SPOUSES ROZELLE RAYMOND MARTIN AND CLAUDINE MARGARET SANTIAGO, PETITIONERS, VS.
RAFFY TULFO, BEN TULFO, AND
ERWIN TULFO, RESPONDENTS.
Facts:
May 6 2012, petitioners arrived at NAIA from their vacation. They were informed that there was a
problem because their baggage was offloaded and transferred to a different flight. When they lodged a
complaint before the complaint desk, a man later identified as Ramon Tulfo was allegedly taking pictures of
them. Petititioners confronted Ramon, had a heated altercation, followed eventually by a brawl.
Days after the incident, respondents Raffy, Ben, and Erwin Tulfo (respondents), brothers of Mon, aired
on their TV program comments and expletives against petitioners, and threatened that they will retaliate.
Terrified by the gravity of the threats hurled, petitioners filed a petition for the issuance of a
writ of amparo against respondents on May 11, 2012 before the RTC.
Erwin Tulfo filed a Manifestation and Motion to Deny Issuance of Protection Order and/or Dismissal of
the Petition Motu Proprio which was opposed by petitioners for being a prohibited pleading.
Presiding Judge Bayani Vargas (JudgeVargas) issued a Resolution[10] granting a TPO in favor of
petitioners and directed respondents to file their return/answer.
Judge Vargas submitted the case for resolution but eventually retired on July 11, 2012. Consequently,
Judge Maria Filomena Singh (Judge Singh) was designated as the Acting Presiding Judge who assumed office and
handled the present case.
RTC, through Judge Singh, dismissed the petition: It held that the petition is not a proper subject of
a writ of amparo since the rules were intended to apply solely to cases of extralegal killings and enforced
disappearances, noting that the purpose of the law is to, among others, ascertain the whereabouts of an
aggrieved party, recover evidence related to the death or disappearance of the person identified in the
petition, and determine the facts surrounding the death or disappearance of a missing person.
Hence this petition: Petitioners argue that the issuance of a writ of amparo is not limited to cases
of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, or threats thereof. They submit that they need not undergo
the human rights abuses such as extrajudicial killings or enforced disappearances, as is common to landmark
decisions on military and police abuses, before their right to life, liberty, and security may be protected by
a writ of amparo.
Issue: WON petition is a proper subject of writ of amparo?
Held: NO.
Section 1 of A.M. No. 07-9-12-SC, reads:
Section 1. Petition. - The petition for a writ of amparo is a remedy available to any person whose right
to life, liberty and security is violated or threatened with violation by an unlawful act or omission of
a public official or employee, or of a private individual or entity.
The writ shall cover extralegal killings and enforced disappearances or threats thereof.
In the landmark case of Secretary of National Defense v. Manalo (Manalo) ,the Court has already
explained that the writ of amparo was intended to address and, thus, is presently confined to cases involving
extralegal killings and/or enforced disappearances, or threats thereof.
In our jurisdiction, the contextual genesis, at least, for the present Amparo Rule has limited the
remedy as a response to extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances, or threats thereof.
Extrajudicial Killings, according to case law, are generally characterized as "killings committed
without due process of law, i.e., without legal safeguards or judicial proceedings," while
Enforced Disappearances, means the arrest, detention, or abduction of persons by, or with the
authorization, support or acquiescence of, a State or a political organization followed by a refusal to
acknowledge that deprivation of freedom or to give information on the fate or whereabouts of those persons,
with the intention of removing from the protection of the law for a prolonged period of time."
In this case, it is undisputed that petitioners' amparo petition before the RTC does not allege any
case of extrajudicial killing and/or enforced disappearance, or any threats thereof, in the senses above-
described. Their petition is merely anchored on a broad invocation of respondents' purported violation of
their right to life and security, carried out by private individuals without any showing of direct or indirect
government participation. Thus, it is apparent that their amparo petition falls outside the purview of A.M. No.
07-9-12-SC and, perforce, must fail.
