The Supreme Court struck down an Executive Order expanding the coverage of regulation by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) to include review centers, entities in the business of preparing applicants for professional licensure examinations.

The Court En Banc, through a 23-page ponencia of Justice Antonio T. Carpio, declared EO 566 unconstitutional and invalid as it had expanded the coverage of CHED’s authority without authorizing legislation. Accordingly, the Court also found that the Revised Implementing Rules and Regulations (RIRR) corresponding to EO 566 was “an invalid exercise of CHED’s quasi-legislative power.”

In ruling in favor of the Review Center Association of the Philippines, the Court ruled that EO 566 is an unconstitutional exercise of legislative power by the President as it expands CHED’s regulatory coverage to include review centers, despite the fact that RA 7722, the law defining CHED’s authority, only limits such coverage to “public and private institutions of higher education and degree-granting programs in all post-secondary educational institutions.”

In this regard, the Court clarified that a “review center is not an institution of higher learning as contemplated by RA 7722…[i]t does not offer a degree-granting program that would put it under the jurisdiction of the CHED.” Moreover, “[a] review course is only intended to ‘refresh and enhance the knowledge or competencies and skills of reviewees,’” and it does not require enrollment, attendance, a grade or submission of a thesis in order to complete the review center course requirements or take the licensure examination.

Likewise, the Court struck down the RIRR as an invalid exercise of CHED’s quasi-legislative power, finding that “[t]he CHED may only exercise its rule-making power within the confines of its jurisdiction under RA 7722. The RIRR covers review centers and similar entities which are neither institutions of higher education nor institutions offering degree-granting programs.”

The Court also rejected the argument that the President was merely exercising her residual powers under EO 292 in expanding CHED’s regulatory coverage. Following prior jurisprudence, the Court stressed that the President has no inherent or delegated power to make, alter or repeal laws, absent an enabling legislation allowing her to do so. Thus, the President, in amending the functions of the CHED under RA 7722, without enabling laws granting her that authority, usurped the authority of the legislature.

In addition, the Court ruled that RA 8981, the Philippine Regulation Commission Modernization Act of 2000 (The PRC Modernization Act), did not give the President, through the PRC, powers to regulate review centers. Under RA 8981, the PRC must “ensure and safeguard the integrity of all licensure examinations” and adopt “measures to preserve the integrity and inviolability of licensure examinations.” The Court stated that “[t]hese powers of the PRC have nothing to do at all with the regulation of review centers.” (GR No. 180046, Review Center Association of the Philippines v. Ermita, April 2, 2009)