G.R. No. L-17748 - People vs. Cabrera

Petitioners: Lorenzo M. Tañada, Abraham F. Sarmiento, and the Movement of Attorneys for Brotherhood, Integrity and Nationalism, Inc. (MABINI), invoking the people’s right to information under Section 6, Article IV of the 1973 Constitution and the requirement that laws must be published to be valid and enforceable.
Respondents: Executive officials tasked with the custody, publication, and printing of presidential issuances—Executive Assistant and Deputy Executive Assistant to the President, the Director of the Malacañang Records Office, and the Director of the Bureau of Printing.
Remedy sought: Mandamus to compel publication in the Official Gazette of numerous presidential issuances, including Presidential Decrees (PDs), Letters of Instructions (LOIs), General Orders (GOs), Proclamations, Executive Orders (EOs), Letters of Implementation (LOIs in the administrative sense), and Administrative Orders (AOs).

Enumerated categories and serial lists: Hundreds of PDs (e.g., PD Nos. 12, 22, 37, etc., through 1847), LOIs (e.g., LOI Nos. 10, 39, 49, etc.), GOs (e.g., Nos. 14, 52, 58–65), Proclamations (e.g., Nos. 1126, 1144, 1147, etc., through 2244), EOs (e.g., Nos. 411, 413, etc., through 857), Letters of Implementation (e.g., Nos. 7–22, 25–27, etc.), and AOs (e.g., Nos. 347–348, etc.).
Allegation: Many of these issuances were never published in the Official Gazette or otherwise effectively promulgated, yet purport to regulate public conduct, impose duties, or provide penalties.

Respondents (through the Solicitor General): Move to dismiss for lack of legal standing; assert petitioners are not “aggrieved parties” as required by Rule 65, Section 3, Rules of Court; argue publication is not indispensable if a law/issuance provides its own effectivity date under Article 2 of the Civil Code.
Petitioners: Contend standing exists because the case enforces a public right and a public duty; argue publication is a constitutional due process requisite and mandated by Commonwealth Act No. 638 for issuances of public nature or general applicability.

Clerk of Court’s report: Of the PDs listed, PD Nos. 1019–1030, 1278, and 1937–1939 were not published; their texts and subject matters could not be ascertained, and none had been implemented.
Penal regulation notice: In Pesigan v. Angeles, publication is necessary to bind affected parties to penal regulations; respondents acknowledge a policy of refraining from prosecutions under criminal laws until publication.

Article 2, Civil Code: Laws take effect after 15 days following completion of publication in the Official Gazette, unless otherwise provided.
Commonwealth Act No. 638, Section 1: Requires publication in the Official Gazette of important legislative acts of a public nature, and all executive and administrative orders and proclamations of general applicability, among others.
Right to information: Constitutionally protected under the 1973 Charter; implicated by non-publication of generally applicable issuances.

Whether petitioners, as private citizens and a public-interest organization, have standing to seek mandamus to enforce a public duty to publish generally applicable presidential issuances.
Whether publication is a sine qua non for the validity and effectivity of laws and presidential issuances even when such issuances specify their own effectivity dates.
Whether Commonwealth Act No. 638 mandates the publication in the Official Gazette of presidential issuances “of a public nature” or “of general applicability,” and whether respondents have discretion to exclude any such issuances.
Whether non-publication renders generally applicable presidential issuances without force and effect, and whether due process and the right to information require prior publication.
Whether the invalidity from non-publication should operate retroactively to nullify acts done in reliance on such issuances before their publication (i.e., application of the “operative fact” doctrine).
Whether the publication must specifically be in the Official Gazette for effectivity under the governing laws at the time.