GR 127685 Kapunan (Digest)
G.R. No. 127685, July 23, 1998
BLAS F. OPLE, petitioner, vs. RUBEN D. TORRES, ALEXANDER AGUIRRE, HECTOR VILLANUEVA, CIELITO HABITO, ROBERT BARBERS, CARMENCITA REODICA, CESAR SARINO, RENATO VALENCIA, TOMAS P. AFRICA, HEAD OF THE NATIONAL COMPUTER CENTER and CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMISSION ON AUDIT, respondents.
FACTS
Petitioner Blas F. Ople seeks to declare Administrative Order No. 308, issued by President Fidel V. Ramos on December 12, 1996, unconstitutional. A.O. No. 308, titled “Adoption of a National Computerized Identification Reference System,” aims to establish a decentralized identification system among key government service and social security providers to facilitate transactions and reduce fraud. It creates an Inter-Agency Coordinating Committee (IACC) to implement the system, with the National Computer Center as secretariat. The system would use a Population Reference Number (PRN) from the National Statistics Office as a common reference and employ biometrics technology. Petitioner argues that A.O. No. 308 constitutes an unconstitutional usurpation of legislative power, an illegal appropriation of public funds, and lays the groundwork for a system that could violate the Bill of Rights, particularly the right to privacy.
ISSUE
The primary issue is whether Administrative Order No. 308 is unconstitutional.
RULING
Justice Kapunan, in his dissenting opinion, votes to dismiss the petition and uphold the constitutionality of A.O. No. 308. He argues that: (1) The issuance of A.O. No. 308 is a valid exercise of the President’s quasi-legislative or administrative powers under the Administrative Code of 1987, as it relates to improving governmental operations and administrative efficiency. (2) The constitutional challenge is premature because the IACC has yet to issue the implementing guidelines. The Court cannot rule on potential abuses or hypothetical scenarios; it must wait for the specific rules to be promulgated. (3) The funding provision (Section 6) is not an illegal transfer of appropriations but a permissible pooling of resources from the budgets of the concerned agencies, which already fund their existing identification cards. Therefore, he finds no constitutional infirmity in A.O. No. 308.