specifying the circumstances when the right may be impaired in the interest of
national security or public safety. The power is in Congress, not the Executive.
5.
ID.; LIBERTY OF ABODE AND RIGHT TO TRAVEL; RIGHT TO TRAVEL INCLUDES
RIGHT TO TRAVEL OUT OF OR BACK TO THE PHILIPPINES. Section 6 of the Bill of Rights
states categorically that the liberty of abode and of changing the same within the limits
prescribed by law may be impaired only upon a lawful order of a court. Not by an executive
officer. Not even by the President. Section 6 further provides that the right to travel, and this
obviously includes the right to travel out of or back into the Philippines, cannot be impaired
except in the interest of national security, public safety, or public health, as may be provided
by law.
6.
ID.; POLITICAL QUESTION DOCTRINE NO LONGER UTILIZED BY THE COURT;
COURT COMPELLED TO DECIDE THE CASE UNDER THE 1987 CONSTITUTION. The framers
of the Constitution believed that the free use of the political question doctrine allowed the
Court during the Marcos years to fall back on prudence, institutional difficulties, complexity
of issues, momentousness of consequences or a fear that it was extravagantly extending
judicial power in the cases where it refused to examine and strike down an exercise of
authoritarian power. Parenthetically, at least two of the respondents and their counsel were
among the most vigorous critics of Mr. Marcos (the main petitioner) and his use of the
political question doctrine. The Constitution was accordingly amended. We are now
precluded by its mandate from refusing to invalidate a political use of power through a
convenient resort to the political question doctrine. We are compelled to decide what would
have been non-justiceable under our decisions interpreting earlier fundamental charters.
7.
ID.; LIBERTY OF ABODE AND RIGHT TO TRAVEL; DENIAL A GRAVE ABUSE OF
DISCRETION. We do not have to look into the factual bases of the ban Marcos policy in
order to ascertain whether or not the respondents acted with grave abuse of discretion. Nor
are we forced to fall back upon judicial notice of the implications of a Marcos return to his
home to buttress a conclusion. In the first place, there has never been a pronouncement by
the President that a clear and present danger to national security and public safety will arise
if Mr. Marcos and his family are allowed to return to the Philippines. It was only after the
present petition was filed that the alleged danger to national security and public safety
conveniently surfaced in the respondents' pleadings. Secondly, President Aquino herself
limits the reason for the ban Marcos policy to (1) national welfare and interest and (2) the
continuing need to preserve the gains achieved in terms of recovery and stability. Neither
ground satisfies the criteria of national security and public safety. The "confluence theory" of
the Solicitor General or what the majority calls "catalytic effect," which alone sustains the
claim of danger to national security is fraught with perilous implications. Any difficult
problem or any troublesome person can be substituted for the Marcos threat as the
catalysing factor. It was precisely the banning by Mr. Marcos of the right to travel by
Senators Benigno Aquino, Jr., Jovito Salonga, and scores of other "undesirables" and "threats
to national security" during that unfortunate period which led the framers of our present
Constitution not only to re-enact but to strengthen the declaration of this right.
DECISION
CORTES, J p:
Before the Court is a controversy of grave national importance. While
