Supreme Court junks petition challenging Bayanihan law

The Supreme Court (SC) has dismissed a petition questioning the constitutionality of the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act.

The court dismissed the petition as it failed to show grave abuse of discretion committed by Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, and the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases, the SC Public Information Office (PIO) said Wednesday.

Associate Justices Marvic Leonen and Samuel Gaerlan dissented. Associate Justice Alexander Gesmundo was the member-in-charge of the case, the SC PIO said.

A copy of the court's resolution was not made available on Wednesday afternoon.

Jaime Ibañez, the former law dean of the Laguna State Polytechnic University, alleged that the Bayanihan law was partly unconstitutional insofar as the imposition of the enhanced community quarantine.

He also asked the SC to annul two presidential proclamations declaring a state of calamity and a state of public health emergency in the Philippines, respectively, issuances declaring an ECQ and a modified ECQ over Metro Manila, and the IATF's guidelines on the implementation of community quarantines.

Filed in early June, his petition was the first known case challenging the Duterte administration's response to the COVID-19 crisis before the SC.

Ibañez claimed the Bayanihan law was unconstitutional for granting the president legislative authority to exercise power "other than what is necessary and proper to carry out the declared national policy."

He also claimed that the nationwide quarantine threatened Filipinos' rights.

"By and large, putting this country into community quarantine, poses a continuing threat to one's right to life (including right to work), to liberty and to property," he said in the petition.

Before the Bayanihan law expired on June 25, Malacañang said the distribution of cash aid and other forms of assistance would continue.

Another proposed law, the Bayanihan to Recover as One Act, was passed by the House Committee of the Whole on June 4. The bill proposes P162 billion worth of response interventions to help the country recover from the COVID-19 crisis.

The Senate, however, adjourned its first regular session without passing the proposed measure. —KBK, GMA News