The Supreme Court has dismissed the petition that challenged the constitutionality of the law that increases the penalties for owners of hospitals and clinics, and their physicians and personnel, who “request, solicit, demand, or accept deposit or advance payment as a prerequisite not only for confinement or medical treatment but also for administering basic emergency care.”
But the decision released last week and written by Associate Justice Noel Gimenez Tijam did not contain a definitive declaration of constitutionality of Republic Act No. 10932, known as the Anti-Hospital Deposit Law, that was signed into law by President Duterte on Aug. 3, 2017.
The SC merely said that RA 10932 “enjoys the presumption of constitutionality which the Court, at the first instance, cannot disturb in the absence of a prima facie showing of grave abuse of discretion and, upon delving into the merits, in the absence of a clearest showing that there was indeed an infraction of the Constitution.”
“If the Court were to invalidate the questioned law on the basis of conjectures and suppositions, then it would be unduly treading questions of policy and wisdom not only of the legislature that passed it, but also of the executive which approved it,” it explained.
With the ruling, the SC dismissed the petition filed by the Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines Inc. purely on technical grounds – lack of legal standing of the association to file the petition, no actual and justiciable issues presented, and failure to follow the doctrine of hierarchy of courts. (Rey G. Panaligan)
