Forbes v. Tiaco

W. CAMERON FORBES v. CHUOCO TIACO
G.R. No. L-6157, July 30, 1910

FACTS:

• April 1, 1910, the defendant Chuoco Tiaco filed a suit in the Court of First Instance of the city of Manila against the plaintiffs alleging that on the 19th of August, 1909, under the orders of the said W. Cameron Forbes, Governor-General of the Philippine Islands, he was deported therefrom and sent to Amoy, China, by the aforesaid J. E. Harding and C. R. Trowbridge, chiefs, as above stated, of the police and of the secret service, respectively, of the city of Manila, and that having been able to return to these Islands he feared, as it was threatened, that he should be again deported by the said defendants, concluding with a petition that a preliminary injunction should be issued against the plaintiffs in this case prohibiting them from deporting the defendant, Chuoco, and that they be sentenced to pay him P20,000 as an indemnity.
• Respondent argued that It is true that the said defendant Chuoco Tiaco, was, with 11 others or his nationality, expelled from these Islands and returned to China by the plaintiffs J. E. Harding and C. R. Trowbridge, under the orders of the plaintiff W. Cameron Forbes, but the said expulsion was carried out in the public interest of the Government and at the request of the proper representative of the Chinese Government in these Islands.
• The said complaint having been filed with the defendant A. S. Crossfield, he, granting the petition, issued against the plaintiffs the injunction requested, prohibiting them from deporting the defendant Chuoco Tiaco.
• The plaintiffs filed a demurrer against the same and presented a motion asking that the injunction be dissolved, the grounds of the demurrer being that the facts set out in the complaint did not constitute a motive of action, and that the latter was one in which the court lacked jurisdiction to issue such an injunction against the plaintiffs for the reasons set out in the complaint; notwithstanding which, the defendant A. S. Crossfield overruled the demurrer and disallowed the motion, leaving the complaint and the injunction standing.

ISSUE:

• Whether or not the courts can take jurisdiction in any case relating to the exercise of this inherent power in the deportation of aliens, for the purpose of controlling this power vested in the political department of the government.

HELD:

• Under the system of government established in the Philippine Islands the Governor-General is "the chief executive authority," one of the coordinate branches of the Government, each of which, within the sphere of its governmental powers, is independent of the others. Within these limits the legislative branch cannot control the judicial nor the judicial the legislative branch, nor either the executive department. In the exercise of his political duties the Governor-General is, by the laws in force in the Philippine Islands, invested with certain important governmental and political powers and duties belonging to the executive branch of the Government, the due performance of which is entrusted to his official honesty, judgment, and discretion. So far as these governmental or political or discretionary powers and duties which adhere and belong to the Chief Executive, as such, are concerned, it is universally agreed that the courts possess no power to supervise or control him in the manner or mode of their discharge or exercise.