G.R. NO.

205039
October 21, 2015
SPOUSES SANTIAGO VS TULFO

FACTS:

Spouses Rozelle Raymond Martin (Raymart) and Claudine Margaret Santiago

were in the airport awaiting for the arrival of their baggage but were informed
that it was offloaded and transferred to a different flight. While they were
lodging a complaint before the complaint desk, Raymart saw a man taking
photos of his wife. He then approached him and found out that it was Ramon
Mon Tulfo. The confrontation then, escalated to a brawl, which came to a
stop because of the interference of the airport security personnel.

Days after the incident, the brother of Mon Tulfo aired on their TV program
comments and expletives together with a threat that they will retaliate against
the Santiagos. Terrified by the gravity of the threats hurled, petitioners filed a
motion for the issuance of a writ of amparo against respondents.

ISSUE:

Whether or not the motion for the issuance of a writ of amparo should be
granted

HELD:

In our jurisdiction, the contextual genesis, at least, for the

present Amparo Rule has limited the remedy as a response to extrajudicial
killings and enforced disappearances, or threats thereof. "Extrajudicial
killings," according to case law, are generally characterized as "killings
committed without due process of law, i.e., without legal safeguards or judicial
proceedings,"27 while "enforced disappearances," according to Section 3 (g)
of Republic Act No. 9851,28 otherwise known as the "Philippine Act on Crimes
Against International Humanitarian Law, Genocide, and Other Crimes Against
Humanity," "means the arrest, detention, or abduction of persons by, or with
the authorization, support or acquiescence of, a State or a political
organization followed by a refusal to acknowledge that deprivation of freedom
or to give information on the fate or whereabouts of those persons, with the
intention of removing from the protection of the law for a prolonged period of
time." In Navia v. Pardico,29 the Court held that it must be shown and proved
by substantial evidence that the disappearance was carried out by, or with the
authorization, support or acquiescence of, the State or a political organization,
followed by a refusal to acknowledge the same or give information on the fate
or whereabouts of said missing persons, with the intention of removing them
from the protection of the law for a prolonged period of time. Simply put, the
petitioner in an amparo case has the burden of proving by substantial
evidence the indispensable element of government participation. 30 Notably,
the same requirement of government participation should also apply to
extralegal killings, considering that the writ of amparo was, according to then
Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno, who headed the Committee on the Revision
of the Rules of Court that drafted A.M. No. 07-9-12-SC, intended to
"hold public authorities, those who took their oath to defend the constitution
and enforce our laws, to a high standard of official conduct and hold them
accountable to our people. [In this light] [t]he sovereign Filipino people should
be assured that if their right[s] to life and liberty are threatened or violated,
they will find vindication in our courts of justice." 31 Stated differently, the writ
of amparo is an extraordinary remedy that is meant to balance out the
government's incredible power in order to curtail human rights abuses on its
end.

Consistent therewith, the delimitation of our current writ of amparo to

extralegal killings and/or enforced disappearances, or threats thereof, is
explicit from Section 1 of A.M. No. 07-9-12-SC, which reads:

Section 1. Petition. - The petition for a writ of amparo is a remedy available to

any person whose right to life, liberty and security is violated or threatened
with violation by an unlawful act or omission of a public official or employee, or
of a private individual or entity.

The writ shall cover extralegal killings and enforced disappearances or threats
thereof.

While the foregoing rule, as per Section 1 of A.M. No. 07-9-12-SC's first
paragraph, does state that the writ is a remedy to protect the right to life,
liberty, and security of the person desiring to avail of it, the same section's
second paragraph qualifies that the protection of such rights specifically
pertain to extralegal killings and enforced disappearances or threats thereof,
which are more concrete cases that involve protection to the rights to life,
liberty and security. The two paragraphs should indeed be read together in
order to construe the meaning of the provision. Clearly applicable is the
statutory construction rule that "clauses and phrases must not be taken as
detached and isolated expressions, but the whole and every part thereof must
be considered in fixing the meaning of any of its parts in order to produce a
harmonious whole. Every part of the statute [or, in this case, procedural rule]
must be interpreted with reference to the context, i.e., that every part of the
statute must be considered together with other parts of the statute and kept
subservient to the general intent of the whole enactment." 32

In this case, it is undisputed that petitioners' amparo petition before the RTC
does not allege any case of extrajudicial killing and/or enforced
disappearance, or any threats thereof, in the senses above-described. Their
petition is merely anchored on a broad invocation of respondents' purported
violation of their right to life and security, carried out by private individuals
without any showing of direct or indirect government participation. Thus, it is
apparent that their amparo petition falls outside the purview of A.M. No. 07-9-
12-SC and, perforce, must fail. Hence, the RTC, through Judge Singh,
properly exercised its discretion to motu proprio dismiss the same under this
principal determination, regardless of the filing of the May 23, 2012 Motion.
The court, indeed, has the discretion to determine whether or not it has the
authority to grant the relief in the first place. And when it is already apparent
that the petition falls beyond the purview of the rule, it has the duty to dismiss
the petition so as not to prejudice any of the parties through prolonged but
futile litigation.