Thursday, December 8, 2011

Through the office of the President, the Gazette’s print version was transformed into an e-publication. It contains matters of public interest, including newly-enacted laws and generally applicable executive and administrative orders. 


The Official Gazette was created by Commonwealth Act No. 638 (1941), and Section 1 of the Act provides for its contents:


There shall be published in the Official Gazette (1) all important legislative acts and resolutions of a public nature of the Congress of the Philippines; (2)all executive and administrative orders and proclamations, except such as have no general applicability; (3) decisions or abstracts of decisions of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals as may be deemed by said courts of sufficient importance to be so published;(4) such documents or classes of documents as may be required so to be published by law; and (5) such documents or classes of documents as the President of the Philippines shall determine from time to time to have general applicability and legal effect, or which he may authorize so to be published: Provided, That for the purpose of this section every order or document which shall prescribe a penalty shall be deemed to have general applicability and legal effect: And provided, further, That the term “document” as used in this section shall include any order, regulation, rule, certificate, license, notice, or similar instrument issued, prescribed, or promulgated by any executive department, bureau,office, commission, independent board, agency, or instrumentality of the administrative branch ofthe Government, but not the legislative or judicial branch of the Government. 


One interesting question will arise from this development. Originally, Article 2 of the Civil Code provided that “[l]aws shall take effect after fifteen days following the completion of their publication in the Official Gazette…”, a requirement which the Supreme Court reiterated in Tanada v. Tuvera (1986), Art. 2 of the Civil Code does not preclude the requirement of publication in the Official Gazette, even if the law itself provides for the date of its effectivity.  The clear object of this provision is to give the general public adequate notice of the various laws which are to regulate their actions and conduct as citizens.  Without such notice and publication, there would be no basis for the application of the maxim ignoratia legis nominem excusat.  It would be the height of injustive to punish or otherwise burden a citizen for the transgression of a law which he had no notice whatsoever, not even a constructive one.  However, in June 1987, President Cory Aquino, using her then extant law-making powers, amended Article 2 of the Civil Code (through E.O. No. 200) by now providing publication in a newspaper of general publication as an alternative to the Official Gazette. Since then, the general assumption has been that laws take effect within 15 days from the time they are published in the newspaper, rather than in the Official Gazette which traditionally takes some time to be printed. There is now the possibility though, with the new online presence of the Official Gazette, that the 15 day period might be counted from the time the laws or issuances are posted online at www.gov.ph.



The passage of a law amending either the Article 2 of the Civil Code or Commonwealth Act No. 638 could guarantee that date of the online publication of laws on the Official Gazette Online would count as the reckoning point for the 15-day period. However, in the absence of such an amendatory law, the doctrine pronounced in 2008 by the Supreme Court in Garcillano v. House of Representatives could preclude such a claim. In Garcillano, the Court debunked the claim that the publication in its website by the Senate of its rules of procedure for inquiries in aid of legislation satisfied the requirement under Section 21, Article VI of the Constitution that it conduct such inquiries “in accordance with its duly published rules of procedure”. The Court then even refuted the argument that the E-Commerce Act of 2000 validated such online publication. 


The invocation by the respondents of the provisions of R.A. No. 8792, otherwise known as the Electronic Commerce Act of 2000, to support their claim of valid publication through the internet is all the more incorrect. R.A. 8792 considers an electronic data message or an electronic document as the functional equivalent of a written document only for evidentiary purposes. In other words, the law merely recognizes the admissibility in evidence (for their being the original) of electronic data messages and/or electronic documents. It does not make the internet a medium for publishing laws, rules and regulations.


According to news, however, Quezon said that the print version of the Gazette still takes precedence over its electronic counterpart. “So the Official Gazette online is updated daily, then the weekly edition is printed,”.