cover the

duration of the Contract. However, the Performance Bond
shall be reduced proportionately to the percentage of
unencumbered terminals installed; Provided, that the
Performance Bond shall in no case be less than One
Hundred Fifty Million Pesos (P150,000,000.00).
16.3 The LESSOR may at its option maintain its Escrow Deposit
as the Performance Bond. x x x
17. PENALTIES
17.1 Except as may be provided in Section 17.2, should the

LESSOR fail to take remedial measures within seven (7)
days, and rectify the breach within thirty (30) days, from
written notice by PCSO of any wilfull or grossly negligent
violation of the material terms and conditions of this
Contract, all unencumbered Facilities shall automatically
become the property of PCSO without consideration and
without need for further notice or demand by PCSO. The
Performance Bond shall likewise be forfeited in favor of
PCSO.
17.2 Should the LESSOR fail to comply with the terms of the
Timetables provided in Section 9 and 10, it shall be subject
to an initial Penalty of Twenty Thousand Pesos
(P20,000.00), per city or municipality per every month of
delay; Provided, that the Penalty shall increase, every
ninety (90) days, by the amount of Twenty Thousand Pesos
(P20,000.00) per city or municipality per month, whilst
shall failure to comply persists. The penalty shall be
deducted by PCSO from the rental fee.
128

xxx
20. OWNERSHIP OF THE FACILITIES After expiration of the term
of the lease as provided in Section 4, the Facilities directly required
for the On-Line Lottery System mentioned in Section 1.3 shall
automatically belong in full ownership to PCSO without any
further consideration other than the Rental Fees already paid during
the effectivity of the lease.
21. TERMINATION OF THE LEASE PCSO may terminate this
Contract for any breach of the material provisions of this Contract,
including the following:
21.1 The LESSOR is insolvent or bankrupt or unable to pay its debts,

stops or suspends or threatens to stop or suspend payment of all or
a material part of its debts, or proposes or makes a general
assignment or an arrangement or compositions with or for the

benefit of its creditors; or
21.2 An order is made or an effective resolution passed for the winding
up or dissolution of the LESSOR or when it ceases or threatens to
cease to carry on all or a material part of its operations or business;
or
21.3 Any material statement, representation or warranty made or
furnished by the LESSOR proved to be materially false or
misleading;
said termination to take effect upon receipt of written notice of termination

by the LESSOR and failure to take remedial action within seven (7) days
and cure or remedy the same within thirty (30) days from notice.
Any suspension, cancellation or termination of this Contract shall not
relieve the LESSOR of any liability that may have already accrued
hereunder.”
xxx
Considering the denial by the Office of the President of its protest

and the statement of Assistant Executive Secretary Renato Corona
that “only a court injunction can stop Malacañang,” and the
imminent implementation of the Contract of Lease in February
1994, KILOSBAYAN, with its co-petitioners, filed on 28
129
VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 129

January 1994 this petition.

In support of the petition, the petitioners claim that:
“X X X THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT, ACTING THROUGH

RESPONDENTS EXECUTIVE SECRETARY AND/OR ASSISTANT
EXECUTIVE SECRETARY FOR LEGAL AFFAIRS, AND THE PCSO
GRAVELY ABUSE[D] THEIR DISCRETION AND/OR FUNCTIONS
TANTAMOUNT TO LACK OF JURISDICTION AND/OR AUTHORITY
IN RESPECTIVELY: (A) APPROVING THE AWARD OF THE
CONTRACT TO, AND (B) ENTERING INTO THE SO-CALLED
‘CONTRACT OF LEASE’ WITH, RESPONDENT PGMC FOR THE
INSTALLATION, ESTABLISHMENT AND OPERATION OF THE ON-
LINE LOTTERY AND TELECOMMUNICATION SYSTEMS
REQUIRED AND/OR AUTHORIZED UNDER THE SAID CONTRACT,
CONSIDERING THAT:
a) Under Section 1 of the Charter of the PCSO, the PCSO is

prohibited from holding and conducting lotteries ‘in collaboration,
association or joint venture with any person, association, company
or entity’;
b) Under Act No. 3846 and established jurisprudence, a Congressional
franchise is required before any person may be allowed to establish
and operate said telecommunications system;

c) Under Section 11, Article XII of the Constitution, a less than 60%
Filipino-owned and/or controlled corporation, like the PGMC, is
disqualified from operating a public service, like the said
telecommunications system; and
d) Respondent PGMC is not authorized by its charter and under the
Foreign Investments Act (R.A. No. 7042) to install, establish
18
and
operate the on-line lotto and telecommunications system.”
Petitioners submit that the PCSO cannot validly enter into the
assailed Contract of Lease with the PGMC because it is an
arrangement wherein the PCSO would hold and conduct the online
lottery system in “collaboration” or “association” with the PGMC, in
violation of Section 1(B) of R.A. No. 1169, as amended by B.P. Blg.
42, which prohibits the PCSO from holding and conducting charity
sweepstakes races, lotteries, and other similar activities “in
collaboration, association or joint venture with
________________
18 Rollo, 13-14.
130

any person, association, company or entity, foreign or domestic.”

Even granting arguendo that a lease of facilities is not within the
contemplation of “collaboration” or “association,” an analysis,
however, of the Contract of Lease clearly shows that there is a
“collaboration, association, or joint venture between respondents
PCSO and PGMC in the holding of the On-Line Lottery System,”
and that there are terms and conditions of the Contract “showing that
respondent
19
PGMC is the actual lotto operator and not respondent
PCSO.”
The petitioners also point out that paragraph 10 of the Contract of
Lease requires or authorizes PGMC to establish a
telecommunications network that will connect all the municipalities
and cities in the territory. However, PGMC cannot do that because it
has no franchise from Congress to construct, install, establish, or
operate the network pursuant to Section 1 of Act No. 3846, as
amended. Moreover, PGMC is a 75% foreign-owned or controlled
corporation and cannot, therefore, be granted a franchise for that
purpose because of Section 11, Article XII of the 1987 Constitution.
Furthermore, since “the subscribed foreign capital” of the PGMC
“comes to about 75%, as shown by paragraph EIGHT of its Articles
of Incorporation,” it cannot lawfully enter into the contract in
question because all forms of gambling—and lottery is one of them
—are included in the so-called foreign investments negative list
under the Foreign Investments Act 20

(R.A. No. 7042) where only up
to 40% foreign capital is allowed.
Finally, the petitioners insist that the Articles of Incorporation of
PGMC do not authorize it to establish21
and operate an online lottery
and telecommunications systems.
Accordingly, the petitioners pray that we issue a temporary
restraining order and a writ of preliminary injunction commanding
the respondents or any person acting in their places or upon their
instructions to cease and desist from implementing the challenged
Contract of Lease and, after hearing the merits of the petition, that
we render judgment declaring the Contract of
_______________
19 Rollo, 16-19.
20 Id., 27-28; 30-32.
21 Id., 27.
131
VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 131

Lease void 22
and without effect and making the injunction
permanent.
We required the respondents to comment on the petition. In its
Comment filed on 1 March 1994, private respondent PGMC asserts
that “(1) [it] is merely an independent contractor for a piece of work,
(i.e., the building and maintenance of a lottery system to be used by
PCSO in the operation of its lottery franchise); and (2) as such
independent contractor, PGMC is not a co-operator of the lottery
franchise with PCSO, nor is PCSO sharing its franchise, ‘in
collaboration, association or joint venture’ with PGMC—as such
statutory limitation is viewed from the context, intent, and spirit of
Republic Act 1169, as amended by Batas Pambansa 42.” It further
claims that as an independent contractor for a piece of work, it is
neither engaged in “gambling” nor in “public service” relative to the
telecommunications network, which the petitioners even consider as
an “indispensable requirement” of an on-line lottery system. Finally,
it states that the execution and implementation of the contract does
not violate the Constitution and the laws; that the issue on the
“morality” of the lottery franchise granted to the PCSO is political
and not judicial or legal, which should be ventilated in another
forum; and that the “petitioners do not appear to have the legal
standing or real23 interest in the subject contract and in obtaining the
reliefs sought.”
In their Comment filed by the Office of the Solicitor General,
public respondents Executive Secretary Teofisto Guingona, Jr.,
Assistant Executive Secretary Renato Corona, and the PCSO
maintain that the contract of lease in question does not violate
Section 1 of R.A. No. 1169, as amended by B.P. Blg. 42, and that the
petitioner’s interpretation of the phrase “in collaboration, association

or joint venture” in Section 1 is “much too narrow, strained and
utterly devoid of logic” for it “ignores the reality that PCSO, as a
corporate entity, is vested with the basic and essential prerogative to
enter into all kinds of transactions or contracts as may be necessary
for the attainment of its purposes and objectives.” What the PCSO
charter “seeks to prohibit is that
_______________
22 Rollo, 35.
23 Id., 180-181.
132

arrangement akin to a ‘joint venture’ or partnership where there is

‘community of interest in the business, sharing of profits and losses,
and a mutual right of control,’ a characteristic which does not obtain
in a contract of lease.” With respect to the challenged Contract of
Lease, the “role of PGMC is limited to that of a lessor of the
facilities” for the on-line lottery system; in “strict technical and legal
sense,” said contract “can be categorized as a contract for a piece of
work as defined in Articles 1467, 1713 and 1644 of the Civil Code.”
They further claim that the establishment of the
telecommunications system stipulated in the Contract of Lease does
not require a congressional franchise because PGMC will not
operate a public utility; moreover, PGMC’s “establishment of a
telecommunications system is not intended to establish a
telecommunications business,” and it has been held that where the
facilities are operated “not for business purposes but for its own
use,” a legislative franchise is not required
24
before a certificate of
public convenience can be granted. Even granting arguendo 25
that
PGMC is a public utility, pursuant to Albano S. Reyes, “it can
establish a telecommunications system even without a legislative
franchise because not every public utility is required to secure a
legislative franchise before it could establish, maintain, and operate
the service”; and, in any case, “PGMC’s establishment of the
telecommunications system stipulated in its contract of lease with
PCSO falls within the exceptions under Section 1 of Act No. 3846
where a legislative franchise is not necessary for the establishment
of radio stations.”
They also argue that the contract does not violate the Foreign
Investment Act of 1991; that the Articles of Incorporation of PGMC
authorize it to enter into the Contract of Lease; and that the issues of
“wisdom, morality and propriety of acts of the executive department
are beyond the ambit of judicial review.”
Finally, the public respondents allege that the petitioners have no
standing to maintain the instant suit, citing our resolution in
26
26
Valmonte vs. Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office.
________________
24 Citing Teresa Electric & Power Co., Inc. vs. Public Service Commission, 21
SCRA 198 [1967].
25 175 SCRA 262 [1989].
26 G.R. No. 78716, 22 September 1987.
133
VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 133

27
Several parties filed motions to intervene as petitioners in this case,
but only the motion of Senators Alberto Romulo, Arturo Tolentino,
Francisco Tatad, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo,28 Vicente Sotto III, John
Osmeña, Ramon Revilla, and Jose Lina was granted, and the
respondents were required to comment on their petition in
intervention, which the public respondents and PGMC did.
In the meantime, the petitioners filed with the Securities and
Exchange Commission on 29 March 1994 a petition against PGMC
for the nullification of the latter’s General Information Sheets. That
case, however, has no bearing in this petition.
On 11 April 1994, we heard the parties in oral arguments.
Thereafter, we resolved to consider the matter submitted for
resolution and pending resolution of the major issues in this case, to
issue a temporary restraining order commanding the respondents or
any person acting in their place or upon their instructions to cease
and desist from implementing the challenged Contract of Lease.
In the deliberation on this case on 26 April 1994, we resolved to
consider only these issues: (a) the locus standi of the petitioners, and
(b) the legality and validity of the Contract of Lease in the light of
Section 1 of R.A. No. 1169, as amended by B.P. Blg. 42, which
prohibits the PCSO from holding and conducting lotteries “in
collaboration, association or joint venture with any person,
association, company or entity, whether domestic or foreign.” On the
first issue, seven Justices voted to sustain the locus standi of the
petitioners, while six voted not to. On the second issue, the seven
Justices were of the opinion that the Contract of Lease violates the
exception to Section 1(B) of R.A. No. 1169, as amended by B.P.
Blg. 42, and is, therefore, invalid and contrary to law. The six
Justices stated that they wished to express no opinion thereon in
view of their stand on the first issue. The Chief Justice took no part
because one of the Directors
_______________
27 Philippine Christian Lawyers Fellowship, Inc., Gamaliel G. Bongco, Oscar

Karaan, and Jedideoh Sincero (Rollo, 147); Catholic Lawyer’s Guild of the
Philippines, Inc., Enrique Syquia, and Pacifico Ma. Castro (Id., 154).
28 Rollo, 249 et seq.
134

of the PCSO is his brother-in-law.

This case was then assigned to this ponente for the writing of the
opinion of the Court.
The preliminary issue on the locus standi of the petitioners
should, indeed, be resolved in their favor. A party’s standing before
this Court is a procedural technicality which it may, in the exercise
of its discretion, set aside in view of the importance 29of the issues
raised. In the landmark Emergency Powers Cases, this Court
brushed aside this technicality because “the transcendental
importance to the public of these cases demands that they be settled
promptly and definitely, brushing aside, if we must, technicalities of
procedure. (Avelino vs. Cuenco, G.R. No. L-2821).” Insofar as
taxpayers’ suits are concerned, this Court had declared that it “is not30
devoid of discretion as to whether or not it should be entertained,”31
or that it “enjoys an open32
discretion to entertain the same or not.”
In De La Llana vs. Alba, this Court declared:
“1. The argument as to the lack of standing of petitioners is easily resolved.

As far as Judge de la Llana is concerned, he certainly falls within the
principle set forth in Justice Laurel’s opinion in People vs. Vera [65 Phil. 56
(1937)]. Thus: ‘The unchallenged rule is that the person who impugns the
validity of a statue must have a personal and substantial interest in the case
such that he has sustained, or will sustain, direct injury as a result of its
enforcement [Ibid, 89].’ The other petitioners as members of the bar and
officers of the court cannot be considered as devoid of ‘any personal and
substantial interest’ on the matter. There is relevance to this excerpt from a
separate opinion in Aquino, Jr. v. Commission on Elections [L-40004,
January 31, 1975, 62 SCRA 275]: Then there is the attack on the standing of
petitioners, as vindicating at most what they consider a public right and not
protecting their rights as individuals. This is to conjure the specter of the
public
________________
29 G.R. No. L-2044 (Araneta vs. Dinglasan); G.R. No. L-2756 (Araneta vs. Angeles); G.R.
No. L-3054 (Rodriguez vs. Tesorero de Filipinas); G.R. No. L-3055 (Guerrero vs.
Commissioner of Customs); and G.R. No. L-3056 (Barredo vs. Commission on Elections), 84
Phil. 368 [1949].
30 Tan vs. Macapagal, 43 SCRA 677, 680 [1972].
31 Sanidad vs. Commission on Elections, 73 SCRA 333 [1976].
32 112 SCRA 294, 314-315 [1982].
135
VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 135

right dogma as an inhibition to parties intent on keeping public officials

staying on the path of constitutionalism. As was so well put by Jaffe: “The
protection of private rights is an essential constituent of public interest and,
conversely, without a well-ordered state there could be no enforcement of
private rights. Private and public interests are, both in a substantive and
procedural sense, aspects of the totality of the legal order.” Moreover,
petitioners have convincingly shown that in their capacity as taxpayers, their
standing to sue has been amply demonstrated. There would be a retreat from
the liberal approach followed in Pascual v. Secretary of Public Works,
foreshadowed by the very decision of People v. Vera where the doctrine was
first fully discussed, if we act differently now. I do not think we are prepared
to take that step. Respondents, however, would hark back to the American
Supreme Court doctrine in Mellon v. Frothingham, with their claim that
what petitioners possess “is an interest which is shared in common by other
people and is comparatively so minute and indeterminate as to afford any
basis and assurance that the judicial process can act on it.” That is to speak
in the language of a bygone era, even in the United States. For as Chief
Justice Warren clearly pointed out in the later case of Flast v. Cohen, the
barrier thus set up if not breached has definitely been lowered.”
In Kapatiran
33
ng mga Naglilingkod sa Pamahalaan ng Pilipinas, Inc.
vs. Tan, reiterated
34
in Basco vs. Philippine Amusements and Gaming
Corporation, this Court stated:
“Objections to taxpayers’ suits for lack of sufficient personality standing or

interest are, however, in the main procedural matters. Considering the
importance to the public of the cases at bar, and in keeping with the Court’s
duty, under the 1987 Constitution, to determine whether or not the other
branches of government have kept themselves within the limits of the
Constitution and the laws and that they have not abused the discretion given
to them, this Court has brushed aside technicalities of procedure and has
taken cognizance of these petitions.”
and in Association of Small Landowners

35
in the Philippines, Inc. vs.
Secretary of Agrarian Reform, it declared:
________________
33 163 SCRA 371, 378 [1988].

34 197 SCRA 52, 60 [1991].
35 175 SCRA 343, 364-365 [1989] (emphasis supplied).
136

“With particular regard to the requirement of proper party as applied in the

cases before us, we hold that the same is satisfied by the petitioners and
intervenors because each of them has sustained or is in danger of sustaining
an immediate injury as a result of the acts or measures complained of. [Ex

Parte Levitt, 303 US 633]. And even if, strictly speaking, they are not
covered by the definition, it is still within the wide discretion of the Court to
waive the requirement and so remove the impediment to its addressing and
resolving the serious constitutional questions raised.
In the first Emergency Powers Cases, ordinary citizens and taxpayers
were allowed to question the constitutionality of several executive orders
issued by President Quirino although they were invoking only an indirect
and general interest shared in common with the public. The Court dismissed
the objective that they were not proper parties and ruled that the
transcendental importance to the public of these cases demands that they be
settled promptly and definitely, brushing aside, if we must, technicalities of
procedure. We have since then applied this exception in many other cases.”
(Emphasis supplied)
36
In Daza vs. Singson, this Court once more said:
“x x x For another, we have early as in the Emergency Powers Cases that

where serious constitutional questions are involved, ‘the transcendental
importance to the public of these cases demands that they be settled
promptly and definitely, brushing aside, if we must, technicalities of
procedure.’ The same policy has since then been consistently followed by
the Court, as in Gonzales vs. Commission on Elections [21 SCRA 774] x x
x.”
The Federal Supreme Court of the United States of America has also
expressed its discretionary power to liberalize the rule on locus
standi. In United States vs. Federal Power Commission
37
and Virginia
Rea Association vs. Federal Power Commission, it held:
“We hold that petitioners have standing. Differences of view, however,

preclude a single opinion of the Court as to both petitioners. It would not
further clarification of this complicated specialty of federal jurisdiction, the
solution of whose problems is in any event more or less
________________
36 180 SCRA 496, 502 [1988].

37 345 US 153, L ed 918, 735 Ct 609.
137
VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 137

determined by the specific circumstances of individual situations, to set out

the divergent grounds in support of standing in these cases.”
In line with the liberal policy of this Court on locus standi, ordinary
taxpayers, members of Congress, and even association of planters,
and non-profit civic organizations were allowed to initiate and
prosecute actions before this Court to question the constitutionality
or validity of laws, acts, decisions, rulings, or orders of various
government agencies or instrumentalities. Among such cases were

those assailing the constitutionality of (a) R.A. No. 3836 insofar as it
allows retirement gratuity and commutation of vacation and sick
leave to Senators and Representatives
38
and to elective officials of
both Houses of Congress; (b) Executive Order No. 284, issued by
President Corazon C. Aquino on 25 July 1987, which allowed
members of the cabinet, their undersecretaries, and 39assistant
secretaries to hold other government offices or positions; (c) the
automatic appropriation
40
for debt service in the General
Appropriations Act; (d)41 R.A. No. 7056 on the holding of
desynchronized elections; (e) P.D. No. 1869 (the charter of the
Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation) 42on the ground that
it is contrary to morals, public policy, and order;43 and (f) RA. No.
6975, establishing the Philippine National Police.
Other cases where we have followed a liberal policy regarding
locus standi include those attacking the validity or legality of (a) an
order allowing the importation 44
of rice in the light of the prohibition
imposed by R.A. No. 3452; (b) P.D. Nos. 991 and 1033 insofar as
they proposed amendments to the Constitution
_______________
38 Philippine Constitution Association, Inc. vs. Gimenez, 15 SCRA 479 [1965].

39 Civil Liberties Union vs. Executive Secretary, 194 SCRA 317 [1991].
40 Guingona vs. Carague, 196 SCRA 221 [1991].
41 Osmeña vs. Commission on Elections, 199 SCRA 750 [1991].
42 Basco vs. Philippine Gaming and Amusement Corp., 197 SCRA 52 [1991].
43 Carpio vs. Executive Secretary, 206 SCRA 290 [1992].
44 Iloilo Palay and Corn Planters Association, Inc. vs. Feliciano, 13 SCRA 377
[1965].
138

and P.D. No. 1031 insofar as it directed the COMELEC to supervise,

control,
45
hold, and conduct the referendum-plebiscite on 16 October
1976; (c) the bidding for the sale of the 463,179 square meters of land
at Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan; (d) the approval without
hearing by the Board of Investments of the amended application of
the Bataan Petrochemical Corporation to transfer the site of its plant
from Bataan to Batangas and the validity of such transfer and the
shift of feedstock
47
from naphtha only to naphtha and/or liquefied
petroleum gas; (e) the decisions, orders, rulings, and resolutions of
the Executive Secretary, Secretary of Finance, Commissioner of
Internal Revenue, Commissioner of Customs, and the Fiscal
Incentives Review Board exempting 48the National Power
Corporation from indirect tax and duties; (f) the orders of the
Energy Regulatory Board of 5 and 6 December 1990 on the ground
that the hearings conducted on the second provisional increase in oil
49
49
prices did not allow the petitioner substantial cross-examination;
(g) Executive Order No. 478 which levied a special duty of P0.95
per liter or P151.05 per barrel 50
of imported crude oil and P1.00 per
liter of imported oil products; (h) resolutions of the Commission on
Elections concerning the apportionment, 51
by district, of the number
of elective members of Sanggunians; and (i) memorandum52orders
issued by a Mayor affecting the Chief of Police of Pasay City. 53
In the 1975 case of Aquino vs. Commission on Elections, this
Court, despite its unequivocal ruling that the petitioners therein had
no personality to file the petition, resolved nevertheless to pass upon
the issues raised because of the far-reaching implica-
________________
45 Sanidad vs. Commission on Elections, supra.

46 Laurel vs. Garcia, 187 SCRA 797 [1990].
47 Garcia vs. Board of Investments, 177 SCRA 374 [1989]; Garcia vs. Board of
Investments, 191 SCRA 288 [1990].
48 Maceda vs. Macaraig, 197 SCRA 771 [1991].
49 Maceda vs. Energy Regulatory Board, 199 SCRA 454 [1991].
50 Garcia vs. Executive Secretary, 211 SCRA 219 [1992].
51 De Guia vs. Commission on Elections, 208 SCRA 420 [1992].
52 Pasay Law and Conscience Union, Inc. vs. Cuneta, 101 SCRA 662 [1980].
53 62 SCRA 275 [1975].
139
VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 139

54
tions of the petition. We did no less in De Guia vs. COMELEC
where, although we declared that De Guia “does not appear to have
locus standi, a standing in law, a personal or substantial interest,” we
brushed aside the procedural infirmity “considering the importance
of the issue involved, concerning as it does the political exercise of
qualified voters affected by the apportionment, and petitioner
alleging abuse of discretion and violation of the Constitution by
respondent.”
We find the instant petition to be of transcendental importance to
the public. The issues it raised are of paramount public interest and
of a category even higher than those involved in many of the
aforecited cases. The ramifications of such issues immeasurably
affect the social, economic, and moral well-being of the people even
in the remotest barangays of the country and the counter-productive
and retrogressive effects of the envisioned on-line lottery system are
as staggering as the billions in pesos it is expected to raise. The legal
standing then of the petitioners deserves recognition and, in the
exercise of its sound discretion, this Court hereby brushes aside the
procedural barrier which the respondents tried to take advantage of.
And now on the substantive issue.
Section 1 of R.A. No. 1169, as amended by B.P. Blg. 42,

prohibits the PCSO from holding and conducting lotteries “in
association, company or entity, whether domestic or foreign.”
Section 1 provides:
“Sec. 1. The Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office.—The Philippine

Charity Sweepstakes Office, hereinafter designated the Office, shall be the
principal government agency for raising and providing for funds for health
programs, medical assistance and services and charities of national
character, and as such shall have the general powers conferred in section
thirteen of Act Numbered One thousand four hundred fifty-nine, as
amended, and shall have the authority:
A. To hold and conduct charity sweepstakes races, lotteries and other similar
activities, in such frequency and manner, as shall be determined, and subject to such
rules and regulations as shall be promulgated by the Board of Directors.
________________
54 Supra.
140

B. Subject to the approval of the Minister of Human Settlements, to engage in health

and welfare-related investments, programs, projects and activities which may be
profit-oriented, by itself or in collaboration, association or joint venture with any
person, association, company or entity, whether domestic or foreign, except for the
activities mentioned in the preceding paragraph (A), for the purpose of providing for
permanent and continuing sources of funds for health programs, including the
expansion of existing ones, medical assistance and services, and/ or charitable
grants: Provided, That such investments will not compete with the private sector in
areas where investments are adequate as may be determined by the National
Economic and Development Authority.” (emphasis supplied)
The language of the section is indisputably clear that with respect to

its franchise or privilege “to hold and conduct charity sweepstakes
races, lotteries and other similar activities,” the PCSO cannot
exercise it “in collaboration, association or joint venture” with any
other party. This is the unequivocal meaning and import of the
phrase “except for the activities mentioned in the preceding
paragraph (A),” namely, “charity sweepstakes races, lotteries and
other similar activities.”
B.P. Blg. 42 originated from Parliamentary Bill No. 622, which
was covered by Committee Report No. 103 as reported out by the
Committee on Socio-Economic Planning and Development of the
Interim Batasang Pambansa. The original text of paragraph B,
Section 1 of Parliamentary Bill No. 622 reads as follows:
“To engage in any and all investments and related profit-oriented projects or
programs and activities by itself or in collaboration, association or joint
venture with any person, association, company or entity, whether domestic
or foreign, for the main purpose of raising 55funds for health and medical
assistance and services and charitable grants.”
During the period of committee amendments, the Committee on

Socio-Economic Planning and Development, through Assemblyman
Ronaldo B. Zamora, introduced an amendment by substitution to the
said paragraph B such that, as amended, it should read as follows:
_______________
55 Record of the Batasan, vol. Two, 993.
141
VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 141

“Subject to the approval of the Minister of Human Settlements, to engage in

health-oriented investments, programs, projects and activities which may be
profit-oriented, by itself or in collaboration, association, or joint venture
with any person, association, company or entity, whether domestic or
foreign, for the purpose of providing for permanent and continuing sources
of funds for health programs, including the expansion56 of existing ones,
medical assistance and services and/or charitable grants.”
Before the motion of Assemblyman Zamora for the approval of the

amendment could be acted upon, Assemblyman Davide introduced
an amendment to the amendment:
“MR. DAVIDE.
Mr. Speaker.
THE SPEAKER.
The gentleman from Cebu is recognized.
MR. DAVIDE.
May I introduce an amendment to the committee amendment?
The amendment would be to insert after ‘foreign’ in the
amendment just read the following: EXCEPT FOR THE
ACTIVITY IN LETTER (A) ABOVE.
When it is a joint venture or in collaboration with any entity such
collaboration or joint venture must not include activity letter (a)
which is the holding and conducting of sweepstakes races,
lotteries and other similar acts.
MR. ZAMORA
We accept the amendment, Mr. Speaker.
MR. DAVIDE.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
THE SPEAKER.
Is there any objection to the amendment?
57
(Silence) The
amendment, as amended, is approved.”
Further amendments to paragraph B were introduced and approved.

When Assemblyman Zamora read the final text of paragraph B as
further amended, the earlier approved amendment of Assemblyman
Davide became “EXCEPT FOR THE ACTIVITIES MENTIONED
IN PARAGRAPH (A)”; and by vir-
_______________
56 Id., 1006-1007.
57 Record of the Batasan, vol. Two, 1007 (emphasis supplied).
142

tue of the amendment introduced by Assemblyman Emmanuel

Pelaez, the word PRECEDING was inserted before PARAGRAPH.
Assemblyman Pelaez introduced58other amendments. Thereafter, the
new Paragraph B was approved. This is now paragraph B, Section
1 of R.A. No. 1169, as amended by B.P. Blg. 42.
No interpretation of the said provision to relax or circumvent the
prohibition can be allowed since the privilege to hold or conduct
charity sweepstakes races, lotteries, or other similar activities is a
franchise granted by the legislature to the PCSO. It is a settled rule
that “in all grants by the government to individuals or corporations
of rights, privileges and franchises, the words are to be taken most
strongly against the grantee . . . . [o]ne who claims a franchise or
privilege in derogation of the common rights of the public must
prove his title thereto by a grant which is clearly and definitely
expressed, and he cannot enlarge it by equivocal or doubtful
provisions or by probable inferences. Whatever is not unequivocally
59
granted is withheld. Nothing passes by mere implication.”
In short then, by the exception explicitly made in paragraph B,
Section 1 of its charter, the PCSO cannot share its franchise with
another by way of collaboration, association or joint venture.
Neither can it assign, transfer, or lease such franchise. It has been
said that “the rights and privileges conferred under a franchise may,
without doubt, be assigned or transferred when the grant is to the
grantee and assigns, or is authorized by statute. On the other hand,
the right of transfer or assignment may be restricted by statute or the
constitution, or be made subject to the approval of the grantor or a
governmental agency, such as a public utilities commission, except
that an existing right60 of assignment cannot be impaired by
subsequent legislation.”
It may also be pointed out that the franchise granted to the PCSO
to hold and conduct lotteries allows it to hold and conduct a species
of gambling. It is settled that “a statute which authorizes the carrying

on of a gambling activity or business should be
________________
58 Id.
59 36 AM. JUR. 2d Franchises § 26 (1968).
60 36 AM. JUR. 2d Franchises § 63 (1968).
143
VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 143

strictly construed and every reasonable doubt so resolved

61
as to limit
the powers and rights claimed under its authority.”
Does the challenged Contract of Lease violate or contravene the
exception in Section 1 of R.A. No. 1169, as amended by B.P. Blg.
42, which prohibits the PCSO from holding and conducting lotteries
“in collaboration, association or joint venture with” another?
We agree with the petitioners that it does, notwithstanding its
denomination or designation as a Contract of Lease. We are neither
convinced nor moved or fazed by the insistence and forceful
arguments of the PGMC that it does not because in reality it is only
an independent contractor for a piece of work, i.e., the building and
maintenance of a lottery system to be used by the PCSO in the
operation of its lottery franchise. Whether the contract in question is
one of lease or whether the PGMC is merely an independent
contractor should not be decided on the basis of the title or
designation of the contract but by the intent of the parties, which
may be gathered from the provisions of the contract itself. Animus
hominis est anima scripti. The intention of the party is the soul of
the instrument. In order to give life or effect to an instrument, it is62
essential to look to the intention of the individual who executed it.
And, pursuant to Article 1371 of the Civil Code, “to determine the
intention of the contracting parties, their contemporaneous and
subsequent acts shall be principally considered.” To put it more
bluntly, no one should be deceived by the title or designation of a
contract.
A careful analysis and evaluation of the provisions of the contract
and a consideration of the contemporaneous acts of the PCSO and
PGMC indubitably disclose that the contract is not in reality a
contract of lease under which the PGMC is merely an independent
contractor for a piece of work, but one where the statutorily
proscribed collaboration or association, in the least, or joint venture,
at the most, exists between the contracting parties. Collaboration is63
defined as the acts of working together in a joint project.
Association means the act of a number of
_______________
61 38 AM. JUR. 2d Gambling § 18 (1968).

62 Black’s Law Dictionary, Sixth Ed., 88.
63 Id., 261.
144

64
persons in uniting together for some special purpose or business.
Joint venture is defined as an association of persons or companies
jointly undertaking some commercial enterprise; generally all
contribute assets and share risks. It requires a community of interest
in the performance of the subject matter, a right to direct and govern
the policy in connection therewith, and duty, which
65
may be altered
by agreement to share both in profit and losses.
The contemporaneous acts of the PCSO and the PGMC reveal
that the PCSO had neither funds of its own nor the expertise to
operate and manage an on-line lottery system, and that although it
wished to have the system, it would have it “at no expense or risks
to the government.” Because of these serious constraints and
unwillingness to bear expenses and assume risks, the PCSO was
candid enough to state in its RFP that it is seeking for “a suitable
contractor which shall build, at its own expense, all the facilities
needed to operate and maintain” the system; exclusively bear “all
capital, operating expenses and expansion expenses and risks”; and
submit “a comprehensive nationwide lottery development plan . . .
which will include the game, the marketing of the games, and the
logistics to introduce the game to all the cities and municipalities of
the country within five (5) years”; and that the operation of the on-
line lottery system should be “at no expense or risk to the
government”—meaning itself, since it is a government-owned and
controlled agency. The facilities referred to means “all capital
equipment, computers, terminals, software, nationwide
telecommunications network, ticket sales offices, furnishings and
fixtures, printing costs, costs of salaries and wages, advertising and
promotions expenses, maintenance costs, expansion and replacement
costs, security and insurance, and all other related expenses needed
to operate a nationwide on-line lottery system.”
In short, the only contribution the PCSO would have is its
franchise or authority to operate the on-line lottery system; with the
rest, including the risks of the business, being borne by the
proponent or bidder. It could be for this reason that it warned
_______________
64 Id., 121.
65 Id., 839.
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VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 145

that “the proponent must be able to stand to the acid test of proving
that it is an entity able to take on the role of responsible maintainer
of the on-line lottery system.” The PCSO, however, makes it clear in
its RFP that the proponent can propose a period of the contract
which shall not exceed fifteen years, during which time it is assured
of a “rental” which shall not exceed 12% of gross receipts. As
admitted by the PGMC, upon learning of the PCSO’s decision, the
Berjaya Group Berhad, with its affiliates, wanted to offer its services
and resources to the PCSO. Forthwith, it organized the PGMC as “a
medium through which the technical and management services 66
required for the project would be offered and delivered to PCSO.”
Undoubtedly, then, the Berjaya Group Berhad knew all along that
in connection with an on-line lottery system, the PCSO had nothing
but its franchise, which it67 solemnly guaranteed it had in the General
Information of the RFP. Howsoever viewed then, from the very
inception, the PCSO and the PGMC mutually understood that any
arrangement between them would necessarily leave to the PGMC
the technical, operations, and management aspects of the on-line
lottery system while the PCSO would, primarily, provide the
franchise. The words Gaming and Management in the corporate
name of respondent Philippine Gaming Management Corporation
could not have been conceived just for euphemistic purposes. Of
course, the RFP cannot substitute for the Contract of Lease which
was subsequently executed by the PCSO and the PGMC.
Nevertheless, the Contract of Lease incorporates their intention and
understanding.
The so-called Contract of Lease is not, therefore, what it purports
to be. Its denomination as such is a crafty device, carefully
conceived, to provide a built-in defense in the event that the
agreement is questioned as violative of the exception in Section 1(B)
of the PCSO’s charter. The acuity or skill of its draftsmen to
accomplish that purpose easily manifests itself in the Contract of
Lease. It is outstanding for its careful and
_______________
66 PGMC’s Comment; Rollo, 181-182.

67 It declares therein that it “has the legal authority under R.A. 1169, as amended,
to hold and conduct sweepstakes races, lotteries, and other similar activities.”
146

meticulous drafting designed to give an immediate impression that it

is a contract of lease. Yet, woven therein are provisions which
negate its title and betray the true intention of the parties to be in or
to have a joint venture for a period of eight years in the operation

and maintenance of the on-line lottery system.
Consistent with the above observations on the RFP, the PCSO
has only its franchise to offer, while the PGMC represents and
warrants that it has access to all managerial and technical expertise
to promptly and effectively carry out the terms of the contract. And,
for a period of eight years, the PGMC is under obligation to keep all
the Facilities in safe condition and if necessary, upgrade, replace,
and improve them from time to time as new technology develops to
make the on-line lottery system more cost-effective and competitive;
exclusively bear all costs and expenses relating to the printing,
manpower, salaries and wages, advertising and promotion,
maintenance, expansion and replacement, security and insurance,
and all other related expenses needed to operate the on-line lottery
system; undertake a positive advertising and promotions campaign
for both institutional and product lines without engaging in negative
advertising against other lessors; bear the salaries and related costs
of skilled and qualified personnel for administrative and technical
operations; comply with procedural and coordinating rules issued
by the PCSO; and to train PCSO and other local personnel and to
effect the transfer of technology and other expertise, such that at the
end of the term of the contract, the PCSO will be able to effectively
take over the Facilities and efficiently operate the online lottery
system. The latter simply means that, indeed, the managers,
technicians or employees who shall operate the online lottery system
are not managers, technicians or employees of the PCSO, but of the
PGMC and that it is only after the expiration of the contract that the
PCSO will operate the system. After eight years, the PCSO would
automatically become the owner of the Facilities without any other
further consideration.
For these reasons, too, the PGMC has the initial prerogative to
prepare the detailed plan of all games and the marketing thereof, and
determine the number of players, value of winnings, and the
logistics required to introduce the games, including the Master
Games Plan. Of course, the PCSO has the reserved authority to
147
VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 147

68
disapprove them. And, while the PCSO has the sole responsibility
over the appointment of dealers and retailers throughout the country,
the PGMC may, nevertheless, recommend for appointment dealers
and retailers which shall be acted upon by the PCSO within forty-
eight hours and collect and retain, for its own account, a security
deposit from dealers and retailers in respect of equipment supplied
by it.
This joint venture is further established by the following:
(a) Rent is defined in the lease contract as the amount to be paid to the
PGMC as compensation for the fulfillment of its obligations under
the contract, including, but not limited to the lease of the Facilities.
However, this rent is not actually a fixed amount. Although it is
stated to be 4.9% of gross receipts from ticket sales, payable net of
taxes required by law to be withheld, it may be drastically reduced
or, in extreme cases, nothing may be due or demandable at all
because the PGMC binds itself to “bear all risks if the revenue from
the ticket sales, on an annualized basis, are insufficient to pay the
entire prize money.” This risk-bearing provision is unusual in a
lessor-lessee relationship, but inherent in a joint venture.
(b) In the event of pre-termination of the contract by the PCSO, or its
suspension of operation of the on-line lottery system in breach of
the contract and through no fault of the PGMC, the PCSO binds
itself “to promptly, and in any event not later than sixty (60) days,
reimburse the LESSOR the amount of its total investment cost
associated with the On-Line Lottery System, including but not
limited to the cost of the Facilities, and further compensate the
LESSOR for loss of expected net profit after tax, computed over
the unexpired terms of the lease.” If the contract were indeed one of
lease, the payment of the expected profits or rentals for the
unexpired portion of the term of the contract would be enough.
_______________
68 Attached to the Contract of Lease as Annex “A” is the Master Games Plan
prepared by the PGMC and approved by the PCSO.
148

(c) The PGMC cannot “directly or indirectly undertake any activity or

business in competition with or adverse to the On-Line Lottery
System of PCSO unless it obtains the latter’s prior written
consent.” If the PGMC is engaged in the business of leasing
equipment and technology for an online lottery system, we fail to
see any acceptable reason why it should allow a restriction on the
pursuit of such business.
(d) The PGMC shall provide the PCSO the audited Annual Report sent
to its stockholders, and within two years from the effectivity of the
contract, cause itself to be listed in the local stock exchange and
offer at least 25% of its equity to the public. If the PGMC is merely
a lessor, this imposition is unreasonable and whimsical, and could
only be tied up to the fact that the PGMC will actually operate and
manage the system; hence, increasing public participation in the
corporation would enhance public interest.
(e) The PGMC shall put up an Escrow Deposit of P300,000,000.00
pursuant to the requirements of the RFP, which it may, at its option,
maintain as its initial performance bond required to ensure its

faithful compliance with the terms of the contract.
(f) The PCSO shall designate the necessary personnel to monitor and
audit the daily performance of the on-line lottery system; and
promulgate procedural and coordinating rules governing all
activities relating to the on-line lottery system. The first further
confirms that it is the PGMC which will operate the system and the
PCSO may, for the protection of its interest, monitor and audit the
daily performance of the system. The second admits the
coordinating and cooperative powers and function of the parties.
(g) The PCSO may validly terminate the contract if the PGMC
becomes insolvent or bankrupt or is unable to pay its debts, or if it
stops or suspends or threatens to stop or suspend payment of all or
a material part of its debts.
All of the foregoing unmistakably confirm the indispensable role of

the PGMC in the pursuit, operation, conduct, and management of
the On-Line Lottery System. They exhibit and demonstrate the
parties’ indivisible community of interest in the conception, birth
and growth of the on-line lottery, and, above all, in its profits, with
each having a right in the formulation and
149
VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 149

implementation of policies related to the business and sharing, as

well, in the losses—with the PGMC bearing the greatest burden
because of its assumption of expenses and risks, and the PCSO the
least, because of its confessed unwillingness to bear expenses and
risks. In a manner of speaking, each is wed to the other for better or
for worse. In the final analysis, however, in the light of the PCSO’s
RFP and the above highlighted provisions, as well as the “Hold
Harmless Clause” of the Contract of Lease, it is even safe to
conclude that the actual lessor in this case is the PCSO and the
subject matter thereof is its franchise to hold and conduct lotteries
since it is, in reality, the PGMC which operates and manages the on-
line lottery system for a period of eight years.
We thus declare that the challenged Contract of Lease violates
the exception provided for in paragraph B, Section 1 of R.A. No.
1169, as amended by B.P. Blg. 42, and is, therefore, invalid for being
contrary to law. This conclusion renders unnecessary further
discussion on the other issues raised by the petitioners.
WHEREFORE, the instant petition is hereby GRANTED and the
challenged Contract of Lease executed on 17 December 1993 by
respondent Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) and
respondent Philippine Gaming Management Corporation (PGMC) is
hereby DECLARED contrary to law and invalid.
The Temporary Restraining Order issued on 11 April 1994 is
hereby MADE PERMANENT.
No pronouncement as to costs.
SO ORDERED.
Regalado, Romero and Bellosillo, JJ., concur.

Narvasa (C.J.), No part. Related to party.
Cruz and Padilla, JJ., See separate concurrence.
Feliciano, J., See concurring opinion.
Padilla, J., See separate concurring opinion.
Bidin, J., I join the dissenting opinions.
Melo, J., Please see dissent.
Quiason, J., I dissent from the majority opinion and agree
with the dissenting opinion.
Puno, J., Please see dissenting opinion.
150

Vitug, J., See separate opinion.

Kapunan, J., I dissent. See separate opinion.
CRUZ, J., concurring:
I am happy to join Mr. Justice Hilario G. Davide, Jr. in his excellent

ponencia. I will add the following personal observations only for
emphasis as it is not necessary to supplement his thorough
exposition.
The respondents take great pains to cite specific provisions of the
contract to show that it is PCSO that is actually operating the on-line
lottery, but they have not succeeded in disproving the obvious, to
wit, that the document was intentionally so crafted to make it appear
that the operation is not a joint undertaking of PCSO and PGMC but
a mere lease of services. It is a clever instrument, to be sure, but we
are, gratifyingly, not deluded. Lawyers have a special talent to
disguise the real intention of the parties in a contract to make it
come ostensibly within the provisions of a law although the real if
furtive purpose is to violate it. That talent has been exercised in this
case, but not convincingly enough.
It should be quite clear, from the adroit way the contract has been
drafted, that the primary objective was to avoid the conclusion that
PCSO will be operating a lottery “in association, collaberation or
joint venture with any person, association, company or entity,”
which is prohibited by Section 1 of Rep. Act No. 1169 as amended
by B.P. Blg. 42. Citing the self-serving provisions of the contract,
the respondents would have us believe that the contract is perfectly
lawful because all it does is provide for the lease to PCSO of the
technical know-how and equipment of PGMC, with PCSO acting as
“the sole and individual operator” of the lottery. I am glad we are not
succumbing to this sophistry.
Despite the artfulness of the contract (authorship of which was
pointedly denied by both counsel for the government and the private
respondent during the oral argument on this case), a careful study

will reveal telling stipulations that it is PGMC and not PCSO that
will actually be operating the lottery. Thus, it is provided inter alia
that PGMC shall furnish all capital equipment and other facilities
needed for the operation; bear all
151
VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 151

expenses relating to the operation, including those for the salaries

and wages of the administrative and technical personnel; undertake a
positive advertising and promotion campaign for public support of
the lottery; establish a radio communications network throughout the
country as part of the operation; and assume all risks if the revenues
from ticket sales are insufficient to pay the entire prize money. Most
significantly, to show that it is only after eight years from the
effectivity of the contract that PCSO will actually operate the lottery,
Par. 6.7 of the agreement provides that PGMC shall:
6.7. Upon effectivity of this Contract, commence the training of PCSO and
other local personnel and the transfer of technology and expertise, such that
at the end of the term of this Contract, PCSO will be able to effectively take-
over the Facilities and efficiently operate the OnLine Lottery System.
(Emphasis supplied)
In the meantime, that is to say during the entire 8-year term of the
contract, it will be PGMC that will be operating the lottery. Only “at
the end of the term of this Contract” will PCSO “be able to
effectively take-over the Facilities and efficiently operate the On-
Line Lottery System.”
Even on the assumption that it is PCSO that will be operating the
lottery at the very start, the authority granted to PGMC by the
agreement will readily show that PCSO will not be acting alone, as
the respondents pretend. In fact, it cannot. PGMC is an
indispensable co-worker because it has the equipment and the
technology and the management skills that PCSO does not have at
this time for the operation of the lottery. PCSO cannot deny that it
needs the assistance of PGMC for this purpose, which was its reason
for entering into the contract in the first place.
And when PCSO does avail itself of such assistance, how will it
be operating the lottery? Undoubtedly, it will be doing so “in
collaboration, association or joint venture” with PGMC, which, let it
be added, will not be serving as a mere “hired help” of PCSO
subject to its control. PGMC will be functioning independently in
the discharge of its own assigned role as stipulated in detail under
the contract. PGMC is plainly a partner of PCSO in violation of law,
no matter how PGMC’s assistance is called or the contract is
denominated.
152

Even if it be conceded that the assistance partakes of a lease of

services, the undeniable fact is that PCSO would still be
collaborating or cooperating with PGMC in the operation of the
lottery. What is even worse is that PCSO and PGMC may be
actually engaged in a joint venture, considering that PGMC does not
collect the usual fixed rentals due an ordinary lessor but is entitled to
a special “Rental Fee,” as the contract calls it, “equal to four point
nine percent (4.9%) of gross receipts from ticket sales.”
The flexibility of this amount is significant. As may be expected,
it will induce in PGMC an active interest and participation in the
success of PCSO that is not expected of an ordinary detached lessor
who gets to be paid his rentals—not a rental fee—whether the
lessee’s business prospers or not. PGMC’s share in the operation
depends on its own performance and the effectiveness of its
collaboration with PCSO. Although the contract pretends otherwise,
PGMC is a co-investor with PCSO in what is practically, if not in a
strictly legal sense, a joint venture.
Concerning the doctrine of locus standi, I cannot agree that out of
the sixty million Filipinos affected by the proposed lottery, not a
single solitary citizen can question the agreement. Locus standi is
not such an absolute rule that it cannot admit of exceptions under
certain conditions or circumstances like those attending this
transaction. As I remarked in my dissent in Guazon v. De Villa, 181
SCRA 623, “It is not only the owner of the burning house who has
the right to call the firemen. Every one has the right and
responsibility to prevent the fire from spreading even if he lives in
the other block.”
What is especially galling is that the transaction in question
would foist upon our people an essentially immoral activity through
the instrumentality of a foreign corporation, which naturally does
not have the same concern for our interests as we ourselves have. I
am distressed that foreigners should be allowed to exploit the
weakness of some of us for instant gain without work, and with the
active collaboration and encouragement of our own government at
that.
153
VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 153

FELICIANO, J., Concurring:
I agree with the conclusions reached by my distinguished brother in

the Court Davide, Jr., J., both in respect of the question of locus
standi and in respect of the merits of this case, that is, the issues of
legality and constitutionality of the Contract of Lease entered into
between the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) and the

Philippine Gaming Management Corporation (PGMC).
In this separate opinion, I propose to address only the question of
locus standi. It is with some hesitation that I do so, considering the
extensive separate opinions on this question written by my learned
brothers Melo, Puno and Vitug, JJ. I agree with the great deal of
what my brothers Melo, Puno and Vitug say about locus standi in
their separate opinions and there is no need to go over the ground
that I share with them. Because, however, I reach a different
conclusion in respect of the presence or absence of locus standi on
the part of the petitioners in the case before the Court, there is an
internal need (a need internal to myself) to articulate the
considerations which led me to that conclusion.
There is no dispute that the doctrine of locus standi reflects an
important constitutional principle, that is, the principle of separation
of powers which, among other things, mandates that each of the
great Departments of government is responsible for performance of
its constitutionally allotted tasks. Insofar as the Judicial Department
is concerned, the exercise of judicial power and carrying out of
judicial functions commonly take place within the context of actual
cases or controversies. This, in turn, reflects the basic notion of
judicial power as the power to resolve actual disputes and of the
traditional business of courts as the hearing and deciding of specific
controversies brought before them. In our own jurisdiction, and at
least since the turn of the present century, judicial power has always
included the power of judicial review, understood as the authority of
courts (more specifically the Supreme Court) to assay contested
legislative and executive acts in terms of their constitutionality or
legality. Thus, the general proposition has been that a petitioner who
assails the legal or constitutional quality of an executive or
legislative act must be able to show that he has locus standi.
Otherwise, the petition becomes vulnerable to prompt dismissal by
the court.
154

There is, upon the other1 hand, little substantive dispute that the
possession of locus standi is not, in each and every case, a rigid and
absolute requirement for access to the courts. Certainly that is the
case where great issues of public law are at stake, issues which
cannot be approached in the same way that a court approaches a suit
for the collection of a sum of money or a complaint for the recovery
of possession of a particular piece of land. The broad question is
when, or in what types of cases, the court should insist on a clear
showing of locus standi understood as a direct and personal interest
in the subject matter of the case at bar, and when the court may or
should relax that apparently stringent requirement and proceed to
deal with the legal or constitutional issues at stake in a particular

case.
I submit, with respect, that it is not enough for the Court simply
to invoke “public interest” or even “paramount considerations of
national interest,” and to say that the specific requirements of such
public interest can only be ascertained on a “case to case” basis. For
one thing, such an approach is not intellectually satisfying. For
another, such an answer appears to come too close to saying that
locus standi exists whenever at least a majority of the Members of
this Court participating in a case feel that an appropriate case for
judicial intervention has arisen.
This is not, however, to say that there is somewhere an
overarching juridical principle or theory, waiting to be discovered,
that permits a ready answer to the question of when, or in what types
of cases, the need to show locus standi may be relaxed in greater or
lesser degree. To my knowledge, no satisfactory principle or theory
has been discovered and none has 2
been crafted, whether in our
jurisdiction or in the United States. I have
________________
1 The requirement of locus standi forms part of the “application of ordinary law
technique to the Constitution” which historically, in the United States, promoted and
reinforced the “legalization” or acceptance of the power of judicial review; S.
Snowiss, Judicial Review and the Law of the Constitution, p. 197 (1990).
2 A stimulating effort is offered by Prof. Laurence H. Tribe, Constitutional
Choices (1985), Chap. 8, where he examined certain trends in, and circumstances
relating to, the caselaw of the Supreme Court of the United States which “make a
satisfactory theory of standing specially elusive” (p. 100).
155
VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 155

neither the competence nor the opportunity to try to craft such

principle or formula. It might, however, be useful to attempt to
indicate the considerations of principle which, in the present case,
appear to me to require an affirmative answer to the question of
whether or not petitioners are properly regarded as imbued with the
standing necessary to bring and maintain the present petition.
Firstly, the character of the funds or other assets involved in the
case is of major importance. In the case presently before the Court,
the funds involved are clearly public in nature. The funds to be
generated by the proposed lottery are to be raised from the
population at large. Should the proposed operation be as successful
as its proponents project, those funds will come from well-nigh
every town and barrio of Luzon. The funds here involved are public
in another very real sense: they will belong to the PCSO, a
government owned or controlled corporation and an instrumentality
of the government and are destined for utilization in social
development projects which, at least in principle, are designed to

benefit the general public. My learned brothers Melo, Puno and
Vitug, JJ. concede that taxpayers’ suits have been recognized as an
exception to the traditional requirement of locus standi. They insist,
however, that because the funds here involved will not have been
generated by the exercise of the taxing power of the Government,
the present petition cannot be regarded as a taxpayer’s suit and
therefore, must be dismissed by the Court. It is my respectful
submission that that constitutes much too narrow a conception of the
taxpayer’s suit and of the public policy that it embodies. It is also to
overlook the fact that tax monies, strictly so called, constitute only
one (1) of the major categories of funds today raised and used for
public purposes. It is widely known that the principal sources of
funding for government operations today include, not just taxes and
customs duties, but also revenues derived from activities of the
Philippine Amusement Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR), as well as
the proceeds of privatization of government owned or controlled
corporations and other government owned assets. The interest of a
private citizen in seeing to it that public funds, from whatever source
they may have been derived, go only to the uses directed and
permitted by law is as real and personal and substantial as the
interest of a private taxpayer in seeing to it that tax monies are
156

not intercepted on their way to the public treasury or otherwise

diverted from uses prescribed or allowed by law. It is also pertinent
to note that the more successful the government is in raising
revenues by non-traditional methods such as PAGCOR operations
and privatization measures, the lesser will be the pressure upon the
traditional sources of public revenues, i.e., the pocket books of
individual taxpayers and importers.
A second factor of high relevance is the presence of a clear case
of disregard of a constitutional or statutory prohibition by the public
respondent agency or instrumentality of the government. A showing
that a constitutional or legal provision is patently being disregarded
by the agency or instrumentality whose act is being assailed, can
scarcely be disregarded by court. The concept of locus standi—
which is part and parcel of the broader notion of ripeness of the case
—“does not operate independently and is not alone decisive. x x x
[I]t is in substantial part a function of a judge’s
3
estimate of the
merits of the constitutional [or legal] issue.” The notion of locus
standi and the judge’s conclusions about the merits of the case, in
other words, interact with each other. Where the Court perceives a
serious issue of violation of some constitutional or statutory
limitation, it will be much less difficult for the Court to find locus
standi in the petitioner and to confront the legal or constitutional
issue. In the present case, the majority of the Court considers that a
very substantial showing has been made that the Contract of Lease
between the PCSO and the PGMC flies in the face of legal
limitations.
A third consideration of importance in the present case is the lack
of any other party with a more direct and specific interest in raising
the questions here being raised. Though a public bidding was held,
no losing or dissatisfied bidder has come before the Court. The
Office of the Ombudsman has not, to the knowledge of the Court,
raised questions about the legality or constitutionality of the
Contract of Lease here involved. The National Government itself,
through the Office of the Solicitor General, is defending the PCSO
Contract (though it had not participated in the drafting thereof). In a
situation like that here obtaining, the
_______________
3 A.M. Bickel, The Least Dangerous Branch: The Supreme Court at the Bar of
Politics, 169 (1962); brackets supplied.
157
VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 157

submission may be made that the institution, so well known in

corporation law and practice, of the corporate stockholders’
derivative suit furnishes an appropriate analogy and that on the basis
of such an analogy, a taxpayer’s derivative suit should be recognized
as available.
The wide range of impact of the Contract of Lease here assailed
and of its implementation, constitutes still another consideration of
significance. In the case at bar, the agreement if implemented will be
practically nationwide in its scope and reach (the PCSO-PGMC
Contract is limited in its application to the Island of Luzon; but if the
PCSO Contracts with the other two [2] private “gaming
management” corporations in respect of the Visayas and Mindanao
are substantially similar to PCSO’s Contract with PGMC, then the
Contract before us may be said to be national indeed in its
implications and consequences). Necessarily, the amounts of money
expected to be raised by the proposed activities of the PCSO and
PGMC will be very substantial, probably in the hundreds of millions
of pesos. It is not easy to conceive of a contract with greater and
more far-reaching consequences, literally speaking, for the country
than the Contract of Lease here involved. Thus, the subject matter of
the petition is not something that the Court may casually pass over
as unimportant and as not warranting the expenditure of significant
judicial resources.
In the examination of the various features of this case, the above
considerations have appeared to me to be important and as pressing
for acceptance and exercise of jurisdiction on the part of this Court.
It is with these considerations in mind that I vote to grant due course
to the Petition and to hold that the Contract of Lease between the
PCSO and PGMC in its present form and content, and given the
present state of the law, is fatally defective.
SEPARATE CONCURRING OPINION
PADILLA, J.:
My views against gambling are a matter of judicial record. In Basco

v. PAGCOR, (G.R. No. 91649, 14 May 1991, 197 SCRA 52) I
expressed these views in a separate opinion where I was joined by
that outstanding lady jurist, Mme. Justice A. Melencio-Herrera
158

whose incisive approach to legal problems is today missed in this

Court. I reproduce here those views because they are highly
persuasive to the conclusions I reach in the present controversy:
“I concur in the result of the learned decision penned by my brother Mr.

Justice Paras. This means that I agree with the decision insofar as it holds
that the prohibition, control, and regulation of the entire activity known as
gambling properly pertain to “state policy.” It is, therefore, the political
departments of government, namely, the legislative and the executive that
should decide on what government should do in the entire area of gambling,
and assume full responsibility to the people for such policy.
The courts, as the decision states, cannot inquire into the wisdom,
morality or expendiency of policies adopted by the political departments of
government in areas which fall within their authority, except only when
such policies pose a clear and present danger to the life, liberty or property
of the individual. This case does not involve such a factual situation.
However, I hasten to make of record that I do not subscribe to gambling
in any form. It demeans the human personality, destroys self-confidence and
eviscerates one’s self-respect, which in the long run will corrode whatever is
left of the Filipino moral character. Gambling has wrecked and will continue
to wreck families and homes; it is an antithesis to individual reliance and
reliability as well as personal industry which are the touchstones of real
economic progress and national development.
Gambling is reprehensible whether maintained by government or
privatized. The revenues realized by the government out of “legalized”
gambling will, in the long run, be more than offset and negated by the
irreparable damage to the people’s moral values.
Also, the moral standing of the government in its repeated avowals
against “illegal gambling” is fatally flawed and becomes untenable when it
itself engages in the very activity it seeks to eradicate.
One can go through the Court’s decision today and mentally replace the
activity referred to therein as gambling, which is legal only because it is
authorized by law and run by the government, with the activity known as
prostitution. Would prostitution be any less reprehensible were it to be
authorized by law, franchised, and “regulated” by the government, in return
for the substantial revenues it would yield the government to carry out its
laudable projects, such as infrastructure and social amelioration? The
question, I believe, answers itself. I submit that the sooner the legislative
department outlaws all forms of gambling, as a fundamental state policy,
and the sooner the executive implements such policy, the better it will be for
the nation.”
159
VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 159

We presently have the sweepstakes lotteries; we already have the

PAGCOR’s gambling casinos; the Filipino people will soon, if plans
do not miscarry, be initiated into an even more sophisticated and
encompassing nationwide gambling network known as the “on-line
hi-tech lotto system.” To be sure, it is not wealth producing; it is not
export oriented. It will draw from existing wealth in the hands of
Filipinos and transfer it into the coffers of the PCSO and its foreign
partners at a price of further debasement of the moral standards of
the Filipino people, the bulk of whom are barely subsisting below
the poverty line. 1
1. It is said that petitioners have no locus standi to bring this suit
even as they challenge the legality and constitutionality of a contract
of lease between the PCSO, a government-owned corporation and
the PGMC, a private corporation with substantial (if not controlling)
foreign composition and content. Such contract of lease contains the
terms and conditions under which an “on-line hi-tech lotto system”
will operate in the country.
As the ponente of the extended, unsigned en banc resolution in
Valmonte v. PCSO, (G.R. No. 78716 and G.R. No. 79084, 22
September 1987), I would be the last to downgrade the rule, therein
reiterated, that in order to maintain a suit challenging the
constitutionality and/or legality of a statute, order or regulation or
assailing a particular governmental action as done with grave abuse
of discretion or with lack of jurisdiction, the petitioner must show
that he has a clear personal or legal right that would be violated
with the enforcement of the challenged statute, order or regulation or
the implementation of the questioned governmental action. But, in
my considered view, this rule maybe (and should be) relaxed when
the issue involved or raised in the petition is of such paramount
national interest and importance as to dwarf the above procedural
rule into a barren techni-
_______________
1 KILOSBAYAN, INCORPORATED, a non-stock corporation composed of civic-

spirited citizens, pastors, priests, nuns and lay leaders who are committed to the cause
of truth, justice and national renewal as well as members of the Board of Trustees of
KILOSBAYAN as taxpayers and concerned citizens and senators Freddie Webb,
Wigberto Tanada and Representative Joker P. Arroyo as taxpayers, concerned citizens
and legislators.
160

cality. As a unanimous Court en banc aptly but it in De Guia vs.

COMELEC, G.R. No. 104712, 6 May 1992, 208 SCRA 420.
“Before addressing the crux of the controversy, the Court observes that
petitioner does not allege that he is running for reelection, much less, that he
is prejudiced by the election, by district, in Parañaque. As such, he does not
appear to have locus standi, a standing in law, a personal or substantial
interest. (Sanidad vs. COMELEC, G.R. No. L-44640, October 12, 1976, 73
SCRA 333; Municipality of Malabang vs. Benito, G.R. No. L-28113, March
28, 1969, 27 SCRA 533) He does not also allege any legal right that has
been violated by respondent. If for this alone, petitioner does not appear to
have any cause of action.
However, considering the importance of the issue involved, concerning
as it does the political exercise of qualified votes affected by the
apportionment, and petitioner alleging abuse of discretion and violation of
the Constitution by respondent. We resolved to brush aside the question of
procedural infirmity, even as We perceive the petition to be one of
declaratory relief. We so held similarly through Mr. Justice Edgardo L.
Paras in Osmeña vs. Commission on Elections.”
I view the present case as falling within the De Guia case doctrine.
For, when the contract of lease in question seeks to establish and
operate a nationwide gambling network with substantial if not
controlling foreign participation, then the issue is of paramount
national interest and importance as to justify and warrant a
relaxation of the above-mentioned procedural rule on locus standi.
2. The charter of the PCSO—Republic Act No. 1169 as amended
by BP No. 42—insofar as relevant, reads:
“Sec. 1. The Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office.—The Philippine

Charity Sweepstakes Office, hereinafter designated the Office, shall be the
principal government agency for raising and providing for funds for health
programs, medical assistance and services and charities of national
character, and as such shall have the general powers conferred in section
thirteen of Act Numbered One Thousand Four Hundred Fifty-Nine, as
amended, and shall have the authority:
‘A. To hold and conduct charity sweepstakes races, lotteries and other
similar activities, in such frequency and manner, as shall be determined, and
subject to such rules and regulations as shall be promulgated by the Board
of Directors.
‘B. Subject to the approval of the Minister of Human Settlements, to
engage in health and welfare-related investments, programs,
161
VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 161

projects and activities which may be profit-oriented, by itself or in

collaberation, association or joint venture with any person, association,
company or entity, whether domestic or foreign, except for the activities
mentioned in the preceding paragraph (A), for the purpose of providing for
permanent and continuing sources of funds for health programs, including
the expansion of existing ones, medical assistance and services, and/or
charitable grants: Provided, That such investments will not compete with the
private sector in areas where investments are adequate as may be
determined by the National Economic and Development Authority.”
It is at once clear from the foregoing legal provisions that, while the
PCSO charter allows the PCSO to itself engage in lotteries, it does
not however permit the PCSO to undertake or engage in lotteries in
“collaboration, association or joint venture” with others. The
palpable reason for this prohibition is, that PCSO should not and
cannot be made a vehicle for an otherwise prohibited foreign or
domestic entity to engage in lotteries (gambling activities) in the
Philippines.
The core question then is whether the lease contract between
PCSO and PGMC is a device whereby PCSO will engage in lottery
in collaboration, association or joint venture with another, i.e.
PGMC. I need not go here into the details and different specific
features of the contract to show that it is a joint venture between
PCSO and PGMC. That has been taken care of in the opinion of Mr.
Justice Davide to which I fully subscribe.
On a slightly different plane and, perhaps simplified, I consider
the agreement or arrangement between the PCSO and PGMC a joint
venture because each party to the contract contributes its share in the
enterprise or project. PGMC contributes its facilities, equipment and
know-how (expertise). PCSO contributes (aside from its charter) the
market, directly or through dealers—and this to me is most
important—in the totality or mass of the Filipino gambling elements
who will invest in lotto tickets. PGMC will get its 4.9% of gross
receipts (with assumption of certain risks in the course of lotto
operations); the residue of the whole exercise will go to PCSO. To
any person with a minimum of business know-how, this is a joint
venture between PCSO and PGMC, plain and simple.
162

But assuming ex gratia argumenti that such arrangement between

PCSO and PGMC is not a joint venture between the two of them to
install and operate an “on-line hi-tech lotto system” in the country, it
can hardly be denied that it is, at the very least, an association or

collaboration between PCSO and PGMC. For one cannot do without
the other in the installation, operation and, most importantly,
marketing of the entire enterprise or project in this country.
Indeed, the contract of lease in question is a clear violation of
Republic Act No. 1169 as amended by BP No. 42 (the PCSO
charter).
Having arrived at the conclusion that the contract of lease in
question between the PCSO and PGMC is illegal and, therefore,
invalid. I find it unnecessary to dwell on the other issues raised in
the pleadings and arguments of the parties.
I, therefore, vote to give DUE COURSE to the petition and to
declare the contract of lease in question between PCSO and PGMC,
for the reasons aforestated, of no force and effect.
MELO, J., Dissenting:
I submit that the petition before the Court deserves no less than
outright dismissal for the reason that petitioners, as concerned
citizens and as taxpayers and as members of Congress, do not
possess the necessary legal standing to assail the validity of the
contract of lease entered into by the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes
Office and the Philippine Gaming Management Corporation relative
to the establishment and operation of an “On-line Hi-Tech Lottery
System” in the country.
As announced in Lamb vs. Phipps (22 Phil. [1912], 559),
“[J]udicial power in its nature, is the power to hear and decide
causes pending between parties who have the right to sue and be
sued in the courts of law and equity.” Necessarily, this implies that a
party must show a personal stake in the outcome of the controversy
or an injury to himself that can be addressed by a favorable decision
so as to warrant his invocation of the court’s jurisdiction and to
justify the court’s remedial powers in his behalf (Warth vs. Seldin,
422 U.S. 490; Guzman vs. Marrero, 180 U.S. 81; McMicken vs.
United States, 97 U.S. 204). Here, we have yet to see any of
petitioners acquiring a personal stake in the
163
VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 163

outcome of the controversy or being placed in a situation whereby

injury may be sustained if the contract of lease in question is
implemented. It may be that the contract has somehow evoked
public interest which petitioners claim to represent. But the alleged
public interest which they pretend to represent is not only broad and
encompassing but also strikingly and veritably indeterminate that
one cannot truly say whether a handful of the public, like herein
petitioners, may lay a valid claim of representation in behalf of the
millions of citizens spread all over the land who may have just as
many varied reactions relative to the contract in question.
Any effort to infuse personality on petitioners by considering the
present case as a “taxpayer’s suit” could not cure the lack of locus
standi on the part of petitioners. As understood in this jurisdiction, a
“taxpayer’s suit” refers to a case where the act complained of
directly involves the illegal disbursement of public funds derived
from taxation (Pascual vs. Secretary of Public Works, 110 Phil.
[1960] 331; Maceda vs. Macaraig, 197 SCRA [1991]; Lozada vs.
COMELEC, 120 SCRA [1983] 337; Dumlao vs. COMELEC, 95
SCRA [1980] 392; Gonzales vs. Marcos, 65 SCRA [1975] 624). It
cannot be overstressed that no public fund raised by taxation is
involved in this case. In fact, it is even doubtful if the rentals which
the PCSO will pay to the lessor for its operation of the lottery
system may be regarded as “public fund”. The PCSO is not a
revenue-collecting arm of the government. Income or money
realized by it from its operations will not and need not be turned
over to the National Treasury. Rather, this will constitute corporate
funds which will remain with the corporation to finance its various
activities as authorized in its charter. And if ever some semblance of
“public character” may be said to attach to its earnings, it is simply
because PCSO is a government-owned or controlled entity and not a
purely private enterprise.
It must be conceded though that a “taxpayer’s suit” had been
allowed in a number of instances in this jurisdiction. For sure, after
the trail was blazed by Pascual vs. Secretary of Public Works, supra,
several more followed. It is to be noted, however, that in those
occasions where this Court allowed such a suit, the case invariably
involved either the constitutionality of a statute or the legality of the
disbursement of public funds through the enforcement of what was
perceived to be an invalid or unconsti-
164

tutional statute or legislation (Pascual, supra; Philippine

Constitution Association, Inc. vs. Jimenez, 15 SCRA [1965] 479;
Philippine Constitution Association, Inc. vs. Mathay, 18 SCRA
[1966] 300; Tolentino vs. COMELEC, 41 SCRA [1971] 702; Pelaez
vs. Auditor General, 15 SCRA [1965] 569; Iloilo Palay and Corn
Planters Association vs. Feliciano, 13 SCRA [1965] 377).
The case before us is not a challenge to the validity of a statute or
an attempt to restrain expenditure of public funds pursuant to an
alleged invalid congressional enactment. What petitioners ask us to
do is to nullify a simple contract of lease entered into by a
government-owned corporation with a private entity. That contract,
as earlier pointed out, does not involve the disbursement of public
funds but of strictly corporate money. If every taxpayer, claiming to
have interest in the contract, no matter how remote, could come to
this Court and seek nullification of said contract, the day may come
when the activities of government corporate entities will ground to a
standstill on account of nuisance suits filed against them by persons
whose supposed interest in the contract is as remote and as obscure
as the interest of any man in the street. The dangers attendant thereto
are not hard to discern and this Court must not allow them to come
to pass.
One final observation must be emphasized. When the petition at
bench was filed, the Court decided to hear the case on oral argument
on the initial perception that a constitutional issue could be involved.
However, it now appears that no question of constitutional
dimension is at stake as indeed the majority barely touches on such
an issue, concentrating as it does on its interpretation of the contract
between the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office and the
Philippine Gaming Management Corporation.
I, therefore, vote to dismiss the petition.
DISSENTING OPINION
PUNO, J.:
At the outset, let me state that my religious faith and family

upbringing compel me to regard gambling, regardless of its garb,
with hostile eyes. Such antagonism tempts me to view the case at
165
VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 165

bench as a struggle between good and evil, a fight between the

forces of light against the forces of darkness. I will not, however,
yield to that temptation for we are not judges of the Old Testament
type who were not only arbiters of law but were also high priests of
morality.
I will therefore strictly confine the peregrinations of my mind to
the legal issues for resolution: (1) whether or not the petitioners
have the locus standi to file the petition at bench; and (2) assuming
their locus standi, whether or not the Contract of Lease between
PCSO and PGMC is null and void considering: (a) section 1 of R.A.
No. 1169, as amended by B.P. Blg. 42 (Charter of PCSO) which
prohibits PCSO from holding and conducting lotteries “in
association, company or entity”; (b) Act No. 3836 which requires a
congressional franchise before any person or entity can establish and
operate a telecommunication system; (c) section 11, Art. XII of the
Constitution, which requires that for a corporation to operate a
public utility, at least 60% of its capital must be owned by Filipino
citizens; and (d) R.A. No. 7042, otherwise known as the “Foreign
Investments Act”, which includes all forms of gambling in its

“negative list.”
While the legal issues abound, I deferentially submit that the
threshold issue is the locus standi, or standing to sue, of petitioners.
The petition describes petitioner Kilosbayan, Inc., as a non-stock
corporation composed of “civic spirited citizens, pastors, priests,
nuns, and lay leaders who are 1
committed to the cause of truth,
justice, and national renewal.” Petitioners Jovitor R. Salonga, Cirilo
A. Rigos, Ernie Camba, Emilio C. Capulong, Jr., Jose Abcede,
Christine Tan, Felipe L. Gozon, Rafael G. Fernando, Raoul V.
Victorino, Jose Cunanan, and Quintin S. Doromal joined the petition
in their capacity as 2trustees of Kilosbayan, Inc., and as taxpayers and
concerned citizens. Petitioners Freddie Webb and Wigberto Tañada3
joined the petition as senators, taxpayers and concerned citizens.
Petitioner Joker P. Arroyo joined the petition as a member of the
House of Representative, a
_______________
1 Petition, pp. 5-6.

2 Ibid, p. 6.
3 Ibid, p. 7.
166

4
taxpayer and a concerned citizen.
With due respect to the majority opinion, I wish to focus on the
interstices of locus standi, a concept described by Prof. Paul Freund
as “among the most amorphous in the entire domain of public law.”
The requirement of standing to sue inheres from the definition of
judicial power. It is not merely a technical rule of procedure which
we are at liberty to disregard. Section 1, Article VIII of the
Constitution provides:
“x x x
“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.” (Italics supplied)
The phrase “actual controversies involving rights which are legally

demandable and enforceable” has acquired a cultivated meaning
given by courts. It spells out the requirements that must be satisfied
before one can come to court to litigate a constitutional issue. Our
distinguished colleague, Mr. Justice Isagani A. Cruz, gives a
shorthand summary of these requirements when he states that no
constitutional question will be heard and decided by courts unless
there is a showing of the following: x x x (1) there must be an actual
case or controversy; (2) the question of constitutionality must be

raised by the proper party; (3) the constitutional question must be
raised at the earliest possible opportunity; and (4) the decision of the
constitutional
5
question must be necessary to the determination of the
case itself.
The complexion of the rule on locus standi has been undergoing
a change. Mr. Justice6 Cruz has observed the continuing relaxation of
the rule on standing, thus:
________________
4 Ibid.
5 Philippine Political Law, 1989 ed., p. 18 citing Dumlao v. COMELEC, 95 SCRA
392.
6 Ibid., citations omitted.
167
VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 167

“x x x
“A proper party is one who has sustained or is in immediate danger of
sustaining an injury as a result of the act complained of. Until and unless
such actual or potential injury is established, the complainant cannot have
the legal personality to raise the constitutional question.
“In Tileson v. Ullmann, a physician questioned the constitutionality of a
law prohibiting the use of contraceptives, upon the ground that it might
prove dangerous to the life or health of some of his patients whose physical
condition would not enable them to bear the rigors of childbirth. The court
dismissed the challenge, holding that the patients of the physician and not
the physician himself were the proper parties.
“In Cuyegkeng v. Cruz, the petitioner challenged in a quo warranto
proceeding the title of the respondent who, he claimed, had been appointed
to the board of medical examiners in violation of the provisions of the
Medical Act of 1959. The Supreme Court dismissed the petition, holding
that Cuyegkeng had not made a claim to the position held by Cruz and
therefore could not be regarded as a proper party who had sustained an
injury as a result of the questioned act.
“In People v. Vera, it was held that the Government of the Philippines
was a proper party to challenge the constitutionality of the Probation Act
because, more than any other, it was the government itself that should be
concerned over the validity of its own laws.
“In Ex Parte Levitt, the petitioner, an American taxpayer and member of
the bar, filed a motion for leave to question the qualifications of Justice
Black who, he averred, had been appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in
violation of the Constitution of the United States. The Court dismissed the
petition, holding that Levitt was not a proper party since he was not
claiming the position held by Justice Black.
“The rule before was that an ordinary taxpayer did not have the proper
party personality to question the legality of an appropriation law since his
interest in the sum appropriated was not substantial enough. Thus, in

Custodio v. Senate President, a challenge by an ordinary taxpayer to the
validity of a law granting back pay to government officials, including
members of Congress, during the period corresponding to the Japanese
Occupation was dismissed as having been commenced by one who was not
a proper party.
“Since the first Emergency Powers Cases, however, the rule has been
changed and it is now permissible for an ordinary taxpayer, or a group of
taxpayers, to raise the question of the validity of an appropriation law. As
the Supreme Court then put it. ‘The transcendental importance to the public
of these cases demands that they be settled promptly and definitely,
brushing aside, if we must, technicalities of
168

procedure.’
“In Tolentino v. Commission on Elections, it was held that a senator had
the proper party personality to seek the prohibition of a plebiscite for the
ratification of a proposed constitutional amendment. In PHILCONSA v.
Jimenez, an organization of taxpayers and citizens was held to be a proper
party to question the constitutionality of a law providing for special
retirement benefits for members of the legislature.
“In Sanidad v. Commission on Elections, the Supreme Court upheld the
petitioners as proper parties, thus—
‘As a preliminary resolution, We rule that the petitioners in L-44640 (Pablo C.

Sanidad and Pablito V. Sanidad) possess locus standi to challenge the constitutional
premise of Presidential Decree Nos. 991, 1031, and 1033. It is now an ancient rule
that the valid source of a statute—Presidential Decrees are of such nature—may be
contested by one who will sustain a direct injury as a result of its enforcement. At
the instance of taxpayers, laws providing for the disbursement of public funds may
be enjoined, upon the theory that the expenditure of public funds by an officer of the
State for the purpose of executing an unconstitutional act constitutes a
misapplication of such funds. The breadth of Presidential Decree No. 991 carries an
appropriation of Five Million Pesos for the effective implementation of its purposes.
Presidential Decree No. 1031 appropriates the sum of Eight Million Pesos to carry
out its provisions. The interest of the aforenamed petitioners as taxpayers in the
lawful expenditure of these amounts of public money sufficiently clothes them with
that personality to litigate the validity of the Decrees appropriating said funds.
Moreover, as regard taxpayer’s suits, this Court enjoys that open discretion to
entertain the same or not. For the present case, We deem it sound to exercise that
discretion affirmatively so that the authority upon which the disputed Decrees are
predicated may be inquired into.’
“In Lozada v. Commission on Elections, however, the petitioners were

held without legal standing to demand the filling of vacancies in the
legislature because they had only ‘a generalized interest’ shared with the
rest of the citizenry.”
Last July 30, 1993, we further relaxed the7

rule on standing in Oposa,
et al. v. Hon. Fulgencio S. Factoran, Jr., where we
________________
7 G.R. No. 101083.
169
VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 169

recognized the locus standi of minors representing themselves as

well as generations unborn to protect their constitutional right to a
balanced and healthful ecology.
I am perfectly at peace with the drift of our decisions liberalizing
the rule on locus standi. The once stubborn disinclination to decide
constitutional issues due to lack of locus standi is incompatible with
the expansion of judicial power mandated in section 1 of Article
VIII of the Constitution, i.e., “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.” As we held thru the 8
ground breaking ponencia of Mr.
Justice Cruz in Daza v. Singson, this provision no longer precludes
the Court from resolving political questions in proper cases. But
even perusing this provision as a constitutional warrant for the court
to enter the once forbidden political thicket, it is clear that the
requirement of locus standi has not been jettisoned by the
Constitution for it still commands courts in no uncertain terms to
settle only “actual controversies involving rights which are legally
demandable and enforceable.” Stated otherwise, courts are neither
free to decide all kinds of cases dumped into their laps nor are they
free to open their doors to all parties or entities claiming a
grievance. The rationale for this constitutional requirement of locus
standi is by no means trifle. It is intended “to assure a vigorous
adversary presentation of the case, and, perhaps more importantly to
warrant the judiciary’s overruling the determination
9
of a coordinate,
democratically elected organ of government.” It thus goes to the
very essence of representative democracies. 10
As Mr. Justice Powell
carefully explained in U.S. v. Richardson, viz:
“Relaxation of standing requirements is directly related to the expansion of

judicial power. It seems to me inescapable that allowing unrestricted
taxpayer or citizen standing would significantly alter the allocation of power
at the national level, with a shift away from a democratic form of
government. I also believe that repeated and essen-
________________
8 G.R. No. 86344, 180 SCRA 496 [1989].

9 Dorsen, Bender, Neuborne, Political and Civil Rights in the United States, Vol. I, 4th ed.,
p. 1200.
10 418 U.S. 166, 194 S. Ct. 2940, 41 L. Ed. 2d 678 [1974].
170

tially head-on confrontations between the life-tenured branch and the

representative branches of government will not, in the long run, be
beneficial to either. The public confidence essential to the former and the
vitality critical to the latter may well erode if we do not exercise self-
restraint in the utilization of our power to negative the actions of the other
branches. We should be ever mindful of the contradictions that would arise
if a democracy were to permit at large oversight of the elected branches of
government by a nonrepresentative, and in large measure insulated, judicial
branch. Moreover, the argument that the Court should allow unrestricted
taxpayer or citizen standing underestimates the ability of the representative
branches of the Federal Government to respond to the citizen pressure that
has been responsible in large measure for the current drift toward expanded
standing. Indeed, taxpayer or citizen advocacy, given its potentially broad
base, is precisely the type of leverage that in a democracy ought to be
employed against the branches that were intended to be responsive to public
attitudes about the appropriate operation of government. ‘We must as judges
recall that, as Mr. Justice Holmes wisely observed, the other branches of
Government are ultimate guardians of the liberties and welfare of the people
in quite as great a degree as the courts.’
“Unrestrained standing in federal taxpayer or citizen suits would create a
remarkably illogical system of judicial supervision of the coordinate
branches of the Federal Government. Randolph’s proposed Council of
Revision, which was repeatedly rejected by the Framers, at least had the
virtue of being systematic; every law passed by the legislature automatically
would have been previewed by the judiciary before the law could take
effect. On the other hand, since the judiciary cannot select the taxpayers or
citizens who bring suit or the nature of the suits, the allowance of public
actions would produce uneven and sporadic review, the quality of which
would be influenced by the resources and skill of the particular plaintiff.
And issues would be presented in abstract form, contrary to the Court’s
recognition that ‘judicial review is effective largely because it is not
available simply at the behest of a partisan faction, but is exercised only to
remedy a particular, concrete injury.’ Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727,
740-741, n. 16 (1972).”
A lesser but not insignificant reason for screening the standing of

persons who desire to litigate constitutional issues is economic in
character. Given the sparseness of our resources, the capacity of
courts to render efficient judicial service to our people is severely
limited. For courts to indiscriminately open their doors to all types
of suits and suitors is for them to unduly overburden their dockets,
and ultimately render themselves
171
VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 171

ineffective dispensers of justice. To be sure, this is an evil that

clearly confronts our judiciary today.
Prescinding from these premises, and with great reluctance, I am
not prepared to concede the standing to sue of petitioners. On a
personal level, they have not shown that elemental injury in fact
which will endow them with a standing to sue. It must be stressed
that petitioners are in the main, seeking the nullity not of a law but
of a Contract of Lease. Not one of the petitioners is a party to the
Contract of Lease executed between PCSO and PGMC. None of the
petitioners participated in the bidding, and hence they are not losing
bidders. They are complete strangers to the contract. They stand
neither to gain nor to lose economically by its enforcement. It seems
to me unusual that an unaffected third party to a contract could be
allowed to question its validity. Petitioner Kilosbayan cannot justify
this officious interference on the ground of its commitment to “truth,
justice and national renewal.” Such commitment to truth, justice and
national renewal, however noble it may be, cannot give Kilosbayan
a roving commission to check the validity of contracts entered into
by the government and its agencies. Kilosbayan is not a private
commission on audit.
Neither can I perceive how the other petitioners can be personally
injured by the Contract of Lease between PCSO and PGMC even if
petitioner Salonga assails as unmitigated fraud the statistical
probability of winning the lotto as he compared it to the probability
of being struck twice by lightning. The reason is obvious: none of
the petitioners will be exposed to this alleged fraud for all of them
profess to abjure playing the lotto. It is self-evident that lotto cannot
physically or spiritually injure him who does not indulge in it.
Petitioners also contend they have locus standi as taxpayers. But
the case at bench does not involve any expenditure of public money
on the part of PCSO. In fact, paragraph 2 of the Contract of Lease
provides that it is PGMC that shall build, furnish, and maintain at its
own expense and risk the facilities for the On-Line Lottery System
of PCSO and shall bear all maintenance and other costs. Thus,
PGMC alleged it has already spent P245M in equipment and fixtures
and would be investing close to P1 billion to supply adequately the
technology and other requirements of
172

11
PCSO. If no tax money is being illegally deflected in the Contract
of Lease between PCSO and PGMC, petitioners have no standing to 12
impugn its validity as taxpayers. Our ruling in Dumlao v. Comelec,
settled this issue well enough, viz:
“However, the statutory provisions questioned in this case, namely, sec. 7,

BP Blg. 51, and sections 4, 1, and 5 BP Blg. 52, do not directly involve the
disbursement of public funds. While, concededly, the elections to be held
involve the expenditure of public moneys, nowhere in their Petition do said
petitioners allege that their tax money is ‘being extracted and spent in
violation of specific constitutional protections against abuses of legislative
power’ (Flast v. Cohen, 392 U.S. 83 [1960]), or that there is a
misappropriation of such funds by respondent COMELEC (see Pascual vs.
Secretary of Public Works, 110 Phil. 331 [196]), or that public money is
being deflected to any improper purpose. Neither do petitioners seek to
restrain respondent from wasting public funds through the enforcement of
an invalid or unconstitutional law. (Philippine Constitution Association vs.
Mathay, 18 SCRA 300 [1966]), citing Philippine Constitution Association
vs. Gimenez, 15 SCRA 479 [1965]). Besides, the institution of a taxpayer’s
suit, per se, is no assurance of judicial review. As held by this Court in Yan
vs. Macapagal (43 SCRA 677 [1972]), speaking through our present Chief
Justice, this Court is vested with discretion as to whether or not a taxpayer’s
suit should be entertained.”
Next, petitioners plead their standing as “concerned citizens.” As

citizens, petitioners are pleading that they be allowed to advocate the
constitutional rights of other persons who are not before the court
and whose protection is allegedly their concern. A citizen qua
citizen suit urges a greater relaxation of the rule on locus standi. I
feel no aversion to the further relaxation of the rule on standing to
accommodate what in other jurisdictions is known as an assertion of
jus tertii in constitutional litigation provided the claimant can
demonstrate: (1) an injury in fact to himself; and (2) the need to
prevent the erosion of a preferred constitutional right of a third
person. As stressed before, the first requirement of injury in fact
cannot be abandoned for it is an essential element for the exercise of
judicial power. Again, as
_______________
11 Manila Bulletin, April 21, 1994, pp. 1 and 8.

12 95 SCRA 392, 403.
173
VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 173

13
stressed by Mr. Justice Powell, viz:
“The revolution in standing doctrine that has occurred particularly in the 12

years since Baker v. Carr, supra, has not meant, however, that standing
barriers have disappeared altogether. As the Court noted in Sierra Club,
‘broadening the categories of injury that may be alleged in support of
standing is a different matter from abandoning the requirement that the party
seeking review must himself have suffered an injury.” 405 U.S., at 738 . . .
Indeed, despite the diminution of standing requirements in the last decade,
the Court has not broken with the traditional requirement that, in the
absence of a specific statutory grant of the right of review, a plaintiff must
allege some particularized injury that sets him apart from the man on the
street.
I recognize that the Court’s allegiance to a requirement of particularized
injury has on occasion required a reading of the concept that threatens to
transform it beyond recognition. E.G., Baker v. Carr, supra; Flast v. Cohen,
supra. But despite such occasional digressions, the requirement remains, and
I think it does so for the reasons outlined above. In recognition of those
considerations, we should refuse to go the last mile towards abolition of
standing requirements that is implicit in broadening the ‘precarious opening’
for federal taxpayers created by Flast, see 392 U.S., at 116 (Mr. Justice
Fortas, concurring) or in allowing a citizen qua citizen to invoke the power
of the federal courts to negative unconstitutional acts of the Federal
Government.
In sum, I believe we should limit the expansion of federal taxpayer and
citizen standing in the absence of specific statutory authorization to an outer
boundary drawn by the results in Flast and Baker v. Carr. I think we should
face up to the fact that all such suits are an effort ‘to employ a federal court
as a forum in which to air . . . generalized grievances about the conduct of
government or the allocation of power in the Federal System.’ Flast v.
Cohen, 392 U.S., at 106. The Court should explicitly reaffirm traditional
prudential barriers against such public actions. My reasons for this view are
rooted in respect for democratic processes and in the conviction that ‘[t]he
powers of the federal judiciary will be adequate for the great burdens placed
upon them only if they are employed prudently, with recognition of the
strengths as well as the hazards that go with our kind of representative
government.’ Id., at 131
_______________
13 US v. Richardson, op. cit.
174

The second requirement recognizes society’s right in the protection

of certain preferred rights in the Constitution even when the
rightholders are not before the court. The theory is that their dilution
has a substantial fall out detriment to the rights of others, hence the
latter can vindicate them.
In the case at bench, it is difficult to see how petitioners can
satisfy these two requirements to maintain a jus tertii claim.
They claim violation of two constitutional provisions, to wit: “Section 1,

Article XIII.—The Congress shall give highest priority to the enactment of
measures that protect and enhance the right of all the people to human
dignity, reduce social, economic, and political inequalities, and remove
cultural inequities by equitably diffusing wealth and political power for the
common good.
“To this end, the State shall regulate the acquisition, ownership, use, and
disposition of property and its increments.”
and
“Section 11, Article XII.—No franchise, certificate, or any other form of

authorization for the operation of a public utility shall be granted except to
citizens of the Philippines or to corporations or associations organized under
the laws of the Philippines at least sixty per centum of whose capital is
owned by such citizens, nor shall such franchise, certificate, or
authorizations be exclusive in character or for a longer period than fifty
years. Neither shall any such franchise or right be granted except under the
condition that it shall be subject to amendment, alteration, or repeal by the
Congress when the common good so requires. The State shall encourage
equity participation in public utilities by the general public. The
participation of foreign investors in the governing body of any public utility
enterprise shall be limited to their proportionate share in its capital, and all
the executive and managing officers of such corporation or association must
be citizen of the Philippines.”
Section 1, Article XIII of the Constitution cannot be the matrix of

petitioners’ jus tertii claim for it expresses no more than a policy
direction to the legislative in the discharge of its ordained duty—to
give highest priority to the enactment of measures that protect and
enhance the right of all the people to human dignity, reduce social,
economic, and political inequalities and remove cultural inequities
by equitably diffusing wealth and political
175
VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 175

power for the common good. Whether the act of the legislature in
amending the charter of PCSO by giving it the authority to conduct
lotto and whether the Contract of Lease entered into between PCSO
and PGMC are incongruent to the policy direction of this
constitutional provision is a highly debatable proposition and can be
endlessly argued. Respondents steadfastly insist that the operation of
lotto will increase the revenue base of PCSO and enable government
to provide a wider range of social services to the people. They also
allege that the operation of high-tech lotto will eradicate illegal
jueteng. Petitioners are scandalized by this submission. They dismiss
gambling as evil per se and castigate government for attempting to
correct a wrong by committing another wrong. In any event, the
proper forum for this debate, however cerebrally exciting it may be,
is not
14
this court but congress. So we held in PCSO v. Inopiquez, to
wit:
“By bringing their suit in the lower court, the private respondents in G.R.
No. 79084 do not question the power of PCSO to conduct the Instant
Sweepstakes game. Rather, they assail the wisdom of embarking upon this
project because of their fear of the ‘pernicious repercussions’ which may be
brought about by the Instant Sweepstakes Game which they have labelled as
‘the worst form of gambling’ which thus ‘affects the moral values’ of the
people.
“The Court, as held in several cases, does not pass upon questions of
wisdom, justice, or expediency of legislation and executive acts. It is not the
province of the courts to supervise legislation or executive orders as to keep
them within the bounds of propriety, moral values and common sense. That
is primarily and even exclusively a concern of the political departments of
the government; otherwise, there will be a violation of the principle of
separation of powers.” (Italics supplied)
I am not also convinced that petitioners can justify their locus standi
to advocate the rights of hypothetical third parties not before the
court by invoking the need to keep inviolate section 11, Article XII
of the Constitution which imposes a nationality requirement on
operators of a public utility. For even assuming arguendo that
PGMC is a public utility, still, the records do not at the moment bear
out the claim of petitioners that PGMC is a foreign owned and
controlled corporation. This factual issue
_______________
14 G.R. No. 79084, September 22, 1987.
176

remains unsettled and is still the subject of litigation by the parties in

the Securities and Exchange Commission. We are not at liberty to
anticipate the verdict on this contested factual issue. But over and
above this consideration, I respectfully submit that this
constitutional provision does not confer on third parties any right of
a preferred status comparable to the Bill of Rights whose dilution
will justify petitioners to vindicate them in behalf of its rightholders.
The legal right of hypothetical third parties they profess to advocate
is to my mind too impersonal, too unsubstantial, too indirect, too
amorphous to justify their access to this Court and the further
lowering of the constitutional barrier of locus standi.
Again, with regret, I do not agree that the distinguished status of
some of the petitioners as lawmakers give them the appropriate
locus standi. I cannot perceive how their constitutional rights and
prerogatives as legislators can be adversely affected by the contract
in question. Their right to enact laws for the general15
conduct of our
society remains unimpaired and undiminished. Their status as
legislators, notwithstanding, they have to demonstrate that the said
contract has caused them to suffer a personal, direct, and substantial

injury in fact. They cannot simply advance a generic grievance in
common with the people in general. 16
I am not unaware of our ruling in De Guia v. Comelec, viz:
“Before addressing the crux of the controversy, the Court observes that
petitioner does not allege that he is running for reelection, much less, that he
is prejudiced by the election, by district, in Parañaque. As such, he does not
appear to have locus standi, a standing in law, a personal or substantial
interest. (Sanidad vs. COMELEC, G.R. No. L-44640, October 12, 1976, 73
SCRA 333; Municipality of Malabang vs. Benito, G.R. No. L-28113, March
28, 1969, 27 SCRA 533). He does not also allege any legal right that has
been violated by respondent. If for this alone, petitioner does not appear to
have any cause of action.
However, considering the importance of the issue involved, concerning
as it does the political exercise of qualified voters affected by
_______________
15 Compare Coleman v. Miller, 307 US 433 [1939]; Mitchell v. Laird, 488 F2d 611 CD.C.
Cir. 1973); Kennedy v. Sampson, 511 F2d 430 CD.C. Cir. 1974).
16 G.R. No. 104712, May 6, 1992, 208 SCRA 420.
177
VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 177

the apportionment, and petitioner alleging abuse of discretion and violation

of the Constitution by respondent, We resolved to brush aside the question
of procedural infirmity, even as We perceive the petition to be one of
declaratory relief. We so held similarly through Mr. Justice Edgardo L.
Paras in Osmeña vs. Commission on Elections.”
It is my respectful submission, however, that we should reexamine

de Guia. It treated the rule on locus standi as a mere procedural rule.
It is not a plain procedural rule but a constitutional requirement
derived from section 1, Article VIII of the Constitution which
mandates courts of justice to settle only “actual controversies
involving rights which are legally demandable and enforceable.”
The phrase has been construed since time immemorial to mean that
a party in a constitutional litigation must demonstrate a standing to
sue. By downgrading the requirement on locus standi as a
procedural rule which can be discarded in the name of public
interest, we are in effect amending the Constitution by judicial fiat.
De Guia would also brush aside the rule on locus standi if a case
raises an important issue. In this regard, I join the learned
observation of Mr. Justice Feliciano: “that it is not enough for the
Court simply to invoke ‘public interest’ or even ‘paramount
considerations of national interest,’ and to say that the specific
requirements of such public interest can only be ascertained on a
‘case to case’ basis. For one thing, such an approach is not
intellectually satisfying. For another, such an answer appears to

come too close to saying that locus standi exists whenever at least a
majority of the Members of this Court participating in a case feel
that an appropriate case for judicial intervention has arisen.”
I also submit that de Guia failed to perceive that the rule on locus
standi has little to do with the issue posed in a case, 17however,
important it may be. As well pointed out in Flast v. Cohen:
“The fundamental aspect of standing is that it focuses on the party seeking

to get his complaint before a federal court and not on the issues he wishes to
have adjudicated. The ‘gist of the question of
_______________
17 392 U.S. 83, 88 S. Ct. 1942, 20 L ed. 2d 947 [1968].
178

standing’ is whether the party seeking relief has ‘alleged such a personal
stake in the outcome of the controversy as to assure that concrete
adverseness which sharpens the presentation of issues upon which the court
so largely depends for illumination of difficult constitutional questions.’
Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 204 (1962). In other words, when standing is
placed in issue in a case, the question is whether the person whose standing
is challenged is a proper party to request an adjudication of a particular issue
and not whether the issue itself is justiciable. Thus, a party may have
standing in a particular case, but the federal court may nevertheless decline
to pass on the merits of the case because, for example, it presents a political
question. A proper party is demanded so that federal courts will not be
asked to decide ‘ill-defined controversies over constitutional issues,’ United
public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U.S. 75, 90 (1947), or a case which is of ‘a
hypothetical or abstract character,’ Aetna Life Insurance Co. v. Haworth,
300 U.S. 227, 240 (1937).”
It is plain to see that in de Guia, the court took an unorthodox

posture, to say the least. It held there was no proper party before it,
and yet it resolved the issues posed by the petition. As there was no
proper party before the court, its decision is vulnerable to be
criticized as an advisory opinion.
With due respect, the majority decision appears to have set a
dangerous precedent by unduly trivializing the rule on locus standi.
By its decision, the majority has entertained a public action to annul
a private contract. In so doing, the majority may have given sixty
(60) million Filipinos the standing to assail contracts of government
and its agencies. This is an invitation for chaos to visit our law on
contract, and certainly will not sit well with prospective foreign
investors. Indeed, it is difficult to tread the path of the majority on
this significant issue. The majority granted locus standi to
petitioners because of lack of any other party with more direct and
specific interest. But one has standing because he has standing on

his own and standing cannot be acquired because others with
standing have refused to come to court. The thesis is also floated
that petitioners have standing as they can be considered taxpayers
with right to file derivative suit like a stockholder’s derivative suit in
private corporations. The fact, however, is that PCSO is not a private
but a quasi-public corporation. Our law on private corporation
categorically sanctions stockholder’s derivative suit. In contrast, our
law on public corporation does not recognize this so-called
taxpayer’s deriva-
179
VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 179

tive suit. Hence, the idea of a taxpayer’s derivative suit, while

alluring, has no legal warrant.
Our brethren in the majority have also taken the unprecedented
step of striking down a contract at the importunings of strangers
thereto, but without justifying the interposition of judicial power on
any felt need to prevent violation of an important constitutional
provision. The contract in question was voided on the sole ground
that it violated an ordinary statute, section 1 of R.A. 1169, as
amended by B.P. Blg. 42. If there is no provision of the Constitution
that is involved in the case at bench, it boggles the mind how the
majority can invoke considerations of national interest to justify its
abandonment of the rule on locus standi. The volume of noise
created by the case cannot magically convert it to a case of
paramount national importance. By its ruling, the majority has
pushed the Court in unchartered water bereft of any compass, and it
may have foisted the false hope that it is the repository of all
remedies.
If I pay an unwavering reverence to the rule of locus standi, it is
because I consider it as a touchstone in maintaining the proper
balance of power among the three branches of our government. The
survival of our democracy rests in a large measure on our ability to
maintain this delicate equipoise of powers. For this reason, I look at
judicial review from a distinct prism. I see it both as a power and a
duty. It is a power because it enables the judiciary to check excesses
of the Executive and the Legislative. But, it is also a duty because its
requirement of locus standi, among others, keeps the judiciary from
overreaching the powers of the other branches of government. By
balancing this duality, we are able to breathe life to the principle of
separation of powers and prevent tyranny. To be sure, it is our
eternal concern to prevent tyranny but that includes tyranny by
ourselves. The Constitution did not install a government by the
judiciary, nay, not a government by the unelected. In offering this
submission, I reject the subliminal fear that an unyielding insistence
on the rule on locus standi will weaken the judiciary vis-a-vis the
other branches of government. The hindsight of history ought to tell
us that it is not power per se that strengthens. Power unused is

preferable than power misused. We contribute to constitutionalism
both by the use of our power to decide and its non use. As well said,
the cases we decide are as significant as the cases we do not
180

decide. Real power belongs to him who has power over power.
IN VIEW WHEREOF, and strictly on the ground of lack of locus
standi on the part of petitioners, I vote to DENY the petition.
SEPARATE OPINION
VITUG, J.:
Judicial power encompasses both an authority and duty to resolve

“actual controversies involving rights which are legally demandable
and enforceable” (Article VIII, Section1 1, 1987 Constitution). As
early as the case of Lamb vs. Phipps, this Court ruled: “Judicial
power, in its nature, is the power to hear and decide causes pending
between2 parties who have the right to sue in the courts of law and
equity.” An essential part of, and corollary to, this principle is the
locus standi of a party litigant, referring to one who is directly
affected by, and whose interest is immediate and substantial in, the
controversy. The rule requires that a party must show a personal
stake in the outcome of the case or an injury to himself that can be
redressed by a favorable decision so as to warrant his invocation of
the court’s jurisdiction and to3 justify the exercise of the court’s
remedial powers in his behalf. If it were otherwise, the exercise of
that power can easily become too unwieldy by its sheer magnitude
and scope to a point that may, in no small degree, adversely affect its
intended essentiality, stability and consequentiality.
Locus standi, nevertheless, admits of the so-called “taxpayer’s
suit.” Taxpayer’s suits are actions or proceedings initiated by one or
more taxpayers in their own behalf or, conjunctively, in
representation of others similarly situated for the purpose of
_______________
1 22 Phil. 456, 559.

2 See also Lopez vs. Roxas, 17 SCRA 761.
3 Warth vs. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 498-499, 45 L.Ed. 2d 343, 95 S. Ct. 2197
(1975); Guzman vs. Marrero, 180 U.S. 81, 45 L.Ed. 436, 21 S.Ct. 293 (1901);
McMicken vs. United States, 97 U.S. 204, 24 L.Ed. 947 (1978); Silver Star Citizens’
Committee vs. Orlando Fla. 194 So. 2d 681 (1967); In Re Kenison’s Guardianship, 72
S.D. 180, 31 N.W. 2d 326 (1948).
181
VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 181

declaring illegal or unauthorized certain acts of public officials

which are claimed to be injurious to their common interests as such
taxpayers (Cf. 71 Am Jur 2d., 179-180). The principle is predicated
upon the theory that taxpayers are, in equity, the cestui que trust of
tax funds, and any illegal diminution thereof by public officials
constitutes a breach of trust even as it may result in an increased
burden on taxpayers (Haddock vs. Board of Public Education, 86
A2d 157; Henderson vs. McCormick, 17 ALR 2d 470).
Justice Brandeis of the United States Supreme Court, in his
concurring opinion in Ashwander vs. Tennessee Valley Authority
(297 U.S. 288), said:
“x x x. The Court will not pass upon the validity of a statute upon complaint
of one who fails to show that he is injured by its operation. Tyler v. The
Judges, 179 U.S. 405; Hendrick v. Maryland, 234 U.S. 610, 621. Among the
many applications of this rule, none is more striking than the denial of the
right of challenge to one who lacks a personal or property right. Thus, the
challenge by a public official interested only in the performance of his
official duty will not be entertained. Columbus & Greenville Ry. v. Miller,
283 U.S. 96, 99-100. In Fairchild v. Hughes, 258 U.S. 126, the Court
affirmed the dismissal of a suit brought by a citizen who sought to have the
Nineteenth Amendment declared unconstitutional. In Massachusetts v.
Mellon, 262 U.S. 447, the challenge of the federal Maternity Act was not
entertained although made by the Commonwealth on behalf of all its
citizens.”
Justice Brandeis’ view, shared by Justice Frankfurter in Joint Anti-

Fascist Refugee Commission vs. McGrath (351 U.S. 123), was
adopted by the U.S. Supreme Court in Flast vs. Cohen (392 U.S. 83)
which held that it is only when a litigant is able to show such a
personal stake in the controversy as to assure a concrete adverseness
in the issues submitted that legal standing can attach.
A “taxpayer’s suit,” enough to confer locus standi to a party, we
have held before, is understood to be a case where the act
complained of directly involves
4
the illegal disbursement of public
funds derived from taxation. It is not enough that the dispute
________________
4 See Pascual v. Secretary of Public Works, 110 Phil. 331; Maceda v. Macaraig,
197 SCRA 771; Lozada v. COMELEC, 120 SCRA 337;
182

concerns public funds. A contrary rule could easily lead to a

limitless application of the term “taxpayer’s suit,” already by itself a
broad concept, since a questioned act of government would almost
so invariably entail, as a practical matter, a financial burden of some
kind.
To be sure, serious doubts have even been raised on the propriety
and feasibility of unqualifiedly recognizing the ‘taxpayer’s suit” as
an exception from the standard rule of requiring a party who invokes
the exercise of judicial power to have a real and personal interest or
a direct injury in the outcome of a controversy. This Court has
heretofore spoken on the matter, at times even venturing beyond the
usual understanding of its applicability in the name of national or
public interest. It is remarkable, nevertheless, that the accepted
connotation of locus standi has still managed to be the rule,
sanctioning, by way of exception, the so-called “taxpayer’s suit”
which courts accept on valid and compelling reasons.
A provision which has been introduced by the 1987 Constitution
is a definition, for the first time in our fundamental law, of the term
“judicial power,” as such authority and duty of courts of justice “to
settle actual controversies involving right 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” (Article VIII, Section 1, Constitution). I take it that the
provision has not been intended to unduly mutate, let alone to
disregard, the long established rules on locus standi. Neither has it
been meant, I most respectfully submit, to do away with the
principle of separation of powers and its essential incidents such as
by, in effect, conferring omnipotence on, or allowing an intrusion by,
the courts in respect to purely political decisions, the exercise of
which is explicitly vested elsewhere, and subordinate, to that of their
own, the will of either the Legislative Department or the Executive
Department—both co-equal, independent and coordinate branches,
along with the Judiciary, in our system of government. Again, if it
were other-
_______________
Dumlao vs. COMELEC, 95 SCRA 392; Gonzales v. Marcos, 65 SCRA 624.
183
VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 183

wise, there indeed would be truth to the charge, in the words of some
constitutionalists, that “judicial tyranny” has been institutionalized
by the 1987 Constitution, an apprehension which should, I submit,
rather be held far from truth and reality.
In sum, while any act of government, be it executive in nature or
legislative in character, may be struck down and declared a nullity
either because it contravenes an express provision of the

Constitution or because it is perceived and found to be attended by
or the result of grave abuse of discretion, amounting to lack or
excess of jurisdiction, that issue, however, must first be raised in a
proper judicial controversy. The Court’s authority to look into and
grant relief in such cases would necessitate locus standi on the part
of party litigants. This requirement, in my considered view, is not
merely procedural or technical but goes into the essence of
jurisdiction and the competence of courts to take cognizance of
justiciable disputes.
In 5Bugnay Construction and Development Corporation vs.
Laron, this Court ruled:
“x x x. Considering the importance to the public of a suit assailing the

constitutionality of a tax law, and in keeping with the Court’s duty, specially
explicated in the 1987 Constitution, to determine whether or not the other
branches of the Government have kept themselves within the limits of the
Constitution and the laws and that they have not abused the discretion given
to them, the Supreme Court may brush aside technicalities of procedure and
take cognizance of the suit. (Citing Kapatiran vs. Tan, G.R. No. 81311, June
30, 1988.)
“However, for the above rule to apply, it is exigent that the taxpayer-
plaintiff sufficiently show that he would be benefited or injured by the
judgment or entitled to the avails of the suit as a real party in interest.
(Citing Estate of George Litton vs. Mendoza, G.R. No. 49120, June 30,
1988.) Before he can invoke the power of judicial review, he must
specifically prove that he has sufficient interest in preventing the illegal
expenditure of money raised by taxation (citing 11 Am. Jur. 761; Dumlao, et
al. vs. Commission on Elections, 95 SCRA 392) and that he will sustain a
direct injury as a result of the enforcement of the questioned statute or
contract. (Citing Sanidad, et al. vs. Commission on Elections, et al., 73
SCRA 333.) It is not sufficient that he has merely a general interest common
to all members of the public.
_______________
5 176 SCRA 240, 251.
184

(Citing Ex Parte Levitt, 302 U.S. 633, cited in 15 SCRA 497, Annotation.)
As so well pointed out by Mr. Justice Camilo D. Quiason during the

Court’s deliberations, “due respect and proper regard for the rule on
locus standi would preclude the rendition of advisory opinions and
other forms of pronouncement on abstract issues, avoid an undue
interference on matters which are not justiciable in nature and spare
the Court from getting itself involved in political imbroglio.”
The words of Senate President Edgardo J. Angara, carry wisdom;

we quote:
“The powers of the political branches of our government over economic

policies is rather clear: the Congress is to set in broad but definite strokes
the legal framework and structures for economic development, while the
Executive provides the implementing details for realizing the economic ends
identified by Congress and executes the same.
“x x x x x x x x x.
“If each economic decision made by the political branches of
government, particularly by the executive, are fully open to re-examination
by the judicial branch, then very little, if any, reliance can be placed by
private economic actors on those decisions. Investors would always have to
factor in possible costs arising from judicially-determined changes affecting
their immediate business, notwithstanding assurances by executive
authorities.
“Judicial decisions are, in addition, inflexible and can never substitute
for sound decision-making at the level of those who are assigned to execute
the laws of the land. Since judicial power cannot be exercised unless an
actual controversy is brought before the courts for resolution, decisions
cannot be properly modified unless another appropriate controversy arises.”
(Sen. Edgardo J. Angara, ‘The Supreme Court in Economic Policy Making,’
Policy Review—A Quarterly Journal of Policy Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1,
January-March 1994, published by the Senate Policy Studies Group, pp. 2-
3.)
A further set-back in entertaining the petition is that it unfortunately

likewise strikes at factual issues. The allegations to the effect that
irregularities have been committed in the processing and evaluation
of the bids to favor respondent PGMC; that the Malacañang Special
Review Committee did not verify warran-
185
VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 185

ties embodied in the contract; that the operation of

telecommunication facilities is indispensable in the operation of the
lottery system; the involvement of multi-national corporations in the
operation of the on-line “hi-tech” lottery system, and the like,
require the submission of evidence. This Court is not a trier of facts,
and it cannot, at this time, resolve the above issues. Just recently, the
Court has noted petitioners’ manifestation of its petition with the
Securities and Exchange Commission “For the nullification of the
General Information Sheets of PGMC” in respect particularly to the
nationality holdings in the corporation. The doctrine of primary
jurisdiction would not justify a disregard of the jurisdiction of, nor
would it permit us to now preempt, said Commission on the matter.
Petitioners strongly assert, in an attempt to get the Court’s
concurrence in accepting the petition, that since lottery is a game of
chance, the “lotto” system would itself be a “crime against morals”
6
6
defined by Articles 195-199 of the Revised Penal Code. Being
immoral and a criminal offense under the Revised Penal Code,
petitioners contend, any special law authorizing gambling must, by
all canons of statutory constructions, be interpreted strictly against
the grantee. Citing previous decisions of this
7
Court, they maintain
that lottery is gambling, pure and simple, and that this Court has
consistently condemned the immorality and illegality of8 gambling to
be a “national offense and not a minor transgression;” “that it is a
social scourge which must be
________________
6 The provisions of Arts. 195-199 of the Revised Penal Code (Forms of Gambling
and Betting), Republic Act No. 3063 (Horse Racing Bookies), Presidential Decree
No. 483 (Penalizing Betting, Game-fixing or Pointshaving and Machinations in
Sports Contests); No. 449, as amended (Cockfighting Law of 1974); No. 510 (Slot
Machines) in relation to Opinion Nos. 33 and 97 of the Ministry of Justice; No. 1306
(Jai-Alai Bookies) have been repealed by Presidential Decree No. 1602, otherwise
known as the New Gambling Law (Prescribing Stiffer Penalties on Illegal Gambling).
Subsequently, Letter of Instruction No. 816 was issued which excluded certain
prohibited games under Presidential Decree No. 1602.
7 U.S. v. Filart, 30 Phil. 80, 83 (1915); U.S. v. Baguio, 39 Phil. 962, 966.
8 Ly Hong v. Republic, 109 Phil. 635.
186

9
stamped out;” and, “that it is pernicious 10
to the body politic and
detrimental to the nation and its citizens.”
I most certainly will not renounce this Court’s above concerns.
Nevertheless, the Court must recognize the limitations of its own
authority. Courts neither legislate nor ignore legal mandates.
Republic Act No. 1169, as amended, explicitly gives public
respondent PCSO the authority and power “to hold and conduct
sweepstakes races, lotteries, and other similar activities.” In
addition, it is authorized:
“c. To undertake any other activity that will enhance its funds generation,
operations and funds management capabilities, subject to the same
limitations provided for in the preceding paragraph.
“It shall have a Board of Directors, hereinafter designated the Board,
composed of five members who shall be appointed, and whose
compensation and term of office shall be fixed, by the President.
“x x x x x x x x x
“Section 9. Powers and functions of the Board of Directors.—The Board
of Directors of the Office shall have the following powers and functions.
“(a) To adopt or amend such rules and regulations to implement the
provisions of this Act.
“x x x x x x x x x.
“(d) To promulgate rules and regulations for the operation of the Office
and to do such act or acts as may be necessary for the attainment of its
purposes and objectives.” (Italics supplied).
11
In People vs. Dionisio, cited by the petitioners themselves, we
remarked: “What evils should be corrected as pernicious to the body
politic, and how correction should be done, is a matter primarily
addressed to the discretion of the legislative
12
department, not of the
courts x x x.” In Valmonte vs. PCSO, we also said:
_______________
9 People v. De Gorostiza, et al., 77 Phil. 88.

10 People v. Dionisio, 22 SCRA 129.
11 22 SCRA 1299, 1302.
12 G.R. No. 78716 and G.R. No. 79084, En Banc Resolution, 22 September 1987.
187
VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 187

“The Court, as held in several cases, does not pass upon questions of
wisdom, justice or expediency of legislation and executive acts. It is not the
province of the courts to supervise legislation or executive orders as to keep
them within the bounds of propriety, moral values and common sense. That
is primarily and even exclusively a concern of the political departments of
the government; otherwise, there will be a violation of the principle of
separation of powers.”
The constraints on judicial power are clear. I feel, the Court must
thus beg off, albeit not without reluctance, from giving due course to
the instant petition.
Accordingly, I vote for the dismissal of the petition.
KAPUNAN, J., dissenting:
I regret that I am unable to join my colleagues in the majority in

spite of my own personal distaste for gambling and other gaming
operations. Such considerations aside, I feel there are compelling
reasons why the instant petition should be dismissed. I shall
forthwith state the reasons why.
Petitioners anchor their principal objections against the contract
entered into between the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office
(PCSO) and the PGMC on the ground that the contract entered into
by the PCSO with the PGMC violates the PCSO Charter (R.A. No.
1169 as amended by B.P. Blg. 427, specifically section 1 thereof
which bars the said body from holding conducting lotteries “in
collaboration, association or joint venture with any person
association, company or entity.”). However, a perusal of the petition
reveals that the compelling reasons behind it, while based on
apparently legal questions involving the contract between the PCSO
and the PGMC, are prompted by the petitioners’ moral objections

against the whole idea of gambling operations operated by the
government through the PCSO. The whole point of the petition, in
essence, is a fight between good and evil, between the morality or
amorality of lottery operations conducted on a wide scale involving
millions of individuals and affecting millions of lives. Their media
of opposition are the above stated defects in the said contract which
they assail to be fatally defective. They come to this Court, as
taxpayers and civic spirited citizens, asserting a right of standing on
a transcendental issue which they assert to be of paramount public
interest.
188

Moral or legal questions

1
aside, I believe that there are unfortunately
certain standards that have to be followed in the exercise of this
Court’s awesome power of review before this Court could even
begin to assay the validity of the contract between the PCSO and the
PGMC. This, in spite of the apparent expansion of judicial power
granted by Section 1 of Article VIII of the 1987 Constitution. It is
fundamental that such standards be complied with before this Court
could even begin to explore the substantive issues raised by any
controversy brought before it, for no issue brought before this court
could possibly be so fundamental and paramount as to warrant a
relaxation of the requisite rules for judicial review developed by
settled jurisprudence inorder to avoid entangling this court in
controversies which properly belong to the legislative or executive
branches of our government. The potential harm to our system of
government, premised on the concept of separation of powers, by
the Court eager to exercise its powers and prerogatives at every turn,
cannot be gainsaid. The Constitution does not mandate this Court to
wield the power of judicial review with excessive vigor and alacrity
in every area or at every turn, except in appropriate cases and
controversies which meet established requirements for constitutional
adjudication. Article VIII Sec. 1 of the Constitution notwithstanding,
there are questions which I believe are still beyond the pale of
judicial power. Moreover, it is my considered opinion that the instant
petition does not meet the requirements set by this court for a valid
exercise of judicial review.
Our Constitution expressly defines judicial power as including
“the duty to settle actual cases and 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 a lack or excess of jurisdiction2 on the part of any branch or
instrumentality of the government.” This constitutional requirement
for an actual case and controversy limits this Court’s power of
review to precisely those suits between adver-
_______________
1 People v. Vera, 65 Phil. 56 (1937).

2 JACKSON, The Supreme Court in the American System of Government in
McKay, An American Constitutional Law Reader 30 (1958).
189
VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 189

sary litigants with real interests at stake thus preventing it from

making all sorts of hypothetical pronouncements on abstract,
contingent and amorphous issues. The Court will therefore not pass
upon the validity of an act of government or a statute 3passed by a
legislative body without a requisite showing of injury. A personal
stake is essential, which absence renders our pronouncements
gratuitous and certainly violative of the constitutional requirement
for actual cases and controversies.
The requirement for standing based on personal injury may of
course be bypassed, as the petitioners in this case attempt to do, by
considering the case as a “taxpayer suit” which would thereby clothe
them with the personality they would lack under ordinary
circumstances. However, the act assailed by the petitioners on the
whole involves the generation rather than disbursement of public
funds. 4In a line of cases starting from Pascual v. Secretary of Public
Works “taxpayer suits” have been understood to refer only to those
cases where the act or statute assailed involves the illegal or
unconstitutional disbursement of public funds derived from taxation.
The main premise behind the “taxpayer suit” is that the pecuniary
interest of the taxpayer is involved whenever there is an illegal or
wasteful use of public funds which grants them the right to question
the appropriation or disbursement
5
on the basis of their contribution
to government funds. Since it has not been alleged that an illegal
appropriation or disbursement of a fund derived from taxation would
be made in the instant case, I fail to see how the petitioners in this
case would be able to satisfy the locus standi requirement on the
basis of a “taxpayer’s suit”. This alone should inhibit this Court
from proceeding with the case at bench. The interest alleged and the
potential injury asserted are far too general and hypothetical for us
to rush into a judicial determination of what to me appears to be
judgment better left to executive branch of our government.
________________
3 Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 US 288, at 346-348 (1936).

4 110 Phil. 331 (1960). See also Lozada v. COMELEC, 120 SCRA 337 (1983);
Dumlao v. COMELEC, 95 SCRA 392 (1980); Maceda v. Macaraig, 197 SCRA 771,
(1991).
5 Appeal of Sears, Roebuck and Co., 123 Ind., App.; 109 NE 2d., 620 (1952).
190

This brings me to one more important point: The idea that a norm of
constitutional adjudication could be lightly brushed aside on the
mere supposition that an issue before the Court is of paramount
public concern does great harm to a democratic system which
espouses a delicate balance between three separate but co-equal
branches of government. It is equally of paramount public concern,
certainly paramount to the survival of our democracy, that acts of
the other branches of government are accorded due respect by this
Court. Such acts, done within their sphere of competence, have been
—and should always be—accorded with a presumption of regularity.
When such acts are assailed as illegal or unconstitutional, the burden
falls upon those who assail these acts to prove that they satisfy the
essential norms of constitutional adjudication, because when we
finally proceed to declare an act of the executive or legislative
branch of our government unconstitutional or illegal, what we
actually accomplish is the thwarting of the will of the elected
representatives of
6
the people in the executive or legislative branches
of government. Notwithstanding Article VIII, Section 1 of the
Constitution, since the exercise of the power of judicial review by
this Court is inherently antidemocratic, this Court should exercise a
becoming modesty in acting as a revisor of an act of the executive or
legislative branch. The tendency of a frequent and easy resort to the
function of judicial review, particularly in areas of economic policy
has become lamentably too common as to dwarf the political
capacity of the people expressed through their representatives in the
policy making branches7
of government and to deaden their sense of
moral responsibility.
This court has been accused, of late, of an officious tendency to8
delve into areas better left to the political branches of government.
This tendency, if exercised by a court running
________________
6 See A. BICKEL, THE LEAST DANGEROUS BRANCH: THE SUPREME

COURT AT THE BAR OF POLITICS 16-17 (1962).
7 Id., citing J.B. Thayer, JOHN MARSHALL, 106-107 (1901).
8 See Romulo, The Supreme Court and Economic Policy: A Plea for Judicial
Abstinence, 67 Phil. L.J. 348-353 (1993). See also Fernandez, Judicial Overreaching
in Selected Supreme Court Decisions Affecting
191
VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 191

riot over the other co-equal branches of government, poses a greater

danger to our democratic system than the perceived danger—real or
imagined—of an executive branch espousing economic or social
policies of doubtful moral worth. Moreover economic policy

decisions in the current milieu-including the act challenged in the
instant case-involve complex factors requiring flexibility and a wide
range of discretion on the part of our economic managers which this
Court should respect because our power of review, under the
constitution, is a power to check, not to supplant those acts or
decisions of the elected representatives of the people.
Finally, the instant petition was brought to this Court on the
assumption that the issue at bench raises primarily constitutional
issues. As it has ultimately turned out, the core foundation of the
petitioners’ objections to the LOTTO operations was based on the
validity of the contract between the PCSO and the PGMC in the
light of Section 1 of R.A. 1169 as amended by B.P. Blg. 427. It
might have been much more appropriate for the issue to have taken
its normal course in the courts below.
I vote to deny the petition.
Petition granted; Challenged contract of lease declared contrary
to law and invalid.
——o0o——
________________
Economic Policy, 67 Phil. L.J. 332-347 (1993) and Castro & Pison, The Economic
Policy Determining Function of the Supreme Court in Times of National Crisis, 67
Phil. L.J. 354-411 (1993).
192
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10/21/2020 SUPREME COURT REPORTS ANNOTATED VOLUME 232

110 SUPREME COURT REPORTS ANNOTATED

KILOSBAYAN, INCORPORATED, JOVITO R. SALONGA,

13 MB Finance Corporation v. Abesamis, G.R. No. 93875, 22 March 1991, 195

VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 111

OFFICE; and PHILIPPINE GAMING MANAGEMENT

Remedial Law; Actions; Parties; A party’s standing before the court is

Same; Same; Same; Objections to taxpayers’ suits for lack of sufficient

Constitutional Law; Franchise; It is a settled rule that in all grants by

112 SUPREME COURT REPORTS ANNOTATED

Kilosbayan, Incorporated vs. Guingona, Jr.

Same; Same; Same; The challenged Contract of Lease violates or

the PGMC that it does not because in reality it is only an independent

Same; Same; Same; Same; The contract is not in reality a contract of

VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 113

Kilosbayan, Incorporated vs. Guingona, Jr.

contracting parties. Collaboration is defined as the acts of working together

CRUZ, J., Concurring Opinion:

Constitutional Law; Franchise; PGMC is plainly a partner of PCSO in

PADILLA, J., Separate Concurring Opinion:

Constitutional Law; Franchise; The contract of lease is a joint venture

114 SUPREME COURT REPORTS ANNOTATED

Kilosbayan, Incorporated vs. Guingona, Jr.

MELO, J., Dissenting Opinion:

Constitutional Law; Franchise; The contract of lease does not involve

Same; Same; By considering the present case as a taxpayer’s suit could

PUNO, J., Dissenting Opinion:

Constitutional Law; Franchise; Courts are neither free to decide all

VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 115

Kilosbayan, Incorporated vs. Guingona, Jr.

this provision no longer precludes the Court from resolving political

SPECIAL CIVIL ACTION for prohibition and injunction.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the Court.

Gamaliel G. Bongco, Oscar Karaan and Jedideoh Sincero for

DAVIDE, JR., J.:

This is a special civil action for prohibition and injunction, with a

116 SUPREME COURT REPORTS ANNOTATED

management services1 required for the project would be offered and

“1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1.2. PCSO is seeking a suitable contractor which shall build, at

1 PGMC’s Comment, 3-4; Rollo, 181-182.

VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 117

operate and maintain a nationwide on-line lottery system.

1.8. Upon expiration of the lease, the Facilities shall

2.2.2. Enable PCSO to operate a nationwide on-line Lottery

2.4. DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE LESSOR

118 SUPREME COURT REPORTS ANNOTATED

2.4.2. THE LESSOR

7. GENERAL GUIDELINES FOR PROPONENTS

responsible maintainer of the on-line lottery system, and

VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 119

sales offices, furnishings, and fixtures; printing costs; cost

Considering the above citizenship requirement, the PGMC claims

120 SUPREME COURT REPORTS ANNOTATED

vigorous opposition to 13 the on-line lottery on account of its

1.1 Rental Fee—Amount to be paid by PCSO to the LESSOR

VOL. 232, MAY 5, 1994 121

work, and furnishings and fixtures.

2. SUBJECT MATTER OF THE LEASE The LESSOR shall