MANILA – The Supreme Court en banc has dismissed a petition urging the government to conduct free mass testing for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
In a resolution made public on Wednesday, the high court junked the petition for mandamus filed by the Citizens Urgent Response to End COVID-19 (CURE COVID-19) led by its spokesperson, former Social Welfare secretary Judy Taguiwalo.
The SC justices said the dismissal of the petition for mandamus, with a 13-1-1 voting, was “for failure of petitioners to show that they are entitled to the issuance of a writ of mandamus.”
“This will only be the appropriate remedy where the law prescribes and defines the duty to be performed with such precision and certainty as to leave nothing to the exercise of discretion or judgment,” the SC en banc said.
“The job of the Court is to say what the law is, not dictate how another branch of government should do its job,” it added. “Without a demonstration that an official in the executive branch failed to perform a mandatory, nondiscretionary duty, courts have no authority to issue a writ of mandamus, no matter how dire the emergency.”
The SC justices furthered that the petitioners failed to exhaust other remedies as they could have gone to other government agencies such the Health, Interior and other departments, even the Office of the President.
Petitioners filed a special civil action for mandamus under Rule 65 to compel the government, through the Department of Health, and all agencies involved in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic, to conduct proactive mass testing, efficient contact tracing and isolation, and effective treatment of positive cases./PN
