Meaning of Public office and Public Officer

A Public office is the right, authority, and duty created and conferred by law by which, for a given period
either fixed by law or enduring at the pleasure of the appointing power, an individual is invested with
some portion of the sovereign functions of the government to be exercised by him for the benefit of the
public.

The individual so invested is a public officer.

Nature of public office

(1) A public office is a public trust. It is not to be understood as a position of honor, prestige and
power but a position of rendering service for the public good and not for private again.

(2) It is not a property. The holder of the office may not claim vested right in it which may not be
disturbed by legislation. Any office may be abolished by law unless the abolition undermines the security
of tenure of members of the judiciary.

(3) It is not a contract. Consequently, one has no right to sue the government for the recovery of
damages which he may suffer from his removal from office.

Meaning of officer and employee

(1) Employee. - when generally used in reference to persons in the public service, it includes any
person in the service of the government or any of its agencies, divisions, subdivisions or
instrumentalities. This definition includes officers defined in No. 2.

(2) Officer:

(a) As distinguished from clerk or employee- it refers to those officials whose duties not being of a
clerical or manual nature, involve the exercise of discretion in the performance of the functions of
government.

(b) When used with reference to a person with authority to do a particular act or perform a
particular function.- it includes any government employee, agent, or body having authority to do the act
or exercise the function in question in the exercise of government powers.

Public office, a public trust.

The above provision lays stress on the well-known dictum that public office is a public trust.

(1) Significance of a constitutional declaration. - Although this basic concept is already firmly rooted in
our system of government and is universally accepted in all democratic governments, a categorical
declaration thereof in the Constitution is deemed necessary as it will always serve as a reminder to
public officers of the "sacred character of their tasks" and a warning that violation thereof would be
nothing less than a sacrilege."

(2) Standards required of public servants.- Any government office is a trust for it is created for the sole
purpose of effecting the end for which the government has been instituted, which is the common good
and not for the profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men. A public official
or employee, therefore, occupies a very delicate position which exacts from him certain standards which
generally are not demanded from or requires of ordinary citizens.

(a) He is, in truth and not merely figuratively, the trustee or servant of the people, and as such, he
is enjoined to serve his office with the highest degree of "responsibility, integrity, loyalty, and efficiency,"
and at "all times be accountable to the people." Legality should not be the sole test of official conduct.
The act of a public official should not only be legal but moral as well. He should be a role model of
honesty, competence and high standard of morality worthy for emulation. To a public official who
regards public office as a public trust, poverty with honoris preferable to riches with dishonor.

(b) As a public servant, he must "act with patriotism" having in mind only the best interest of the
people he serves. His love for and devotion to country must be beyond question.

(c) In the performance of his duties and functions, and even in private life, he must "act with
justice" by giving every one his due. He must not practice the so-called "palakasan" system, whereby
favored parties are given undue advantage or preference on the basis of personal, political and other
extraneous considerations.

(d) In requiring public officers and employees to "lead modest lives," the Constitution seeks to
make them models of frugality and to put a stop one and for all to the scandalous spectacle in the past
when government officials, especially those occupying sensitive positions, practically flaunted their
opulence by indulging in thoughtless wastefulness and extravagance weel beyond their known means of
income in the midst of poverty and want of many of their contrymen.

(3) Conflict of interest to he avoided.- Nor is this all. Public interest demands not only that he keeps faith
with the trust reposed upon him, but also that, like Ceasar's wife, he should be above suspicion.
Accordingly, he should not place himself in a position where his loyalty to the people nay clash with his
loyalty to his own interest or those of his family or his associates.

(4) Prohibitions or disabilities on a certain officials.- It is precisely to guard the fiduciary nature of public
office that the Constitution places certain prohibitions in the case of the President, Vice-President,
members of the Cabinet and their deputies or assistants, members of Congress, the menbers of the
Constitutional Commissions , and the Ombudsman and his Deputies. Together, these prohibitions
constitute an implementation of the above principle that a public office is a public trust.

Accountability to the people

 Section 1 enunciates the principle of the public accountability. It sets down in unequivocal terms the
mandate that all government officials and employees, whether they be the highest in the land or the
lowliest public servants, shall at all times be answerable for their minsconduct to the people feom whom
the government derives its powers.

(1) This mandate more directly refers to those who occupy elective positions in the government and who
are subject to the judgment of the electorate expressed at periodic elections.

(2) It applies indirectly to those holding appointive positions in the judiciary, and those who are subject
to the supervision and control of the President or his deputies, or the legislature who are in turn
accountable to the electorate.

(3) Aside from direct removal by the electorate and impeachment by Congress, public officials are held
accountable to the people through administrative preceedings initiated by administrative superiors and
through criminal prosecutions and civil actions in courts.

The new Constitution in Article XI supplies some of the ways in which the trust character of a public
office may be maintained and upheld. The principle of accountability to the people is also emphasized in
the Article on Local Government.

Importance of maintaining public trust in publoc officers.

(1) Proper maitainance of public affairs. - It is essential to the general welfare and necessary to the
preservation of the government, that public affairs be properly administered. For this reason, every
effort must be made to insurethat the men and women elected and appointed to discharge its functions
are those imbued with a high sense of public service morality, who consider their positions as sacred
trusts and not as means for the attainment of power amd wealth.

(2) Survival of government.- Where the public officers thus chosen are irresponsible, dishonest, of
doubtful loyalty, inefficient or unreasonable, the government itself loses the faith and confidence of the
people. Consequently, the government becomes ineffective. In such a situation, it is and will be more
difficult for the government to collect taxes, to obtain public ccooperation and support, to secure
compliance with its laws and rules, and generally, to respond to the many, varied, and unending needs
and demands of the people. Indeed, no popular government can survive without the confidence of the
people. It is the lone guarantee and justification for its existence.

(3) Analogy of popular government to a three-storey building. - In the precise words of a great jurist:

"Popular government is a magnificent three-story building:

the basic foundation is the people;

the first story is the Constitution which is the expression of their sovereignty;
 the second is the officialdom or a group of caretakers of the edifice; and in

the third and highest story is found the altar wherein is zealously kept and guarded the mystic fire
which symbolizes the faith of the people.

Collapse of the foundation means destruction of the entire building ; collapse of the first story is
necessarily the collapse of the second and third stories and the consequent reversion to the
architectonic wisdom of the people; collapse of the secons story-officialdom- because of the misdeeds or
disloyalty, is the demolition of the faith of the people; and without faith no popular government can ever
hope to live and survive."

Sec2

Meaning and nature of impeachment.

(1) Impeachment has been defined as a method of national inquest into the conduct of public men.

(2) It is essentially in the nature of a criminal prosecution before a quasi-political court, instituted by a
written accusation called "articles of impeachment," upon a charge of the commission of a crime or
some official misconduct or neglect.

The trial that follows may or may not result in a conviction.

Purpose of impeachment.

Its purpose is to protect the people from official delinquencies or malfeasances. It is, therefore, primarily
intended for the protection of the State, not for tge punishment of the offender. The penalties attached
to impeachment are merely incidental to the primary intention of protecting the people as a body
politic.

Officials removable by impeachment.

As provided in the Constitution, they are:

(1) The President and the Vice-President;

(2) The members of the Supreme Court;

(3) The members of the Constitutional Commissions; and

(4) The Ombudsman.

Removal of impeachable officials.

Officials who are removable only by impeachment caanot be charged criminally (or
administratively) during their incumbency before ant court with an offense or misbehavior conviction for
which carries tge penalty of removal from office. The remedy is to file a complaint for impeachment, and
only after the party concerned is convicted and removed from office, may he be held to answer either
criminally or administratively for the offense or misbehavior proven proven to have been committed by
him in the impeachment proceeding.

The power of the President to grant reprieves, commutations, and pardons does not extent to
cases of impeachment.

Removal of other officials.

All other officers and employees may be removed from office as provided by law but not by
impeachment.

There are certain constitutional officers who are not subject to impeachment because the
Constitution has already specified how they may be removed. The grounds and means foe removing the
members of Congress are provided in Section 16(3) of Article VI, of judges of lower courts, in Section 11
of Article VIII, and of officers and employees in the Civil Service, in B-Section 2(3), Article IX. It is well-
settled that members of the Cabinet are removable at a pleasure of the President.

Grounds for Impeachment.

They are as follows:

(1) Culpable violation of the Constitution. - It refers to a willful and intentional breach of the
Constitution. Hence, not every violation of the Constitution constitutes an impeachable ooffense
Violation of the Constitution committed unintentionally or involuntarily either in good faith or through
an honest mistake of judgement is not a ground for impeachment;

(2) Treason.- It is crime committed by any person who, owing allegiance to the Philippines, not
being a foreigner, levies war against the Philippines or adheres to her enemies, giving them aid and
comfort within the Philippines or elsewhere;

(3) Bribery.- It may be:

(a) Direct bribery.- The offense committed by ant public officer who shall agree to perform an
act constituting a crime, in connection with the performance of his official duties, in consideration of any
promise or gift received by such officer. It may likewise be committed by any public officer who shall
accept such gift in consideration of nonperfomance of an official duty or the execution of an act which
does not constitute a crime; or

(b) Indirect bribery.- The offense committed by any public officer who shall accept gifts offered
to him by reason of his office;

(4) Graft and corruption.- The phrase covers all graft and corrupt practices. It was not included as
ground for impeachment under the 1935 Constitution. It inclusion may be attributed to the awareness of
the 1971 Constitutional Convention of the widespread graft and corruption in the government at the
time;
 (5) Other high crimes.- The phrase refers to those crimes which, like treason and bribery, are of so
serious and enormous a nature as to effect the very life or orderly workings of the ggovernment. For
impeachment purposes, "no act may be regarded as a high crime" unless there is a law forbidding and
publishing it; and

(6) Betrayal of public trust.- This is a new ground for iimpeachment It will cover any violation of the
oathbof office involving loss of popular support even if the violation may not amount to a criminal
offense. Its inclusion is more of a reaction to past experience than an exercise in logic. It was the
consensus in the Constitutional Commission that culpable violations of the Constitution, the main
ground for impeachment, would hardly prosper in Congress even against an unpopular President. Official
misdeeds, even of great magnitude, are sometimes deemed outside of the coverage of culpable
violations of the Constitution.

The new ground serves to stress the desirableness of having a President who truly regards public
office as a public trust.