From a Domestic Law Perspective, the Executive Department has the exclusive prerogative to determine whether to espouse petitioners’ claims against Japan.

Baker v. Carr³⁹ remains the starting point for analysis under the political question doctrine. There the US Supreme Court explained that:

x x x Prominent on the surface of any case held to involve a political question is found a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department or a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards for resolving it, or the impossibility of deciding without an initial policy determination of a kind clearly for non-judicial discretion; or the impossibility of a court's undertaking independent resolution without expressing lack of the respect due coordinate branches of government; or an unusual need for unquestioning adherence to a political decision already made; or the potentiality of embarrassment from multifarious pronouncements by various departments on question.

In Tañada v. Cuenco,⁴⁰ we held that political questions refer "to those questions which, under the Constitution, are to be decided by the people in their sovereign capacity, or in regard to which full discretionary authority has been delegated to the legislative or executive branch of the government. It is concerned with issues dependent upon the wisdom, not legality of a particular measure."

G.R. No. 162230               April 28, 2010

ISABELITA C. VINUYA,
vs.
THE HONORABLE EXECUTIVE SECRETARY