How to interpret marks, words, qualifiers

An appropriate follow-up to last Monday’s column is: How do courts read and interpret the punctuation marks, words, phrases, and qualifiers in the Constitution and the laws? Again, the answer is not easy or simple.

THERE ARE 14 PUNCTUATION MARKS: period, question mark, exclamation point, comma, semicolon, colon, dash, hyphen, parentheses, brackets, braces, apostrophe, quotation marks, and ellipses. As a rule, punctuation marks are not reliable indicators of intent, but they can buttress interpretations.

The old but still useful case—Agcaoili v. Suguitan (Feb. 13, 1926), cited in professor Ricardo M. Pilares III’s “Statutory Construction: Concept and Cases”—explained in elegant language the difference between a semicolon and a comma, “… a semicolon is a mark of grammatical punctuation, in the English language, to indicate a separation in the relation of [a] thought, a degree greater than that expressed by a comma, and what follows the semicolon must have relation to the same subject matter which precedes it … [It] is never used for the purpose of introducing a new idea … The comma and the semicolon are both used for the same purpose, namely, to divide sentences and parts of sentences, the only difference being that the semicolon makes the division a little more pronounced than the comma. The punctuation used in the law may always be referred to for the purposes of ascertaining the true meaning of a doubtful statute…”

LET US NOW SEE HOW THE SUPREME COURT CONSTRUES SOME KEYWORDS. Romulo v. Home Development Mutual Fund (June 19, 2000) held that “the legal meaning of the word ‘and/or’ should be taken in its ordinary signification, i.e., ‘either and or;’ e.g., butter and/or eggs means butter and eggs, or butter or eggs … the intention of the legislature in using the term ‘and/or’ is that the word ‘and’ and the word ‘or’ are to be used interchangeably.”

As a rule, the word “shall” means that the requirement is mandatory, while the use of the word “may” means that the provision is permissive. Nonetheless, the Court sometimes construes the word “shall” as permissive depending on its context. For example, Marcelino v. Cruz (March 18, 1983) held that the provision in the 1973 Constitution stating in part that “the maximum period within which a case or matter shall be decided or resolved from the date of its submission shall be 18 months (24 months under the current 1987 Constitution) for the Supreme Court …” should be construed as merely permissive because the law on the periods for deciding cases is procedural in nature. Under Article VIII, Section 5 of the 1987 Constitution, the Supreme Court has the power to promulgate rules “concerning … procedure in all courts.”

The landmark case, La Bugal-B’laan v. Ramos (Dec. 14, 2004), ruled that the use of the word “involving” in the sentence “The President may enter into agreements with foreign-owned corporations involving either technical or financial assistance …” in Article XII, Section 2 of the 1987 Constitution, “implies that these agreements with foreign corporations are not limited to mere financial or technical assistance. The difference in sense becomes very apparent when we juxtapose ‘agreements for technical or financial assistance’ against ‘agreements including technical or financial assistance.’ This much is unalterably clear in a verba legis approach.” The Court said that the word “involving” should be understood in the sense of “including.”

THE QUALIFYING WORDS “RESTRICT OR MODIFY” refers only to the words or phrases to which they are immediately associated, and not to those distantly or remotely located. Thus, if an ordinance states that an environmental requirement does not apply to “motorbikes, cars, vans, and trucks under two tons,” the qualifier “under two tons” refers only to trucks and not to motorbikes, cars, and vans.

The Constitution states, “Cases or matters heard by a division shall be decided or resolved with the concurrence of a majority of the Members who actually took part in the deliberations on the issues in the case and voted thereon, and in no case without the concurrence of at least three of such Members. When the required number is not obtained, the case shall be decided en banc: Provided, that no doctrine or principle of law laid down by the Court in a decision rendered en banc or in division may be modified or reversed except by the Court sitting en banc.”

Hence, if a decision is rendered by a division, and thereafter, a motion for reconsideration is resolved by a 2-2 vote, the MR is deemed lost and will not be referred to the Court en banc. The Court held that “cases” are “decided” by at least three members of a division while “matters” are “resolved” by a “majority” of the division. Inasmuch as only two members voted for referral to the banc, the MR failed to obtain the required majority and is deemed lost. (Fortich v. Corona, Aug. 19, 1999)

To know the many more rules of construction, readers may want to take up law and join the fascinating world of lawyers. Who knows, they may reach the Supreme Court and help frame new rules of interpretation or modify existing ones.

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