A REQUIREMENT IN STATUTORY CONSTRUCTION

Submitted by: OLIVER P. CORPUZ Submitted to: JUDGE MIRA MINDA R. CABULISAN-CALLANGAN

JOVITA BUSTAMANTE-ALEJANDRO VS. ATTY. TOMAS ALEJANDRO and MARICRIS VILLARIN AC No. 4256. February 13, 2004

WARFREDO

I.

Brief Summary Atty. Warfredo Tomas Alejandro, is the husband of Jovita Bustamante-Alejandro; they were married on March 3, 1971 at Alicia, Isabela. Complainant alleged that respondent live with his mistress, respondent Atty. Ma. Cristina Arrieta Villarin; that respondents have since then been publicly representing themselves as husband and wife. Sufficient evidence showed that respondent Atty. Alejandro carried on an illicit relationship with corespondent Atty. Villarin. The complainant filed administrative complaint when she learned that her husband has been nominated as a regional trial court judge. She insists that he is not fit to be a judge considering that he, and co-respondent Atty. Villarin, do not even possess the basic integrity to remain as members of the Philippine Bar. In support of her charge of bigamy and concubinage against respondents Alejandro and Villarin, complainant submitted a photocopy of the Birth Certificate of one Paolo Villarin Alejandro. The said Birth Certificates states that the mother of said Paolo Villarin Alejandro is "Ma. Cristina Arrieta Villarin", while his father is one "Warfredo Tomas Alejandro". Said Birth Certificate also states that the parents of Paolo Villarin Alejandro were married on May 1, 1990 in Isabela Province. Thus, it is recommended that as prayed for by complainant, respondents Atty. Alejandro and Atty. Villarin be disbarred for willful violation of Rule 1.01 of the Code of Professional Responsibility. Atty. Alejandro was lawfully married to complainant. A lawyer who abandons his lawful wife and maintains an illicit relationship with another woman is disbarred from the practice of law. He is expected to be competent, honorable and reliable at all times since he who cannot apply and abide by the laws in his private affairs, can hardly be expected to do so in his professional dealings nor lead others in doing so. Professional honesty and honor are not to be expected as the accompaniment of dishonesty and dishonor in other relations. The administration of justice, in which the lawyer plays an important role being an officer of the court, demands a high degree of intellectual and moral competency on his part so that the courts and clients may rightly repose confidence in him.

II.

Discussions on the Concepts of Statutory Construction Every law student learns that the relationship of a legal text to the resolution of a particular case can be complex. What does the text mean? How does that meaning translate into legal doctrine? And how does the doctrine apply in the context of the facts of the case? We interpret the meaning of a text, and then we construct legal rules to help us apply the text to concrete fact situations. Courts and legal theorists use the distinction between interpretation and construction in a variety of legal contexts, including contract law and constitutional law. In a contracts case, for example, the Supreme Court stated, Interpretation involves ascertaining the meaning of contractual words; construction refers to deciding their legal effect. Is this interpretation-construction distinction really necessary? What work does it do? Does the distinction reflect a real and fundamental difference between different modes of legal practice? One way to think about these questions is to imagine what things would look like if we didn't have the interpretationconstruction distinction. What if we called everything

"interpretation" and didn't recognize construction as a distinct activity? Well, we could reinvent the distinction within the concept of interpretation. You can imagine talking about two stages of interpretation-stage one corresponding to the narrower idea of interpretation and stage two corresponding to construction. But if we did that, we would simply be using different labels to refer to the same concepts1. Interpretation resolves ambiguity, because it is usually the case that there is a linguistic fact of the matter about the semantic
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meaning of a text that is ambiguous. On the other hand, construction resolves vagueness, because interpretation cannot do that work. Sometimes courts run interpretation and construction together without any awareness of what they are doing. That is, the court may not realize that there is a difference between the inquiry into the linguistic meaning of a legal text and the creation or application of subsidiary rules that translate the semantic content into legal content. On the one hand, they may try to squeeze constructions out of linguistic facts. On the other hand, they may try to reach conclusions about the actual linguistic meaning of a text on the basis of policy considerations.2 The rules of statutory interpretation were analysed by Professor John Willis in his influential article "Statutory Interpretation in a Nutshell" (1938). He suggested that: a court invokes whichever of the rules produces a result that satisfies its sense of justice in the case before it. Although the literal rule is the one most frequently referred to in express terms, the courts treat all three as valid and refer to them as occasion demands, but, naturally enough, do not assign any reason for choosing one rather than another.3 Thus, on some occasions the literal rule would be preferred to the mischief rule: on others the reverse would be the case. It was impossible to predict with certainty which approach would be adopted in a particular case. Lawyers sometimes use meaning in a third sense, to refer to the implications that a legal text has for a particular case. "What does the Second Amendment mean for my client?"- this question is not
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about the semantic content or the purpose of the statute, it is about the way the statute will apply. But sometimes we use the word meaning in another sense. When we ask for the meaning of a statute, we can be asking why the statute was enacted? When someone says, "by passing that statute, Congress meant to benefit the construction industry," they are not referring to the semantic content of the statute, they are refering to the purpose or teleological meaning of the statue.4 In the case, (Alejandro vs. Alejandro and Villarin, AC No. 4256), Rule 1.01, Canon 1 of the Code of Professional Responsibility provides A lawyer shall not engage in unlawful, dishonest, immoral or deceitful conduct, was used by the Supreme Court in its ruling. Thus, it emphasizes the principle of statutory construction there is no need to construe when the law is clear. This is just one example of the interpretation-construction in action. It is relevant in a number of other doctrinal contexts, including contract law, trusts and wills, and the theory of statutory interpretation and construction. Court stated that statutes should receive a sensible construction, such as will give effect to the legislative intention and so as to avoid an unjust or an absurd conclusion.5 Where there is ambiguity, such interpretation as will avoid inconvenience and absurdity is to be adopted. Furthermore, courts must give effect to the general legislative intent that can be discovered from or is unraveled by the four corners of the statute,

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and in order to discover said intent, the whole statute, and not only a particular provision thereof, should be considered6. The law in theory and practice is almost always about the application of legal texts to particular cases. The distinction is subterranean, because of the failure of theorists, judges, and lawyers to observe the distinction, with resultant deception or confusion. With the distinction at hand, your own thinking about the law can become clearer and more transparent, and you possess a powerful tool for understanding or criticizing the work of others.

Agpalo, Statutory Construction, 2 Edition, 1990

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