Aratuc vs Comelec
Roxas and Tulonan, and eleven (11) towns in
Facts:
Petition in G. R. Nos. L-49705-09 for certiorari
with restraining order and preliminary
injunction filed by six (6) independent
candidates for representatives to tile Interim
Batasang Pambansa who had joined together
under the banner of the Kunsensiya ng Bayan
which, however, was not registered as a
political party or group under the 1976
Election Code, P.D. No. 1296, namely
Tomatic Aratuc, Sorgio Tocao, Ciscolario
Diaz, Fred Tamula, Mangontawar Guro and
Bonifacio Legaspi her referred to as
petitioners, to review the decision of the
respondent Commission on Election
(Comelec) resolving their appeal from the Of
the respondent Regional Board of Canvasses
for Region XII regarding the canvass of the
results of the election in said region for
representatives to the I.B.P. held on April 7,
1978. Similar petition in G.R. Nos. L49717-21,
for certiorari with restraining order and
preliminary injunction filed by Linang
Mandangan, abo a candidate for
representative in the same election in that
region, to review the decision of the Comelec
declaring respondent Ernesto Roldan as
entitled to be proclaimed as one of the eight
winners in said election.
A supervening panel headed by
Commissioner of Elections, Hon- Venancio S.
Duque, had conducted of the complaints of
the petitioners therein of alleged irregularities
in the election records in all the voting centers
in the whole province of Lanao del Sur, the
whole City of Marawi, eight (8) towns of Lanao
del Norte, namely, Baloi, Karomatan,
Matungao, Munai, Nunungan, Pantao Ragat,
Tagoloan and Tangcal, seven (7) towns in
Maguindanao, namely, Barrira, Datu Piang,
Dinaig, Matanog Parang, South Upi and Upi,
ten (10) towns in North Cotabato, namely,
Carmen, Kabacan, Kidapwan, Magpet,
Matalam Midsayap, Pigcawayan, Pikit, Pres.
Sultan Kudarat, namely, Bagumbayan,
Columbia Don Mariano Marcos, Esperanza,
Isulan, Kalamansig, Lebak, Lutayan,
Palimbang, President Quirino and Tacurong,
by reason for which, petitioners had asked
that the returns from said voting centers be
excluded from the canvass. Before the start of
the hearings, the canvass was suspended but
after the supervisory panel presented its
report, on May 15, 1978, the Comelec lifted its
order of suspension and directed the
resumption of the canvass to be done in
Manila. This order was the one assailed in this
Court. We issued a restraining order.
On January 13, 1979, the Comelec rendered
its resolution being assailed in these cases,
declaring the final result of the canvass.
It is alleged in the Aratuc petition that:
The Comelec committee grave
abuse of dicretion, amounting
to lack of jurisdiction
Held:
In regard to the jurisdictional and due process
points raised by herein petitioner, it is of
decisive importance to bear in mind that under
Section 168 of the Revised Election Code of
1978, "the Commission (on Elections) shall
have direct control and supervision on over
the board of canvassers" and that relatedly,
Section 175 of the same Code provides that it
"shall be the sole judge of all pre-proclamation
controversies." While nominally, the
procedure of bringing to the Commission
objections to the actuations of boards of
canvassers has been quite loosely referred to
in certain quarters, even by the Commission
and by this Court, such as in the guidelines of
May 23,1978 quoted earlier in this opinion, as
an appeal, the fact of the matter is that the
authority of the Commission in reviewing such
actuations does not spring from any appellate
jurisdiction conferred by any specific provision
of law, for there is none such provision
anywhere in the Election Code, but from the posted prices pending further
plenary prerogative of direct control and proceedings. :-cralaw

supervision endowed to it by the above-

quoted provisions of Section 168. And in
administrative law, it is a too well settled
postulate to need any supporting citation here,
that a superior body or office having
supervision and control over another may do
directly what the latter is supposed to do or
ought to have done.
Facts:
The petitioners pray for injunctive relief,
to stop the Energy Regulatory Board
(Board hereinafter) from implementing its
Order, dated September 21, 1990,
mandating a provisional increase in the
prices of petroleum and petroleum
products, as follows:
PRODUCTS IN PESOS PER LITER
OPSF
Premium Gasoline 1.7700
Regular Gasoline 1.7700
Avturbo 1.8664
On September 21, 1990, the Board, in a
joint (on three applications) Order granted
provisional relief as follows:
WHEREFORE, considering the foregoing,
and pursuant to Section 8 of Executive
Order No. 172, this Board hereby grants
herein applicants' prayer for provisional
relief and, accordingly, authorizes said
applicants a weighted average provisional
increase of ONE PESO AND FORTY-TWO
CENTAVOS (P1.42) per liter in the
wholesale posted prices of their various
petroleum products enumerated below,
refined and/or marketed by them locally.
3
Issue:
The petitioners submit that the above
Order had been issued with grave abuse
of discretion, tantamount to lack of
jurisdiction, and correctible by Certiorari.
Held:

Kerosene 1.2400 The Court finds no merit in these

Diesel Oil 1.2400 petitions.
Fuel Oil 1.4900 Senator Maceda and Atty. Lozano, in
questioning the lack of a hearing, have
Feedstock 1.4900 overlooked the provisions of Section 8 of
LPG 0.8487 Executive Order No. 172, which we quote:
Asphalts 2.7160 "SECTION 8. Authority to Grant
Provisional Relief . — The Board may,
Thinners 1.7121 1
upon the filing of an application, petition
It appears that on September 10, 1990, or complaint or at any stage thereafter
Caltex (Philippines), Inc., Pilipinas Shell and without prior hearing, on the basis of
Petroleum Corporation, and Petron supporting papers duly verified or
Corporation proferred separate authenticated, grant provisional relief on
applications with the Board for permission motion of a party in the case or on its own
to increase the wholesale posted prices of initiative, without prejudice to a final
petroleum products, as follows: decision after hearing, should the Board
find that the pleadings, together with such
Caltex P3.2697 per liter
affidavits, documents and other evidence
Shell 2.0338 per liter which may be submitted in support of the
motion, substantially support the
Petron 2.00 per liter 2
provisional order: Provided, That the
and meanwhile, for provisional authority Board shall immediately schedule and
to increase temporarily such wholesale conduct a hearing thereon within thirty
(30) days thereafter, upon publication and
notice to all affected parties.
: nad
As the Order itself indicates, the authority
for provisional increase falls within the
above provision.
There is no merit in the Senator's
contention that the "applicable" provision
is Section 3, paragraph (e) of the
Executive Order, which we quote:
(e) Whenever the Board has determined
that there is a shortage of any petroleum
product, or when public interest so
requires, it may take such steps as it may
consider necessary, including the
temporary adjustment of the levels of
prices of petroleum products and the
payment to the Oil Price Stabilization Fund
created under Presidential Decree No.
1956 by persons or entities engaged in
the petroleum industry of such amounts
as may be determined by the Board,
which will enable the importer to recover
its cost of importation.
What must be stressed is that while under
Executive Order No. 172, a hearing is
indispensable, it does not preclude the
Board from ordering, ex parte, a
provisional increase, as it did here,
subject to its final disposition of whether
or not: (1) to make it permanent; (2) to
reduce or increase it further; or (3) to
deny the application. Section 37
paragraph (e) is akin to a temporary
restraining order or a writ of preliminary
attachment issued by the courts, which
are given ex parte, and which are subject
to the resolution of the main case.
Section 3, paragraph (e) and Section 8 do
not negate each other, or otherwise,
operate exclusively of the other, in that
the Board may resort to one but not to
both at the same time. Section 3(e)
outlines the jurisdiction of the Board and
the grounds for which it may decree a
price adjustment, subject to the
requirements of notice and hearing.
Pending that, however, it may order,
under Section 8, an authority to increase
provisionally, without need of a hearing,
subject to the final outcome of the
proceeding. The Board, of course, is not
prevented from conducting a hearing on
the grant of provisional authority — which
is of course, the better procedure —
however, it cannot be stigmatized later if
it failed to conduct one. As we held in
Citizens' Alliance for Consumer Protection
v. Energy Regulatory Board. 7
In the light of Section 8 quoted above,
public respondent Board need not even
have conducted formal hearings in these
cases prior to issuance of its Order of 14
August 1987 granting a provisional
increase of prices. The Board, upon its
own discretion and on the basis of
documents and evidence submitted by
private respondents, could have issued an
order granting provisional relief
immediately upon filing by private
respondents of their respective
applications. In this respect, the Court
considers the evidence presented by
private respondents in support of their
applications — i.e., evidence showing that
importation costs of petroleum products
had gone up; that the peso had
depreciated in value; and that the Oil
Price Stabilization Fund (OPSF) had by
then been depleted — as substantial and
hence constitutive of at least prima facie
basis for issuance by the Board of a
provisional relief order granting an
increase in the prices of petroleum
products. 8
We do not therefore find the challenged
action of the Board to have been done in
violation of the due process clause. The
petitioners may contest however, the
applications at the hearings proper.
Senator Maceda's attack on the Order in
question on premises that it constitutes an
act of taxation or that it negates the
effects of Republic Act No. 6965, cannot
prosper. Republic Act No. 6965 operated
to lower taxes on petroleum and
petroleum products by imposing specific
taxes rather than ad valorem taxes
thereon; it is, not, however, an insurance
against an "oil hike", whenever warranted,
or is it a price control mechanism on
petroleum and petroleum products. The
statute had possibly forestalled a larger
hike, but it operated no more. : nad
The Board Order authorizing the proceeds
generated by the increase to be deposited
to the OPSF is not an act of taxation. It is
authorized by Presidential Decree No.
1956, as amended by Executive Order No.
137, as follows:
SECTION 8. There is hereby created a
Trust Account in the books of accounts of
the Ministry of Energy to be designated as
Oil Price Stabilization Fund (OPSF) for the
purpose of minimizing frequent price
changes brought about by exchange rate
adjustments and/or changes in world
market prices of crude oil and imported
petroleum products. The Oil Price
Stabilization Fund (OPSF) may be sourced
from any of the following:
a) Any increase in the tax collection from
ad valorem tax or customs duty imposed
on petroleum products subject to tax
under this Decree arising from exchange
rate adjustment, as may be determined
by the Minister of Finance in consultation
with the Board of Energy;
b) Any increase in the tax collection as a
result of the lifting of tax exemptions of
government corporations, as may be
determined by the Minister of Finance in
consultation with the Board of Energy;
c) Any additional amount to be imposed
on petroleum products to augment the
resources of the Fund through an
appropriate Order that may be issued by
the Board of Energy requiring payment by
persons or companies engaged in the
business of importing, manufacturing
and/or marketing petroleum products;
d) Any resulting peso cost differentials in
case the actual peso costs paid by oil
companies in the importation of crude oil
and petroleum products is less than the
peso costs computed using the reference
foreign exchange rates as fixed by the
Board of Energy.
Anent claims that oil companies cannot
charge new prices for oil purchased at old
rates, suffice it to say that the increase in
question was not prompted alone by the
increase in world oil prices arising from
tension in the Persian Gulf. What the
Court gathers from the pleadings as well
as events of which it takes judicial notice,
is that: (1) as of June 30, 1990, the OPSF
has incurred a deficit of P6.1 Billion; (2)
the exchange rate has fallen to P28.00 to
$1.00; (3) the country's balance of
payments is expected to reach $1 Billion;
(4) our trade deficit is at $2.855 Billion as
of the first nine months of the year.
Evidently, authorities have been unable to
collect enough taxes necessary to
replenish the OPSF as provided by
Presidential Decree No. 1956, and hence,
there was no available alternative but to
hike existing prices.
The OPSF, as the Court held in the
aforecited CACP cases, must not be
understood to be a funding designed to
guarantee oil firms' profits although as a
subsidy, or a trust account, the Court has
no doubt that oil firms make money from
it. As we held there, however, the OPSF
was established precisely to protect the
consuming public from the erratic
movement of oil prices and to preclude oil
companies from taking advantage of
fluctuations occurring every so often. As a
buffer mechanism, it stabilizes domestic
prices by bringing about a uniform rate
rather than leaving pricing to the caprices
of the market.
Maceda vs ERB
Facts:
This controversy involves the extent and
applicability of P.D. 1818, which prohibits any
court from issuing injunctions in cases involving
infrastructure projects of the government. chanrobles. com.ph : vi rtua l law lib rary
The facts are not disputed.
The Iloilo State College of Fisheries (henceforth
ISCOF) through its Pre-qualification, Bids and
Awards Committee (henceforth PBAC) caused the
publication in the November 25, 26, 28, 1988
issues of the Western Visayas Daily an Invitation
to Bid for the construction of the Micro Laboratory
Building at ISCOF. The notice announced that the
last day for the submission of pre-qualification
requirements (PRE C-1) ** was December 2,
1988, and that the bids would be received and
opened on December 12, 1988, 3 o’clock in the
afternoon. 1
Petitioners Maria Elena Malaga and Josieleen
Najarro, respectively doing business under the
name of the B.E. Construction and Best Built
Construction, submitted their pre-qualification
documents at two o’clock in the afternoon of
December 2, 1988. Petitioner Jose Occeña
submitted his own PRE-C1 on December 5, 1988.
All three of them were not allowed to participate
in the bidding because their documents were
considered late, having been submitted after the
cut-off time of ten o’clock in the morning of
December 2, 1988.
On December 12, 1988, the petitioners filed a
complaint with the Regional Trial Court of Iloilo
against the chairman and members of PBAC in
their official and personal capacities. The plaintiffs
claimed that although they had submitted their
PRE-C1 on time, the PBAC refused without just
cause to accept them. As a result, they were not
included in the list of pre-qualified bidders, could
not secure the needed plans and other
documents, and were unable to participate in the
scheduled bidding.
In their prayer, they sought the resetting of the
December 12, 1988 bidding and the acceptance
of their PRE-C1 documents. They also asked that
if the bidding had already been conducted, the
defendants be directed not to award the project
pending resolution of their complaint.
On the same date, Judge Lodrigio L. Lebaquin
issued a restraining order prohibiting PBAC from
conducting the bidding and awarding the project.
2
On December 16, 1988, the defendants filed a
motion to lift the restraining order on the ground
that the Court was prohibited from issued
restraining orders, preliminary injunctions and
preliminary mandatory injunctions by P.D.
1818. chanro blesvi rt ualawlib ra ry
The decree reads pertinently as follows: chanrob1es vi rt ual 1aw li bra ry
Section 1. No Court in the Philippines shall have
jurisdiction to issue any restraining order,
preliminary injunction, or preliminary
infrastructure project, or a mining, fishery, forest
or other natural resource development project of
the government, or any public utility operated by
the government, including among others public
utilities for the transport of the goods and
commodities, stevedoring and arrastre contracts,
to prohibit any person or persons, entity or
government official from proceeding with, or
continuing the execution or implementation of
any such project, or the operation of such public
utility, or pursuing any lawful activity necessary
for such execution, implementation or operation.
The movants also contended that the question of
the propriety of a preliminary injunction had
become moot and academic because the
restraining order was received late, at 2 o’clock in
the afternoon of December 12, 1988, after the
bidding had been conducted and closed at eleven
thirty in the morning of that date.
In their opposition of the motion, the plaintiffs
argued against the applicability of P.D. 1818,
pointing out that while ISCOF was a state college,
it had its own charter and separate existence and
was not part of the national government or of any
local political subdivision. Even if P.D. 1818 were
applicable, the prohibition presumed a valid and
legal government project, not one tainted with
anomalies like the project at bar.
They also cited Filipinas Marble Corp. v. IAC, 3
where the Court allowed the issuance of a writ of
preliminary injunction despite a similar prohibition
found in P.D. 385. The Court therein stated that:
virtua l 1aw lib rary
chanrob1e s
The government, however, is bound by basic
principles of fairness and decency under the due
process clauses of the Bill of Rights. P.D. 385 was
never meant to protect officials of government-
lending institutions who take over the
management of a borrower corporation, lead that
corporation to bankruptcy through
mismanagement or misappropriation of its funds,
and who, after ruining it, use the mandatory
provisions of the decree to avoid the
consequences of their misleads (p. 188, Emphasis
supplied).
On January 2, 1989, the trial court lifted the
restraining order and denied the petition for
preliminary injunction. It declared that the
building sought to be construed at the ISCOF was
an infrastructure project of the government falling
within the coverage of P.D. 1818. Even if it were
not, the petition for the issuance of a writ of
preliminary injunction would still fail because the
sheriff’s return showed that PBAC was served a
copy of the restraining order after the bidding
sought to be restrained had already been held.
Furthermore, the members of the PBAC could not
be restrained from awarding the project because
the authority to do so was lodged in the President
of the ISCOF, who was not a party to the case. 4
Issue: W/O PD 1818 cover ISCOF?
Held:
The Court has considered the arguments of the
parties in light of their testimonial and
documentary evidence and the applicable laws
and jurisprudence. It finds for the petitioners.
The 1987 Administrative Code defines a
government instrumentality as follows:
chan rob1es v irt ual 1aw l ibra ry
Instrumentality refers to any agency of the
National Government, not integrated within the
department framework, vested with special
functions or jurisdiction by law, endowed with
some if not all corporate powers, administering
special funds, and enjoying operational
autonomy, usually through a charter. This term
includes regulatory agencies, chartered
institutions, and government-owned or controlled
corporations. (Sec. 2 (5) Introductory Provisions).
The same Code describes a chartered institution
thus:
chanrob 1es vi rtua l 1aw lib rary
Chartered institution — refers to any agency
organized or operating under a special charter,
and vested by law with functions relating to
specific constitutional policies or objectives. This
term includes the state universities and colleges,
and the monetary authority of the state. (Sec. 2
(12) Introductory Provisions).
It is clear from the above definitions that ISCOF is
a chartered institution and is therefore covered by
P.D. 1818.
There are also indications in its charter that
ISCOF is a government instrumentality. First, it
was created in pursuance of the integrated
fisheries development policy of the State, a
priority program of the government of effect the
socio-economic life of the nation. Second, the
Treasurer of the Republic of the Philippines also
be the ex-officio Treasurer of the state college
with its accounts and expenses to be audited by
the Commission on Audit or its duly authorized
representative. Third, heads of bureaus and
offices of the National Government are authorized
to loan or transfer to it, upon request of the
president of the state college, such apparatus,
equipment, or supplies and even the services of
such employees as can be spared without serious
detriment to public service. Lastly, an additional
amount of P1.5M had been appropriated out of
the funds of the National Treasury and it was also
decreed in its charter that the funds and
maintenance of the state college would
henceforth be included in the General
Appropriations Law. 8
Nevertheless, it does not automatically follow that
ISCOF is covered by the prohibition in the said
decree.
In the case of Datiles and Co. v. Sucaldito, 9 this
Court interpreted a similar prohibition contained
in P.D. 605, the law after which P.D. 1818 was
patterned. It was there declared that the
prohibition pertained to the issuance of
injunctions or restraining orders by courts against
administrative acts in controversies involving
facts or the exercise of discretion in technical
cases. The Court observed that to allow the
courts to judge these matters would disturb the
smooth functioning of the administrative
machinery. Justice Teodoro Padilla made it clear,
however, that on issues definitely outside of this
dimension and involving questions of law, courts
could not be prevented by P.D. No. 605 from
exercising their power to restrain or prohibit
administrative acts.
We see no reason why the above ruling should
not apply to P.D. 1818.
There are at least two irregularities committed by
PBAC that justified injunction of the bidding and
the award of the project. chanroble s virtualawl ibra ry cha nroble s.com:c hanrobles. com.ph
First, PBAC set deadlines for the filing of the PRE-
C1 and the opening of bids and then changed
these deadlines without prior notice to
prospective participants.
Under the Rules Implementing P.D. 1594,
prescribing policies and guidelines for government
infrastructure contracts, PBAC shall provide
prospective bidders with the Notice of Pre-
qualification and other relevant information
regarding the proposed work. Prospective
contractors shall be required to file their ARC-
Contractors Confidential Application for
Registration & Classifications & the PRE-C2
Confidential Pre-qualification Statement for the
Project (prior to the amendment of the rules, this
was referred to as PRE-C1) not later than the
deadline set in the published Invitation to Bid,
after which date no PRE-C2 shall be submitted
and received. Invitations to Bid shall be
advertised for at least three times within a
reasonable period but in no case less than two
weeks in at least two newspapers of general
circulations. 10
PBAC advertised the pre-qualification deadline as
December 2, 1988, without stating the hour
thereof, and announced that the opening of bids
would be at 3 o’clock in the afternoon of
December 12, 1988. This schedule was changed
and a notice of such change was merely posted at
the ISCOF bulletin board. The notice advanced
the cut-off time for the submission of pre-
qualification documents to 10 o’clock in the
morning of December 2, 1988, and the opening of
bids to 1 o’clock in the afternoon of December 12,
1988.
The new schedule caused the pre-disqualification
of the petitioners as recorded in the minutes of
the PBAC meeting held on December 6, 1988.
While it may be true that there were fourteen
contractors who were pre-qualified despite the
change in schedule, this fact did not cure the
defect of the irregular notice. Notably, the
petitioners were disqualified because they failed
to meet the new deadline and not because of
their expired licenses. ***
We have held that where the law requires a
previous advertisement before government
contracts can be awarded, non-compliance with
the requirement will, as a general rule, render the
same void and of no effect 11 The facts that an
invitation for bids has been communicated to a
number of possible bidders is not necessarily
sufficient to establish compliance with the
requirements of the law if it is shown that other
public bidders have not been similarly notified.
12
Second, PBAC was required to issue to pre-
qualified applicants the plans, specifications and
proposal book forms for the project to be bid
thirty days before the date of bidding if the
estimate project cost was between P1M and P5M.
PBAC has not denied that these forms were
issued only on December 2, 1988, or only ten
days before the bidding scheduled for December
12, 1988. At the very latest, PBAC should have
issued them on November 12, 1988, or 30 days
before the scheduled bidding.
It is apparent that the present controversy did
not arise from the discretionary acts of the
administrative body nor does it involve merely
technical matters. What is involved here is non-
compliance with the procedural rules on bidding
which required strict observance. The purpose of
the rules implementing P.D. 1594 is to secure
competitive bidding and to prevent favoritism,
collusion and fraud in the award of these
contracts to the detriment of the public. This
purpose was defeated by the irregularities
committed by PBAC. chanrobles law lib rary : re d
It has been held that the three principles in public
bidding are the offer to the public, an opportunity
for competition and a basis for exact comparison
of bids. A regulation of the matter which excludes
any of these factors destroys the distinctive
character of the system and thwarts and purpose
of its adoption. 13
In the case at bar, it was the lack of proper notice
regarding the pre-qualification requirement and
the bidding that caused the elimination of
petitioners B.E. and Best Built. It was not because
of their expired licenses, as private respondents
now claim. Moreover, the plans and specifications
which are the contractors’ guide to an intelligent
bid, were not issued on time, thus defeating the
guaranty that contractors be placed on equal
footing when they submit their bids. The purpose
of competitive bidding is negated if some
contractors are informed ahead of their rivals of
the plans and specifications that are to be the
subject of their bids.
P.D. 1818 was not intended to shield from judicial
scrutiny irregularities committed by
administrative agencies such as the anomalies
above described. Hence, the challenged
restraining order was not improperly issued by
the respondent judge and the writ of preliminary
injunction should not have been denied. We note
from Annex Q of the private respondent’s
memorandum, however, that the subject project
has already been "100% completed as to the
Engineering Standard." This fait accompli has
made the petition for a writ of preliminary
injunction moot and academic.
Beja vs CA
Facts:
The instant petition for certiorari questions the
jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Department
of Transportation and Communications
(DOTC) and/or its Administrative Action Board
(AAB) over administrative cases involving
personnel below the rank of Assistant General
Manager of the Philippine Ports Authority
(PPA), an agency attached to the said
Department.
Petitioner Fidencio Y. Beja, Sr. 1 was first
employed by the PPA as arrastre supervisor
in 1975. He became Assistant Port Operations
Officer in 1976 and Port Operations Officer in
1977. In February 1988, as a result of the
reorganization of the PPA, he was appointed
Terminal Supervisor.
On October 21, 1988, the PPA General
Manager, Rogelio A. Dayan, filed
Administrative Case No. 11-04-88 against
petitioner Beja and Hernando G. Villaluz for
grave dishonesty, grave misconduct, willful
violation of reasonable office rules and
regulations and conduct prejudicial to the best
interest of the service. Beja and Villaluz
allegedly erroneously assessed storage fees
resulting in the loss of P38,150.77 on the part
of the PPA. Consequently, they were
preventively suspended for the charges. After
a preliminary investigation conducted by the
district attorney for Region X, Administrative
Case No. 11-04-88 was "considered closed
for lack of merit."
On December 13, 1988, another charge
sheet, docketed as Administrative Case No.
12-01-88, was filed against Beja by the PPA
General Manager also for dishonesty, grave
misconduct, violation of reasonable office
rules and regulations, conduct prejudicial to
the best interest of the service and for being
notoriously undesirable. The charge consisted
of six (6) different specifications of
administrative offenses including fraud against
the PPA in the total amount of P218,000.00.
Beja was also placed under preventive
suspension pursuant to Sec. 41 of P.D. No.
807.
The case was redocketed as Administrative
Case No. PPA-AAB-1-049-89 and thereafter,
the PPA general manager indorsed it to the
AAB for "appropriate action." At the scheduled
hearing, Beja asked for continuance on the
ground that he needed time to study the
charges against him. The AAB proceeded to
hear the case and gave Beja an opportunity to
present evidence. However, on February 20,
1989, Beja filed a petition for certiorari with
preliminary injunction before the Regional
Trial Court of Misamis Oriental. 2 Two days
later, he filed with the AAB a manifestation
and motion to suspend the hearing of
Administrative Case No. PPA-AAB-1-049-89
on account of the pendency of
the certiorari proceeding before the court.
AAB denied the motion and continued with the
hearing of the administrative case.
Thereafter, Beja moved for the dismissal of
the certiorari case below and proceeded to file
before this Court a petition for certiorari with
preliminary injunction and/or temporary
restraining order. The case was docketed as
G.R. No. 87352 captioned "Fidencio Y. Beja v.
Hon. Reinerio 0. Reyes, etc., et al." In the en
banc resolution of March 30, 1989, this Court
referred the case to the Court of Appeals for
"appropriate action." 3 G.R. No. 87352 was
docketed in the Court of Appeals as CA-G.R.
SP No. 17270.
Meanwhile, a decision was rendered by the
AAB in Administrative Case No. PPA-AAB-
049-89. Its dispositive portion reads:
b) That respondent Fidencio Y. Beja be
dismissed from the service;
On December 10, 1990, after appropriate
proceedings, the Court of Appeals also
rendered a decision 4 in CA-G.R. SP No.
17270 dismissing the petition for certiorari for
lack of merit. Hence, Beja elevated the case
back to this Court through an "appeal
by certiorari with preliminary injunction and/or
temporary restraining order."
Simply put, Beja challenges the legality of the
preventive suspension and the jurisdiction of
the DOTC Secretary and/or the AAB to initiate
and hear administrative cases against PPA
personnel below the rank of Assistant General
Manager.
Held:
Imposed during the pendency of an
administrative investigation, preventive
suspension is not a penalty in itself. It is
merely a measure of precaution so that the
employee who is charged may be separated,
for obvious reasons, from the scene of his
alleged misfeasance while the same is being
investigated. 7 Thus, preventive suspension is
distinct from the administrative penalty of
removal from office such as the one
mentioned in Sec. 8(d) of P.D. No 857. While
the former may be imposed on a respondent
during the investigation of the charges against
him, the latter is the penalty which may only
be meted upon him at the termination of the
investigation or the final disposition of the
case.
The PPA general manager is the disciplining
authority who may, by himself and without the
approval of the PPA Board of Directors,
subject a respondent in an administrative case
to preventive suspension. His disciplinary
powers are sanctioned, not only by Sec. 8 of
P.D. No. 857 aforequoted, but also by Sec. 37
of P.D. No. 807 granting heads of agencies
the "jurisdiction to investigate and decide
matters involving disciplinary actions against
officers and employees" in the PPA.
With respect to the issue of whether or not the
DOTC Secretary and/or the AAB may initiate
and hear administrative cases against PPA
Personnel below the rank of Assistant General
Manager, the Court qualifiedly rules in favor of
petitioner.
The PPA was created through P.D. No. 505
dated July 11, 1974. Under that Law, the
corporate powers of the PPA were vested in a
governing Board of Directors known as the
Philippine Port Authority Council. Sec. 5(i) of
the same decree gave the Council the power
"to appoint, discipline and remove, and
determine the composition of the technical
staff of the Authority and other personnel."
On December 23, 1975, P.D. No. 505 was
substituted by P.D. No. 857, See. 4(a) thereof
created the Philippine Ports Authority which
would be "attached" to the then Department of
Public Works, Transportation and
Communication. When Executive Order No.
125 dated January 30, 1987 reorganizing the
Ministry of Transportation and
Communications was issued, the PPA
retained its "attached" status. 10 Even
Executive Order No. 292 or the Administrative
Code of 1987 classified the PPA as an agency
"attached" to the Department of
Transportation and Communications (DOTC).
Sec. 24 of Book IV, Title XV, Chapter 6 of the
same Code provides that the agencies
attached to the DOTC "shall continue to
operate and function in accordance with the
respective charters or laws creating them,
except when they conflict with this Code."
Attachment of an agency to a Department is
one of the three administrative relationships
mentioned in Book IV, Chapter 7 of the
Administrative Code of 1987, the other two
being supervision and control and
administrative supervision. "Attachment" is
defined in Sec. 38 thereof as follows:
(3) Attachment. — (a) This refers to the lateral
relationship between the Department or its
equivalent and the attached agency or
corporation for purposes of policy and
program coordination. The coordination shall
be accomplished by having the department
represented in the governing board of the
attached agency or corporation, either as
chairman or as a member, with or without
voting rights, if this is permitted by the charter;
having the attached corporation or agency
comply with a system of periodic reporting
which shall reflect the progress of programs
and projects; and having the department or its
equivalent provide general policies through its
representative in the board, which shall serve
as the framework for the internal policies of
the attached corporation or agency;
(b) Matters of day-to-day administration or all
those pertaining to internal operations shall he
left to the discretion or judgment of the
executive officer of the agency or corporation.
In the event that the Secretary and the head
of the board or the attached agency or
corporation strongly disagree on the
interpretation and application of policies, and
the Secretary is unable to resolve the
disagreement, he shall bring the matter to the
President for resolution and direction;
(c) Government-owned or controlled
corporations attached to a department shall
submit to the Secretary concerned their
audited financial statements within sixty (60)
days after the close of the fiscal year; and
(d) Pending submission of the required
financial statements, the corporation shall
continue to operate on the basis of the
preceding year's budget until the financial
statements shall have been submitted. Should
any government-owned or controlled
corporation incur an operation deficit at the
close of its fiscal year, it shall be subject to
administrative supervision of the department;
and the corporation's operating and capital
budget shall be subject to the department's
examination, review, modification and
approval. (emphasis supplied.)
An attached agency has a larger measure of
independence from the Department to which it
is attached than one which is under precisely questioning the AAB's jurisdiction
departmental supervision and control or when it sought judicial recourse.
administrative supervision. This is borne out
by the "lateral relationship" between the WHEREFORE, the decision of the Court of
Department and the attached agency. The Appeals is AFFIRMED insofar as it upholds
attachment is merely for "policy and program the power of the PPA General Manager to
coordination." With respect to administrative subject petitioner to preventive suspension
matters, the independence of an attached and REVERSED insofar as it validates the
agency from Departmental control and jurisdiction of the DOTC and/or the AAB to act
supervision is further reinforced by the fact on Administrative Case No. PPA-AAB-1-049-
that even an agency under a Department's 89 and rules that due process has been
administrative supervision is free from accorded the petitioner.
Departmental interference with respect to
appointments and other personnel actions "in The AAB decision in said case is hereby
accordance with the decentralization of declared NULL and VOID and the case in
personnel functions" under the Administrative REMANDED to the PPA whose General
Code of 1987. 11 Moreover, the Administrative Manager shall conduct with dispatch its
Code explicitly provides that Chapter 8 of reinvestigation.
Book IV on supervision and control shall not
apply to chartered institutions attached to a
The preventive suspension of petitioner shall
Department.
continue unless after a determination of its
duration, it is found that he had served the
It is, therefore, clear that the transmittal of the total of ninety (90) days in which case he shall
complaint by the PPA General Manager to the be reinstated immediately.
AAB was premature. The PPA General
Manager should have first conducted an
investigation, made the proper
recommendation for the imposable penalty
and sought its approval by the PPA Board of
Directors. It was discretionary on the part of Eugenio vs CSC
the herein petitioner to elevate the case to the
then DOTC Secretary Reyes. Only then could Facts:
the AAB take jurisdiction of the case.
A petition for certiorari and prohibition.
The AAB, which was created during the
tenure of Secretary Reyes under Office Order
First the facts. Petitioner is the Deputy
No. 88-318 dated July 1, 1988, was designed
Director of the Philippine Nuclear Research
to act, decide and recommend to him "all
Institute. She applied for a Career Executive
cases of administrative malfeasance,
Service (CES) Eligibility and a CESO rank on
irregularities, grafts and acts of corruption in
August 2, 1993, she was given a CES
the Department." Composed of a Chairman
eligibility. On September 15, 1993, she was
and two (2) members, the AAB came into
recommended to the President for a CESO
being pursuant to Administrative Order No. 25
rank by the Career Executive Service Board. 1
issued by the President on May 25, 1987. 15 Its
special nature as a quasi-
judicial administrative body notwithstanding, All was not to turn well for petitioner. On
the AAB is not exempt from the observance of October 1, 1993, respondent Civil Service
due process in its proceedings. 16 We are not Commission2 passed Resolution No. 93-
satisfied that it did so in this case the 4359, viz:
respondents protestation that petitioner
waived his right to be heard notwithstanding. It “RESOLUTION NO. 93-4359
should be observed that petitioner was
WHEREAS, Section 1(1) of Article IX-B
provides that Civil Service shall be
administered by the Civil Service Commission,
. . .;
WHEREAS, Section 3, Article IX-B of the
1987 Philippine Constitution provides that
"The Civil Service Commission, as the central
personnel agency of the government, is
mandated to establish a career service and
adopt measures to promote morale, efficiency,
integrity, responsiveness, progresiveness and
courtesy in the civil service, . . .";
WHEREAS, Section 12 (1), Title I, Subtitle A,
Book V of the Administrative Code of 1987
grants the Commission the power, among
others, to administer and enforce the
constitutional and statutory provisions on the
merit system for all levels and ranks in the
Civil Service;
WHEREAS, Section 7, Title I, Subtitle A, Book
V of the Administrative Code of 1987
Provides, among others, that The Career
Service shall be characterized by (1) entrance
based on merit and fitness to be determined
as far as practicable by competitive
examination, or based highly technical
qualifications; (2) opportunity for advancement
to higher career positions; and (3) security of
tenure;
WHEREAS, Section 8 (c), Title I, Subtitle A,
Book V of the administrative Code of 1987
provides that "The third level shall cover
Positions in the Career Executive Service";
WHEREAS, the Commission recognizes the
imperative need to consolidate, integrate and
unify the administration of all levels of
positions in the career service.
WHEREAS, the provisions of Section 17, Title
I, Subtitle A. Book V of the Administrative
Code of 1987 confers on the Commission the
power and authority to effect changes in its
organization as the need arises.
WHEREAS, Section 5, Article IX-A of the
Constitution provides that the Civil
ServiceCommission shall enjoy fiscal
autonomy and the necessary implications
thereof;
NOW THEREFORE, foregoing premises
considered, the Civil Service Commission
hereby resolves to streamline reorganize and
effect changes in its organizational structure.
Pursuant thereto, the Career Executive
Service Board, shall now be known as the
Office for Career Executive Service of the Civil
Service Commission. Accordingly, the existing
personnel, budget, properties and equipment
of the Career Executive Service Board shall
now form part of the Office for Career
Executive Service.”
The above resolution became an impediment.
to the appointment of petitioner as Civil
Service Officer, Rank IV. In a letter to
petitioner, dated June 7, 1994, the Honorable
Antonio T. Carpio, Chief Presidential legal
Counsel, stated:
xxx xxx xxx
On 1 October 1993 the Civil Service
Commission issued CSC Resolution No. 93-
4359 which abolished the Career Executive
Service Board.
Several legal issues have arisen as a result of
the issuance of CSC Resolution No. 93-4359,
including whether the Civil Service
Commission has authority to abolish the
Career Executive Service Board. Because
these issues remain unresolved, the Office of
the President has refrained from considering
appointments of career service eligibles to
career executive ranks.
xxx xxx xxx
You may, however, bring a case before the
appropriate court to settle the legal issues
arising from issuance by the Civil Service
Commission of CSC Resolution No. 93-4359,
for guidance of all concerned.
Thank You.
Finding herself bereft of further administrative
relief as the Career Executive Service Board
which recommended her CESO Rank IV has
been abolished, petitioner filed the petition at
bench to annul, among others, resolution No.
93-4359.
Held:
We find merit in the petition.3
The controlling fact is that the Career
Executive Service Board (CESB) was created
in the Presidential Decree (P.D.) No. 1 on
September 1, 19744 which adopted the
Integrated Plan. Article IV, Chapter I, Part of
the III of the said Plan provides:
Article IV — Career Executive Service
1. A Career Executive Service is created to
form a continuing pool of well-selected and
development oriented career administrators
who shall provide competent and faithful
service.
2. A Career Executive Service hereinafter
referred to in this Chapter as the Board, is
created to serve as the governing body of the
Career Executive Service. The Board shall
consist of the Chairman of the Civil Service
Commission as presiding officer, the
Executive Secretary and the Commissioner of
the Budget as ex-officio members and two
other members from the private sector and/or
the academic community who are familiar with
the principles and methods of personnel
administration.
xxx xxx xxx
5. The Board shall promulgate rules,
standards and procedures on the selection,
classification, compensation and career
development of members of the Career
Executive Service. The Board shall set up the
organization and operation of the service.
(Emphasis supplied)
It cannot be disputed, therefore, that as the
CESB was created by law, it can only be
abolished by the legislature. This follows an
unbroken stream of rulings that the creation
and abolition of public offices is primarily a
legislative function. As aptly summed up in
AM JUR 2d on Public Officers and
Employees, 5 viz:
Except for such offices as are created by the
Constitution, the creation of public offices is
primarily a legislative function. In so far as the
legislative power in this respect is not
restricted by constitutional provisions, it
supreme, and the legislature may decide for
itself what offices are suitable, necessary, or
convenient. When in the exigencies of
government it is necessary to create and
define duties, the legislative department has
the discretion to determine whether additional
offices shall be created, or whether these
duties shall be attached to and become ex-
officio duties of existing offices. An office
created by the legislature is wholly within the
power of that body, and it may prescribe the
mode of filling the office and the powers and
duties of the incumbent, and if it sees fit,
abolish the office.
In the petition at bench, the legislature has not
enacted any law authorizing the abolition of
the CESB. On the contrary, in all the General
Appropriations Acts from 1975 to 1993, the
legislature has set aside funds for the
operation of CESB. Respondent Commission,
however, invokes Section 17, Chapter 3,
Subtitle A. Title I, Book V of the Administrative
Code of 1987 as the source of its power to
abolish the CESB. Section 17 provides:
Sec. 17. Organizational Structure. — Each
office of the Commission shall be headed by a
Director with at least one Assistant Director,
and may have such divisions as are
necessary independent constitutional body,
the Commission may effect changes in the
organization as the need arises.
But as well pointed out by petitioner and the
Solicitor General, Section 17 must be read
together with Section 16 of the said Code
which enumerates the offices under the
respondent Commission
As read together, the inescapable conclusion
is that respondent Commission's power to
reorganize is limited to offices under its control
as enumerated in Section 16, supra. From its
inception, the CESB was intended to be an
autonomous entity, albeit administratively
attached to respondent Commission. As
conceptualized by the Reorganization
Committee "the CESB shall be autonomous. It
is expected to view the problem of building up
executive manpower in the government with a
broad and positive outlook." 6 The essential
autonomous character of the CESB is not
negated by its attachment to respondent
Commission. By said attachment, CESB was
not made to fall within the control of
respondent Commission. Under the
Administrative Code of 1987, the purpose of
attaching one functionally inter-related
government agency to another is to attain
"policy and program coordination." This is
clearly etched out in Section 38(3), Chapter 7,
Book IV of the aforecited Code, to wit:
(3) Attachment. — (a) This refers to the lateral
relationship between the department or its
equivalent and attached agency or corporation
for purposes of policy and program
coordination. The coordination may be
accomplished by having the department
represented in the governing board of the
attached agency or corporation, either as
chairman or as a member, with or without
voting rights, if this is permitted by the charter;
having the attached corporation or agency
comply with a system of periodic reporting
which shall reflect the progress of programs
and projects; and having the department or its
equivalent provide general policies through its
representative in the board, which shall serve
as the framework for the internal policies of
the attached corporation or agency.
PADS vs CA
Facts:
On March 12, 1985, State Prosecutor Jose B.
Rosales, who is assigned with the Presidential
Anti-Dollar Salting Task Force hereinafter
referred to as PADS Task Force for purposes
of convenience, issued search warrants Nos.
156, 157, 158, 159, 160 and 161 against the
petitioners Karamfil Import-Export Co., Inc., P
& B Enterprises Co., Inc., Philippine Veterans
Corporation, Philippine Veterans Development
Corporation, Philippine Construction
Development Corporation, Philippine Lauan
Industries Corporation, Inter-trade
Development (Alvin Aquino), Amelili U.
Malaquiok Enterprises and Jaime P. Lucman
Enterprises.
The application for the issuance of said
search warrants was filed by Atty. Napoleon
Gatmaytan of the Bureau of Customs who is a
deputized member of the PADS Task Force.
Attached to the said application is the affidavit
of Josefin M. Castro who is an operative and
investigator of the PADS Task Force. Said
Josefin M. Castro is likewise the sole
deponent in the purported deposition to
support the application for the issuance of the
six (6) search warrants involved in this case.
The application filed by Atty. Gatmaytan, the
affidavit and deposition of Josefin M. Castro
are all dated March 12, 1985. 5
Shortly thereafter, the private respondent (the petitioner below)
went to the Regional Trial Court on a petition to enjoin the
implementation of the search warrants in question. 6 On March
13, 1985, the trial court issued a temporary restraining order
[effective "for a period of five (5)
On April 16, 1985, the lower court issued the first of its
challenged Orders, and held:
WHEREFORE, in view of all the foregoing, the
Court hereby declares Search Warrant Nos.
156, 157, 158, 159, 160, and 161 to be null
and void. Accordingly, the respondents are
hereby ordered to return and surrender
immediately all the personal properties and
documents seized by them from the
petitioners by virtue of the aforementioned
search warrants.
CA also dismissed
Held:
As we have observed, the question is whether
or not the Presidential Anti-Dollar Salting Task
Force is, in the first place, a quasi-judicial
body, and one whose decisions may not be
challenged before the regular courts, other
than the higher tribunals the Court of Appeals
and this Court.
A quasi-judicial body has been defined as "an
organ of government other than a court and
other than a legislature, which affects the
rights of private parties through either
adjudication or rule making.
s decision are seasonably appealed to the
proper reviewing authorities, the same attain
finality and become executory. A perusal of
the Presidential Anti-Dollar Salting Task
Force's organic act, Presidential Decree No.
1936, as amended by Presidential Decree No.
2002, convinces the Court that the Task Force
was not meant to exercise quasi-judicial
functions, that is, to try and decide claims and
execute its judgments. As the President's arm
called upon to combat the vice of "dollar
salting" or the blackmarketing and salting of
foreign exchange, 32 it is tasked alone by the Decree to
handle the prosecution of such activities, but nothing more. We
quote:
SECTION 1. Powers of the Presidential Anti-
Dollar Salting Task Force.-The Presidential
Anti-Dollar Salting Task Force, hereinafter
referred to as Task Force, shall have the
following powers and authority:
a) Motu proprio or upon complaint, to
investigate and prosecute all dollar salting
activities, including the overvaluation of
imports and the undervaluation of exports;
b) To administer oaths, summon persons or
issue subpoenas requiring the attendance and
testimony of witnesses or the production of
such books, papers, contracts, records,
statements of accounts, agreements, and
other as may be necessary in the conduct of
investigation;
c) To appoint or designate experts,
consultants, state prosecutors or fiscals,
investigators and hearing officers to assist the
Task Force in the discharge of its duties and
responsibilities; gather data, information or
documents; conduct hearings, receive
evidence, both oral and documentary, in all
cases involving violation of foreign exchange
laws or regulations; and submit reports
containing findings and recommendations for
consideration of appropriate authorities;
d) To punish direct and indirect contempts
with the appropriate penalties therefor under
Rule 71 of the Rules of Court; and to adopt
such measures and take such actions as may
be necessary to implement this Decree.
xxx xxx xxx
f. After due investigation but prior to the filing
of the appropriate criminal charges with the
fiscal's office or the courts as the case may
be, to impose a fine and/or administrative
sanctions as the circumstances warrant, upon
any person found committing or to have
committed acts constituting blackmarketing or
salting abroad of foreign exchange, provided
said person voluntarily admits the facts and
circumstances constituting the offense and
presents proof that the foreign exchange
retained abroad has already been brought into
the country.
Thereafter, no further civil or criminal action
may be instituted against said person before
any other judicial regulatory or administrative
body for violation of Presidential Decree No.
1883.
The amount of the fine shall be determined by
the Chairman of the Presidential Anti- Dollar
Salting Task Force and paid in Pesos taking
into consideration the amount of foreign
exchange retained abroad, the exchange rate
differentials, uncollected taxes and duties
thereon, undeclared profits, interest rates and
such other relevant factors.
The fine shall be paid to the Task Force which
shall retain Twenty percent (20 %) thereof.
The informer, if any, shall be entitled to
Twenty percent (20 %) of the fine. Should
there be no informer, the Task Force shall be
entitle to retain Forty percent (40 %) of the
fine and the balance shall accrue to the
general funds of the National government.
The amount of the fine to be retained by the
Task Force shall form part of its Confidential
Fund and be utilized for the operations of the
Task Force . 33
The Court sees nothing in the aforequoted provisions (except
with respect to the Task Force's powers to issue search
warrants) that will reveal a legislative intendment to confer it with
quasi-judicial responsibilities relative to offenses punished by
Presidential Decree No. 1883. Its undertaking, as we said, is
simply, to determine whether or not probable cause exists to
warrant the filing of charges with the proper court, meaning to
say, to conduct an inquiry preliminary to a judicial recourse, and
to recommend action "of appropriate authorities". It is not unlike
a fiscal's office that conducts a preliminary investigation to
determine whether or not prima facie evidence exists to justify
haling the respondent to court, and yet, while it makes that
determination, it cannot be said to be acting as a quasi-court. For
it is the courts, ultimately, that pass judgment on the accused,
not the fiscal.
It is not unlike the Presidential Commission on
Good Government either, the executive body
appointed to investigate and prosecute cases
involving "ill-gotten wealth". It had been
vested with enormous powers, like the
issuance of writs of sequestration, freeze
orders, and similar processes, but that did not,
on account thereof alone, make it a quasi-
judicial entity as defined by recognized
authorities. It cannot pronounce judgement of
the accused's culpability, the jurisdiction to do
which is exclusive upon the Sandiganbayan.
It is our ruling, thus, that when the 1973
Constitution spoke of "responsible officer" to
whom the authority to issue arrest and search
warrants may be delegated by legislation, it
did not furnish the legislator with the license to
give that authority to whomsoever it pleased.
It is to be noted that the Charter itself makes
the qualification that the officer himself must
be "responsible". We are not saying, of
course, that the Presidential Anti-Dollar
Salting Task Force (or any similar prosecutor)
is or has been irresponsible in discharging its
duty. Rather, we take "responsibility", as used
by the Constitution, to mean not only skill and
competence but more significantly, neutrality
and independence comparable to the
impartiality presumed of a judicial officer. A
prosecutor can in no manner be said to be
possessed of the latter qualities.
According to the Court of Appeals, the implied
exclusion of prosecutors under the 1973
Constitution was founded on the requirements
of due process, notably, the assurance to the
respondent of an unbiased inquiry of the
charges against him prior to the arrest of his
person or seizure of his property. We add that
the exclusion is also demanded by the
principle of separation of powers on which our
republican structure rests. Prosecutors
exercise essentially an executive function (the
petitioner itself is chaired by the Minister, now
Secretary, of Trade and Industry), since under
the Constitution, the President has pledged to
execute the laws. 52 As such, they cannot be made to
issue judicial processes without unlawfully impinging the
prerogative of the courts.
De llana vs Alba
Facts: In 1981, Batas Pambansa Blg. 129,
entitled “An Act Reorganizing the
Judiciary, Appropriating Funds Therefor
and for Other Purposes”, was passed.
Gualberto De la Llana, a judge in
Olongapo, was assailing its validity
because, first of all, he would be one of
the judges that would be removed
because of the reorganization and
second, he said such law would
contravene the constitutional provision
which provides the security of tenure of
judges of the courts. He averred that only
the Supreme Court can remove judges
NOT the Congress.
ISSUE: Whether or not a judge like Judge
De La Llana can be validly removed by
the legislature by such statute (BP 129).
HELD: Yes. The SC ruled the following
way: “Moreover, this Court is empowered
“to discipline judges of inferior courts and,
by a vote of at least eight members, order
their dismissal.” Thus it possesses the
competence to remove judges. Under the
Judiciary Act, it was the President who
was vested with such power. Removal
is, of course, to be distinguished from
termination by virtue of the abolition of
the office. There can be no tenure to a
non-existent office. After the abolition,
there is in law no occupant. In case of
removal, there is an office with an
occupant who would thereby lose his
position. It is in that sense that from
the standpoint of strict law, the
question of any impairment of security
of tenure does not arise. Nonetheless,
for the incumbents of inferior courts
abolished, the effect is one of separation.
As to its effect, no distinction exists
between removal and the abolition of the
office. Realistically, it is devoid of
significance. He ceases to be a member
of the judiciary. In the implementation of
the assailed legislation, therefore, it would
be in accordance with accepted principles
of constitutional construction that as far as
incumbent justices and judges are
concerned, this Court be consulted and
that its view be accorded the fullest
consideration. No fear need be
entertained that there is a failure to accord
respect to the basic principle that this
Court does not render advisory
opinions. No question of law is
involved. If such were the case, certainly
this Court could not have its say prior to
the action taken by either of the two
departments. Even then, it could do so but
only by way of deciding a case where the
matter has been put in issue. Neither is
there any intrusion into who shall be
appointed to the vacant positions created
by the reorganization. That remains in the
hands of the Executive to whom it
properly belongs. There is no departure
therefore from the tried and tested ways
of judicial power. Rather what is sought to
be achieved by this liberal interpretation is
to preclude any plausibility to the charge
that in the exercise of the conceded
power of reorganizing the inferior courts,
the power of removal of the present
incumbents vested in this Tribunal is
ignored or disregarded. The challenged
Act would thus be free from any
unconstitutional taint, even one not readily
discernible except to those predisposed to
view it with distrust. Moreover, such a
construction would be in accordance with
the basic principle that in the choice of
alternatives between one which would
save and another which would invalidate
a statute, the former is to be preferred.”
Nothing is better settled in our law than that
the abolition of an office within the
competence of a legitimate body if done in
good faith suffers from no infirmity.
The ponencia of Justice J.B.L. Reyes in Cruz
v. Primicias, Jr. 38reiterated such a doctrine:
"We find this point urged by respondents, to be
without merit. No removal or separation of
petitioners from the service is here involved, but
the validity of the abolition of their offices. This is
a legal issue that is for the Courts to decide. It is
well-known rule also that valid abolition of offices
is neither removal nor separation of the
incumbents. ... And, of course, if the abolition is
void, the incumbent is deemed never to have
ceased to hold office. The preliminary question
laid at rest, we pass to the merits of the case. As
well-settled as the rule that the abolition of an
office does not amount to an illegal removal of
its incumbent is the principle that, in order to be
valid, the abolition must be made in good
faith." 39 The above excerpt was quoted with
approval in Bendanillo, Sr. v. Provincial
Governor, 40 two earlier cases enunciating a
similar doctrine having preceded it. 41 As with the
offices in the other branches of the government,
so it is with the judiciary. The test remains
whether the abolition is in good faith. As that
element is conspicuously present in the
enactment of Batas Pambansa Blg. 129, then
the lack of merit of this petition becomes even
more apparent. The concurring opinion of
Justice Laurel in Zandueta v. De la
Costa 42 cannot be any clearer. This is a quo
warranto proceeding filed by petitioner, claiming
that he, and not respondent, was entitled to he
office of judge of the Fifth Branch of the Court of
First Instance of Manila. There was a Judicial
Reorganization Act in 1936, 43 a year after the
inauguration of the Commonwealth, amending
the Administrative Code to organize courts of
original jurisdiction known as the Courts of First
Instance Prior to such statute, petitioner was the
incumbent of such branch. Thereafter, he
received an ad interim appointment, this time to
the Fourth Judicial District, under the new
legislation. Unfortunately for him, the
Commission on Appointments of then National
Assembly disapproved the same, with
respondent being appointed in his place. He
contested the validity of the Act insofar as it
resulted in his being forced to vacate his position
This Court did not rule squarely on the matter.
His petition was dismissed on the ground of
estoppel. Nonetheless, the separate
concurrence of Justice Laurel in the result
reached, to repeat, reaffirms in no uncertain
terms the standard of good faith to preclude any
doubt as to the abolition of an inferior court, with
due recognition of the security of tenure
guarantee. Thus: " I am of the opinion that
Commonwealth Act No. 145 in so far as it
reorganizes, among other judicial districts, the
Ninth Judicial District, and establishes an
entirely new district comprising Manila and the
provinces of Rizal and Palawan, is valid and
constitutional. This conclusion flows from the
fundamental proposition that the legislature may
abolish courts inferior to the Supreme Court and
therefore may reorganize them territorially or
otherwise thereby necessitating new
appointments and commissions. Section 2,
Article VIII of the Constitution vests in the
National Assembly the power to define,
prescribe and apportion the jurisdiction of the
various courts, subject to certain limitations in
the case of the Supreme Court. It is admitted
that section 9 of the same article of the
Constitution provides for the security of tenure of
all the judges. The principles embodied in these
two sections of the same article of the
Constitution must be coordinated and
harmonized. A mere enunciation of a principle
will not decide actual cases and controversies of
every sort. (Justice Holmes in Lochner vs. New
York, 198 U.S., 45; 49 Law. ed; 937)" 44 justice
Laurel continued: "I am not insensible to the
argument that the National Assembly may abuse
its power and move deliberately to defeat the
constitutional provision guaranteeing security of
tenure to all judges, But, is this the case? One
need not share the view of Story, Miller and
Tucker on the one hand, or the opinion of
Cooley, Watson and Baldwin on the other, to
realize that the application of a legal or
constitutional principle is necessarily factual and
circumstantial and that fixity of principle is the
rigidity of the dead and the unprogressive. I do
say, and emphatically, however, that cases may
arise where the violation of the constitutional
provision regarding security of tenure is palpable
and plain, and that legislative power of
reorganization may be sought to cloak an
unconstitutional and evil purpose. When a case
of that kind arises, it will be the time to make the
hammer fall and heavily. But not until then. I am
satisfied that, as to the particular point here
discussed, the purpose was the fulfillment of
what was considered a great public need by the
legislative department and that Commonwealth
Act No. 145 was not enacted purposely to affect
adversely the tenure of judges or of any
particular judge. Under these circumstances, I
am for sustaining the power of the legislative
department under the Constitution. To be sure,
there was greater necessity for reorganization
consequent upon the establishment of the new
government than at the time Acts Nos. 2347 and
4007 were approved by the defunct Philippine
Legislature, and although in the case of these
two Acts there was an express provision
providing for the vacation by the judges of their
offices whereas in the case of Commonwealth
Act No. 145 doubt is engendered by its silence,
this doubt should be resolved in favor of the
valid exercise of the legislative power."
Lacson-Magallanes vs Pano
Facts:
The question — May the Executive Secretary,
acting by authority of the President, reverse a
decision of the Director of Lands that had
been affirmed by the Executive Secretary of
Agriculture and Natural Resources — yielded
an affirmative answer from the lower court.1
Hence, this appeal certified to this Court by
the Court of Appeals upon the provisions of
Sections 17 and 31 of the Judiciary Act of
1948, as amended.
The undisputed controlling facts are:
In 1932, Jose Magallanes was a permittee
and actual occupant of a 1,103-hectare
pasture land situated in Tamlangon,
Municipality of Bansalan, Province of Davao.
On January 9, 1953, Magallanes ceded his
rights and interests to a portion (392,7569
hectares) of the above public land to plaintiff.
On April 13, 1954, the portion Magallanes
ceded to plaintiff was officially released from
the forest zone as pasture land and declared
agricultural land.
On January 26, 1955, Jose Paño and
nineteen other claimants2 applied for the
purchase of ninety hectares of the released
area.
On March 29, 1955, plaintiff corporation in
turn filed its own sales application covering
the entire released area. This was protested
by Jose Paño and his nineteen companions
upon the averment that they are actual
occupants of the part thereof covered by their
own sales application.
The Director of Lands, following an
investigation of the conflict, rendered a
decision on July 31, 1956 giving due course to
the application of plaintiff corporation, and
dismissing the claim of Jose Paño and his
companions. A move to reconsider failed.
On July 5, 1957, the Secretary of Agriculture
and Natural Resources — on appeal by Jose
Paño for himself and his companions — held
that the appeal was without merit and
dismissed the same.
The case was elevated to the President of the
Philippines.
On June 25, 1958, Executive Secretary Juan
Pajo, "[b]y authority of the President" decided
the controversy, modified the decision of the
Director of Lands as affirmed by the Secretary
of Agriculture and Natural Resources, and (1)
declared that "it would be for the public
interest that appellants, who are mostly
landless farmers who depend on the land for
their existence, be allocated that portion on
which they have made improvements;" and
(2) directed that the controverted land
(northern portion of Block I, LC Map 1749,
Project No. 27, of Bansalan, Davao, with
Latian River as the dividing line) "should be
subdivided into lots of convenient sizes and
allocated to actual occupants, without
prejudice to the corporation's right to
reimbursement for the cost of surveying this
portion." It may be well to state, at this point,
that the decision just mentioned, signed by the
Executive Secretary, was planted upon the
facts as found in said decision.
Issue:
Held:
1. Plaintiff's mainstay is Section 4 of
Commonwealth Act 141. The precept there is
that decisions of the Director of Lands "as to
questions of facts shall be conclusive when
approved" by the Secretary of Agriculture and
Natural Resources. Plaintiff's trenchment
claim is that this statute is controlling not only
upon courts but also upon the President.
Plaintiff's position is incorrect. The President's
duty to execute the law is of constitutional
origin.3 So, too, is his control of all executive
departments.4 Thus it is, that department
heads are men of his confidence. His is the
power to appoint them; his, too, is the
privilege to dismiss them at pleasure.
Naturally, he controls and directs their acts.
Implicit then is his authority to go over,
confirm, modify or reverse the action taken by
his department secretaries. In this context, it
may not be said that the President cannot rule
on the correctness of a decision of a
department secretary.
Particularly in reference to the decisions of the
Director of Lands, as affirmed by the
Secretary of Agriculture and Natural
Resources, the standard practice is to allow
appeals from such decisions to the Office of
the President.5This Court has recognized this
practice in several cases. In one, the decision
of the Lands Director as approved by the
Secretary was considered superseded by that
of the President's appeal.6 In other cases,
failure to pursue or resort to this last remedy
of appeal was considered a fatal defect,
warranting dismissal of the case, for non-
exhaustion of all administrative remedies.7
Parenthetically, it may be stated that the right
to appeal to the President reposes upon the
President's power of control over the
executive departments.8 And control simply
means "the power of an officer to alter or
modify or nullify or set aside what a
subordinate officer had done in the
performance of his duties and to substitute the
judgment of the former for that of the latter."9
This unquestionably negates the assertion
that the President cannot undo an act of his
department secretary.
2. Plaintiff next submits that the decision of
the Executive Secretary herein is an undue
delegation of power. The Constitution,
petitioner asserts, does not contain any
provision whereby the presidential power of
control may be delegated to the Executive
Secretary. It is argued that it is the
constitutional duty of the President to act
personally upon the matter.
It is correct to say that constitutional powers
there are which the President must exercise in
person.10 Not as correct, however, is it so say
that the Chief Executive may not delegate to
his Executive Secretary acts which the
Constitution does not command that he
perform in person.11 Reason is not wanting for
this view. The President is not expected to
perform in person all the multifarious
executive and administrative functions. The
Office of the Executive Secretary is an
auxiliary unit which assists the President. The
rule which has thus gained recognition is that
"under our constitutional setup the Executive
Secretary who acts for and in behalf and by
authority of the President has an undisputed
jurisdiction to affirm, modify, or even reverse
any order" that the Secretary of Agriculture
and Natural Resources, including the Director
of Lands, may issue.12
3. But plaintiff underscores the fact that the
Executive Secretary is equal in rank to the
other department heads, no higher than
anyone of them. From this, plaintiff carves the
argument that one department head, on the
pretext that he is an alter ego of the President,
cannot intrude into the zone of action
allocated to another department secretary.
This argument betrays lack of appreciation of
the fact that where, as in this case, the
Executive Secretary acts "[b]y authority of the
President," his decision is that of the
President's. Such decision is to be given full
faith and credit by our courts. The assumed
authority of the Executive Secretary is to be
accepted. For, only the President may
rightfully say that the Executive Secretary is
not authorized to do so. Therefore, unless the
action taken is "disapproved or reprobated by
the Chief Executive,"13 that remains the act of
the Chief Executive, and cannot be
successfully assailed.14 No such disapproval
or reprobation is even intimated in the record
of this case.
Medalla vs Sayo
Facts
MELENCIO-HERRERA, J.:
In this Petition for "Certiorari, mandamus and
Prohibition", seeking the dismissal of Civil
Case No. C-7770 below, we have, as factual
background, the following:
Petitioner, Dr. Eustaquio M. Medalla, Jr., is
the Chief of Clinics of the Caloocan City
General Hospital, Caloocan City. Private
respondent,, Dr. Honorato G. Mackay was the
Resident Physician thereat.
When the position of Assistant, hospital
Administrator of the Caloocan City General
Hospital became vacant upon the resignation
of the incumbent, former Caloocan City Mayor
Alejandro A. Fider designated and
subsequently appointed, as Assistant Hospital
Administrator private respondent Dr. Mackay,
a Resident Physician in said hospital.
Petitioner, Dr. Medalla, Jr., protested Dr.
Mackay's designation and subsequent
appointment alleging among others that, as
Chief of Clinics, he (Medalla) was next-in-
rank. The then Acting City Mayor Virgilio P.
Robles, who succeeded former Mayor, now
Assemblyman Alejandro A. Fider, in his 4th
Indorsement dated September 20, 1978,
sustained Mackay's appointment stating:
Dissatisfied, Medalla elevated his case to the
Civil Service Commission on appeal. On
December 29, 1978, the Civil Service Merit
Systems Board issued Resolution No. 49
sustaining Medalla's appeal and revoking
Mackay's appointment as Assistant Hospital
Administrator. The pertinent
Upon automatic review by the Office of the
President, pursuant to section 19(6), PD No.
807, Presidential Executive Assistant Jacobo
C. Clave rendered a Decision on April 24,
1979 declaring that:
WHEREFORE, premises considered, and as
recommended by Civil Service Commission,
the appointment of Dr. Honorato G. Mackay
as Assistant Hospital Administrator in the
Caloocan City General Hospital is hereby
revoked and the position awarded in favor of
appellant Dr. Eustaquio M. Medalla. 2
The Acting City Mayor, on behalf of Mackay,
moved for reconsideration.
On May 7, 1979, totally disregarding the
Decision of the Office of the President, the
same Acting City Mayor appointed Mackay,
this time as Hospital Administrator, and
designated Dr. Tantoco as his Assistant,
thereby again completely bypassing Medalla.
Mackay took his oath of office on May 7,
1979.
On June 27, 1979, however, the Civil Service
Commission, acting on Medalla's protest, and
besides calling attention to the penal provision
of P.D. No. 807, disapproved Mackay's
appointment as follows:
Wherefore, premises considered and finding
the protest of Dr. Medalla in order, the
appointment of Dr. Mackay as hospital
Administrator at P26,388 per annum effective
May 7, 1979 is hereby disapproved. it is
hereby ordered that Dr. Medalla be appointed
to the position of Hospital Administrator of the
Caloocan City General Hospital. 3
On July 20, 1979, Mackay moved for
reconsideration asserting 1) denial of due
process of law inasmuch as the contested
Resolution/Decisions were issued ex-parte,
and 2) that the Civil Service Commission can
not ignore nor overrule an appointment made
by a City Executive.
Without awaiting the resolution of his Motion
for Consideration- Mackay filed, on July 23,
1979, before tile Court of First Instance of
Rizal, Caloocan City, presided by respondent,
Judge, a Petition for "Certiorari, Prohibition
and mandamus with Preliminary Injunction
and Damages" civil Case No. C7770) against
Hon. Jacobo Clave, the Civil Service
Commission, the Acting City Mayor, the City
Treasurer, and Medalla, praying that said
respondents be restrained from implementing
the Decision of Hon. Jacobo Clave of April 24,
1979, the Resolution No. 49 of the Merit
Systems Board dated December 29, 1978,
and the Decision of the Civil Service
Commission of June 27, 1979. The Court a
quo issued the Restraining Order prayed for
on July 25, 1979 enjoining implementation of
the aforestated Resolution/Decisions.
On August 2, 1979, Medalla moved to
dissolve the Restraining Order and to dismiss
the Petition alleging mainly that Mackay had
not exhausted his administrative remedies
and that the latter's right to a Writ of
Preliminary Injunction was not only dubious or
debatable but was clearly non-existent. Hon.
Jacobo Clave and the Civil Service
Commission likewise filed a Motion to Dismiss
on the same ground of failure to exhaust
administrative remedies.
On August 13, 1979, Mackay moved to
suspend proceedings pending final resolution
by the Civil Service Commission of his Motion
for the reconsideration of the Decision of said
Commission dated June 27, 1979.
Held:
Although Mackay's Motions for
Reconsideration were, in fact, still pending
resolution by Hon. Jacobo C. Clave and the
Civil Service Commission, respectively, at the
time private respondent Mackay filed the
Petition below, dismissal of said Petition can
no longer be anchored on the ground of non-
exhaustion of administrative remedies, as
Medalla prays, considering that Manifestations
dated August 17 and 23, 1979 filed by the
said parties before the Court a quo show that
they had resolved the incidents adversely
against Mackay. 6 That issue, therefore, has
become moot and academic.
In so far as jurisdiction of the Court below to
review by certiorari decisions and/or
resolutions of the Civil Service Commission
and of the Presidential Executive Assistant is
concerned, there should be no question but
that the power of judicial review should be
upheld. The following rulings buttress this
conclusion:
The objection to a judicial review of a
Presidential act arises from a failure to
recognize the most important principle in our
system of government, i.e., the separation of
powers into three coequal departments, the
executive, the legislative and the judicial, each
supreme within its own assigned powers and
duties. When a presidential act is challenged
before the courts of justice, it is not to be
implied therefrom that the Executive is being
made subject and subordinate to the courts.
The legality of his acts are under judicial
review, not because the Executive is inferior
to the courts, but because the law is above
the Chief Executive himself, and the courts
seek only to interpret, apply or implement it
(the law). A judicial review of the President's
decision on a case of an employee decided by
the Civil Service Board of Appeals should be
viewed in this light and the bringing of the
case to the Courts should be governed by the
same principles as govern the judicial review
of all administrative acts of all administrative
officers. 7
The courts may always examine into the
exercise of power by a ministerial officer to the
extent of determining whether the particular
power has been granted to the officer,
whether it is a legal power that could have
been granted to him, and whether it has been
exercised in a legal manner. This jurisdiction
does not depend upon an act of the legislature
authorizing it, but inheres in the courts of
general jurisdiction as an essential function of
the judicial department (State Racing
Commission v. Latonia Agri. Asso. 123 SW 68
1). 8 (emphasis supplied).
For the speedy determination of the
controversy, however, and considering that
the position involved is infused with public
interest, rather than remand the case to the
Court below for further proceedings, we hold
that grave abuse of discretion on the part of
Hon. Jacobo C. Clave and the Civil Service
Merit Systems Board is absent.
To start with, under the Revised Charter of the
City of Caloocan RA No. 5502), it is clear that
the power of appointment by the City Mayor of
heads of offices entirely paid out of city funds
is subject to Civil Service law, rules and
regulations (ibid., section 19). The Caloocan
City General Hospital is one of the city
departments provided for in the said law (ibid.,
sec. 17). The Hospital Administrator is
appointed by the City Mayor (ibid., section 66-
B). The Hospital Administrator is the head of
the City General Hospital empowered to
administer, direct, and coordinate all activities
of the hospital to carry out its objectives as to
the care of the sick and the injured (ibid.).
Lianga vs Enage
Rationale
The Court grants the petition for certiorari and
prohibition and holds that respondent judge,
absent any showing of grave abuse of
discretion, has no competence nor authority to
review anew the decision in administrative
proceedings of respondents public officials
(director of forestry, secretary of agriculture
and natural resources and assistant executive
secretaries of the Office of the President) in
determining the correct boundary line of the
licensed timber areas of the contending
parties. The Court reaffirms the established
principle that findings of fact by an
administrative board or agency or official,
following a hearing, are binding upon the
courts and will not be disturbed except where
the board, agency and/or official(s) have gone
beyond their statutory authority, exercised
unconstitutional powers or clearly acted
arbitrarily and without regard to their duty or
with grave abuse of discretion.
Facts:
The parties herein are both forest
concessionaries whose licensed areas are
adjacent to each other. The concession of
petitioner Lianga Bay Logging Corporation
Co., Inc. (hereinafter referred to as petitioner
Lianga) as described in its Timber License
Agreement No. 49, is located in the
municipalities of Tago, Cagwait, Marihatag
and Lianga, all in the Province of Surigao,
consisting of 110,406 hectares, more or less,
while that of respondent Ago Timber
Corporation (hereinafter referred to as
respondent Ago) granted under Ordinary
Timber License No. 1323-60 [New] is located
at Los Arcos and San Salvador, Province of
Agusan, with an approximate area of 4,000
hectares. It was a part of a forest area of
9,000 hectares originally licensed to one
Narciso Lansang under Ordinary Timber
License No. 584-'52.
Since the concessions of petitioner and
respondent are adjacent to each other, they
have a common boundary-the Agusan-
Surigao Provincial boundary-whereby the
eastern boundary of respondent Ago's
concession is petitioner Lianga's western
boundary. The western boundary of petitioner
Lianga is described as "... Corner 5, a point in
the intersection of the Agusan-Surigao
Provincial boundary and Los Arcos-Lianga
Road; thence following Agusan-Surigao
Provincial boundary in a general northerly and
northwesterly and northerly directions about
39,500 meters to Corner 6, a point at the
intersection of the Agusan-Surigao Provincial
boundary and Nalagdao Creek ..." The
eastern boundary of respondent Ago's
concession is described as "... point 4, along
the Agusan-Surigao boundary; thence
following Agusan-Surigao boundary in a
general southeasterly and southerly directions
about 12,000 meters to point 5, a point along
Los Arcos-Lianga Road; ..." 1
Because of reports of encroachment by both
parties on each other's concession areas, the
Director of Forestry ordered a survey to
establish on the ground the common
boundary of their respective concession
areas. Forester Cipriano Melchor undertook
the survey and fixed the common boundary as
"Corner 5 of Lianga Bay Logging Company at
Km. 10.2 instead of Km. 9.7 on the Lianga-
Arcos Road and lines N900E, 21,000 meters;
N12 W, 21,150 meters; N40 W, 3,000 meters;
N31 W, 2,800 meters; N50 W, 1,700 meters"
which respondent Ago protested claiming that
"its eastern boundary should be the provincial
boundary line of Agusan-Surigao as described
in Section 1 of Art. 1693 of the Philippine
Commission as indicated in the green pencil
in the attached sketch" of the areas as
prepared by the Bureau of Forestry.
and ruled that "the claim of the Ago Timber
Corporation runs counter to the intentions of
this Office is granting the license of Mr.
Narciso Lansang; and further, that it also runs
counter to the intentions of this Office in
granting the Timber License Agreement to the
Lianga Bay Logging Co., Inc. The intentions of
this Office in granting the two licenses
(Lansang and Lianga Bay Logging Co., Inc.)
are patently manifest in that distances and
bearings are the controlling factors. If mention
was ever made of the Agusan-Surigao
boundary, as the common boundary line of
both licensees, this Office could not have
meant the Agusan-Surigao boundary as
described under Section 1 of Act 1693 of the
Philippine Commission for were it so it could
have been so easy for this Office to mention
the distance from point 3 to point 4 of Narciso
Lansang as approximately 13,800 meters.
This cannot be considered a mistake
considering that the percentage of error which
is more or less 103% is too high an error to be
committed by an Office manned by competent
technical men. The Agusan-Surigao boundary
as mentioned in the technical descriptions of
both licensees, is, therefore, patently an
imaginary line based on B.F. License Control
Map. Such being the case, it is reiterated that
distance and bearings control the description
where an imaginary line exists. 3The decision
fixed the common boundary of the licensed
areas of the Ago Timber Corporation and
Lianga Bay Logging Co., Inc. as that indicated
in red pencil of the sketch attached to the
decision.
On October 21, 1968, a new action was
commenced by Ago Timber Corporation, as
plaintiff, in the Court of First Instance of
Agusan, Branch II, docketed thereat as Civil
Case No. 1253, against Lianga Bay Logging
Co., Inc., Assistant Executive Secretaries
Jose J. Leido, Jr. and Gilberto M. Duavit and
Director of Forestry, as defendants, for
"Determination of Correct Boundary Line of
License Timber Areas and Damages with
Preliminary Injunction" reiterating once more
the same question raised and passed upon in
DANR Case No. 2268 and insisting that "a
judicial review of such divergent administrative
decisions is necessary in order to determine
the correct boundary fine of the licensed areas
in question."
As prayed for, respondent judge issued a
temporary restraining order on October 28,
1968, on a bond of P20,000, enjoining the
defendants from carrying out the decision of
the Office of the President. The corresponding
writ was issued the next day, or on October
29, 1968.
On November 10, 1968, defendant Lianga
(herein petitioner) moved for dismissal of the
complaint and for dissolution of the temporary
restraining order on grounds that the
complaint states no cause of action and that
the court has no jurisdiction over the person of
respondent public officials and respondent
corporation. It also submitted its opposition to
plaintiff's (herein respondent prayer for the
issuance of a writ of preliminary injunction. 10 A
supplemental motion was filed on December
6, 1968.
Held:
Respondent Judge erred in taking cognizance
of the complaint filed by respondent Ago,
asking for the determination anew of the
correct boundary fine of its licensed timber
area, for the same issue had already been
determined by the Director of Forestry, the
Secretary of Agriculture and Natural
Resources and the Office of the President,
administrative officials under whose
jurisdictions the matter properly belongs.
Section 1816 of the Revised Administrative
Code vests in the Bureau of Forestry, the
jurisdiction and authority over the
demarcation, protection, management,
reproduction, reforestation, occupancy, and
use of all public forests and forest reserves
and over the granting of licenses for game
and fish, and for the taking of forest products,
including stone and earth therefrom. The
Secretary of Agriculture and Natural
Resources, as department head, may repeal
or in the decision of the Director of Forestry
when advisable in the public
interests, 15 whose decision is in turn
appealable to the Office of the President. 16
In giving due course to the complaint below,
the respondent court would necessarily have
to assess and evaluate anew all the evidence
presented in the administrative
proceedings, 17 which is beyond its
competence and jurisdiction. For the
respondent court to consider and weigh again
the evidence already presented and passed
upon by said officials would be to allow it to
substitute its judgment for that of said officials
who are in a better position to consider and
weigh the same in the light of the authority
specifically vested in them by law. Such a
posture cannot be entertained, for it is a well-
settled doctrine that the courts of justice will
generally not interfere with purely
administrative matters which are addressed to
the sound discretion of government agencies
and their expertise unless there is a clear
showing that the latter acted arbitrarily or with
grave abuse of discretion or when they have
acted in a capricious and whimsical manner
such that their action may amount to an
excess or lack of jurisdiction. 18
A doctrine long recognized is that where the
law confines in an administrative office the
power to determine particular questions or
matters, upon the facts to be presented, the
jurisdiction of such office shall prevail over the
courts. 19
The general rule, under the principles of
administrative law in force in this jurisdiction,
is that decisions of administrative officers shall
not be disturbed by the courts, except when
the former have acted without or in excess of
their jurisdiction, or with grave abuse of
discretion. Findings of administrative officials
and agencies who have acquired expertise
because their jurisdiction is confined to
specific matters are generally accorded not
only respect but at times even finality of such
findings are supported by substantial
evidence. 20 As recently stressed by the Court,
"in this era of clogged court dockets, the need
for specialized administrative boards or
commissions with the special knowledge,
experience and capability to hear and
determine promptly disputes on technical
matters or essentially factual matters, subject
to judicial review in case of grave abuse of
discretion, has become well nigh
indispensable."
In the leading case of Palanan Lumber
Plywood Co., Inc. v. Arranz 31 which involved a
petition for certiorari and prohibition filed in the
Court of First Instance of Isabela against the
same respondent public officials as here and
where the administrative proceedings taken
were similar to the case at bar, the Court laid
down the rule that: "We agree with the
petitioner that the respondent Court acted
without jurisdiction in issuing a preliminary
injunction against the petitioners Executive
Secretary, Secretary of Agriculture and
Natural Resources and the Director of
Forestry, who have their official residences in
Manila and Quezon City, outside of the
territorial jurisdiction of the respondent Court
of First Instance of Isabela. Both the statutory
provisions and the settled jurisdiction of this
Court unanimously affirm that the
extraordinary writs issued by the Court of First
Instance are limited to and operative only
within their respective provinces and districts."
A different rule applies only when the point in
controversy relates solely to a determination
of a question of law whether the decision of
the respondent administrative officials
was legally correct or not. 32 We thus declared
in Director of Forestry v. Ruiz. 33 "In Palanan
Lumber & Plywood Co., Inc., supra, we
reaffirmed the rule of non-jurisdiction of courts
of first instance to issue injunctive writs in
order to control acts outside of their premises
or districts. We went further and said that
when the petition filed with the courts of first
instance not only questions the legal
correctness of the decision of administrative
officials but also seeks to enjoin the
enforcement of the said decision, the court
could not validly issue the writ of injunction
when the officials sought to be restrained from
enforcing the decision are not stationed within
its territory.
1avv phi1
Tio vs Videogram
Facts:
This petition was filed on September 1, 1986
by petitioner on his own behalf and
purportedly on behalf of other videogram
operators adversely affected. It assails the
constitutionality of Presidential Decree No.
1987 entitled "An Act Creating the Videogram
Regulatory Board" with broad powers to
regulate and supervise the videogram industry
(hereinafter briefly referred to as the BOARD).
The Decree was promulgated on October 5,
1985 and took effect on April 10, 1986, fifteen
(15) days after completion of its publication in
the Official Gazette.
On November 5, 1985, a month after the
promulgation of the abovementioned decree,
Presidential Decree No. 1994 amended the
National Internal Revenue Code
providing, inter alia:
 SEC. 134. Video Tapes. — There
shall be collected on each processed
video-tape cassette, ready for
playback, regardless of length, an
annual tax of five pesos; Provided,
That locally manufactured or imported
blank video tapes shall be subject to
sales tax.
Held:
1. The Constitutional requirement that "every
bill shall embrace only one subject which shall
be expressed in the title thereof" 1 is
sufficiently complied with if the title be
comprehensive enough to include the general
purpose which a statute seeks to achieve. It is
not necessary that the title express each and
every end that the statute wishes to
accomplish. The requirement is satisfied if all
the parts of the statute are related, and are
germane to the subject matter expressed in
the title, or as long as they are not
inconsistent with or foreign to the general
subject and title. 2An act having a single
general subject, indicated in the title, may
contain any number of provisions, no matter
how diverse they may be, so long as they are
not inconsistent with or foreign to the general
subject, and may be considered in furtherance
of such subject by providing for the method
and means of carrying out the general
object." 3 The rule also is that the
constitutional requirement as to the title of a
bill should not be so narrowly construed as to
cripple or impede the power of legislation. 4 It
should be given practical rather than technical
construction. 5
Tested by the foregoing criteria, petitioner's
contention that the tax provision of the
DECREE is a rider is without merit. That
section reads, inter alia:
Section 10. Tax on Sale, Lease or
Disposition of Videograms. —
Notwithstanding any provision of law
to the contrary, the province shall
collect a tax of thirty percent (30%) of
the purchase price or rental rate, as
the case may be, for every sale, lease
or disposition of a videogram
containing a reproduction of any
motion picture or audiovisual program.
Fifty percent (50%) of the proceeds of
the tax collected shall accrue to the
province, and the other fifty percent
(50%) shall acrrue to the municipality
where the tax is collected;
PROVIDED, That in Metropolitan
Manila, the tax shall be shared equally
by the City/Municipality and the
Metropolitan Manila Commission.
xxx xxx xxx
The foregoing provision is allied and germane
to, and is reasonably necessary for the
accomplishment of, the general object of the
DECREE, which is the regulation of the video
industry through the Videogram Regulatory
Board as expressed in its title. The tax
provision is not inconsistent with, nor foreign
to that general subject and title. As a tool for
regulation 6 it is simply one of the regulatory
and control mechanisms scattered throughout
the DECREE. The express purpose of the
DECREE to include taxation of the video
industry in order to regulate and rationalize
the heretofore uncontrolled distribution of
videograms is evident from Preambles 2 and
5, supra. Those preambles explain the
motives of the lawmaker in presenting the
measure. The title of the DECREE, which is
the creation of the Videogram Regulatory
Board, is comprehensive enough to include
the purposes expressed in its Preamble and
reasonably covers all its provisions. It is
unnecessary to express all those objectives in
the title or that the latter be an index to the
body of the DECREE. 7
2. Petitioner also submits that the thirty
percent (30%) tax imposed is harsh and
oppressive, confiscatory, and in restraint of
trade. However, it is beyond serious question
that a tax does not cease to be valid merely
because it regulates, discourages, or even
definitely deters the activities taxed. 8 The
power to impose taxes is one so unlimited in
force and so searching in extent, that the
courts scarcely venture to declare that it is
subject to any restrictions whatever, except
such as rest in the discretion of the authority
which exercises it. 9 In imposing a tax, the
legislature acts upon its constituents. This is,
in general, a sufficient security against
erroneous and oppressive taxation. 10
The tax imposed by the DECREE is not only a
regulatory but also a revenue measure
prompted by the realization that earnings of
videogram establishments of around P600
million per annum have not been subjected to
tax, thereby depriving the Government of an
additional source of revenue. It is an end-user
tax, imposed on retailers for every videogram
they make available for public viewing. It is
similar to the 30% amusement tax imposed or
borne by the movie industry which the theater-
owners pay to the government, but which is
passed on to the entire cost of the admission
ticket, thus shifting the tax burden on the
buying or the viewing public. It is a tax that is
imposed uniformly on all videogram operators.
The levy of the 30% tax is for a public
purpose. It was imposed primarily to answer
the need for regulating the video industry,
particularly because of the rampant film
piracy, the flagrant violation of intellectual
property rights, and the proliferation of
pornographic video tapes. And while it was
also an objective of the DECREE to protect
the movie industry, the tax remains a valid
imposition.
The public purpose of a tax may
legally exist even if the motive which
impelled the legislature to impose the
tax was to favor one industry over
another. 11
It is inherent in the power to tax that a
state be free to select the subjects of
taxation, and it has been repeatedly
held that "inequities which result from
a singling out of one particular class
for taxation or exemption infringe no
constitutional limitation". 12 Taxation
has been made the implement of the
state's police power.13
At bottom, the rate of tax is a matter better
addressed to the taxing legislature.
3. Petitioner argues that there was no legal
nor factual basis for the promulgation of the
DECREE by the former President under
Amendment No. 6 of the 1973 Constitution
providing that "whenever in the judgment of
the President ... , there exists a grave
emergency or a threat or imminence thereof,
or whenever the interim Batasang Pambansa
or the regular National Assembly fails or is
unable to act adequately on any matter for
any reason that in his judgment requires
immediate action, he may, in order to meet
the exigency, issue the necessary decrees,
orders, or letters of instructions, which shall
form part of the law of the land."
In refutation, the Intervenors and the Solicitor
General's Office aver that the 8th "whereas"
clause sufficiently summarizes the justification
in that grave emergencies corroding the moral
values of the people and betraying the
national economic recovery program
necessitated bold emergency measures to be
adopted with dispatch. Whatever the reasons
"in the judgment" of the then President,
considering that the issue of the validity of the
exercise of legislative power under the said
Amendment still pends resolution in several
other cases, we reserve resolution of the
question raised at the proper time.
4. Neither can it be successfully argued that
the DECREE contains an undue delegation of
legislative power. The grant in Section 11 of
the DECREE of authority to the BOARD to
"solicit the direct assistance of other agencies
and units of the government and deputize, for
a fixed and limited period, the heads or
personnel of such agencies and units to
perform enforcement functions for the Board"
is not a delegation of the power to legislate
but merely a conferment of authority or
discretion as to its execution, enforcement,
and implementation. "The true distinction is
between the delegation of power to make the
law, which necessarily involves a discretion as
to what it shall be, and conferring authority or
discretion as to its execution to be exercised
under and in pursuance of the law. The first
cannot be done; to the latter, no valid
objection can be made." 14 Besides, in the very
language of the decree, the authority of the
BOARD to solicit such assistance is for a
"fixed and limited period" with the deputized
agencies concerned being "subject to the
direction and control of the BOARD." That the
grant of such authority might be the source of
graft and corruption would not stigmatize the
DECREE as unconstitutional. Should the
eventuality occur, the aggrieved parties will
not be without adequate remedy in law.
5. The DECREE is not violative of the ex post
facto principle. An ex post facto law is, among
other categories, one which "alters the legal
rules of evidence, and authorizes conviction
upon less or different testimony than the law
required at the time of the commission of the
offense." It is petitioner's position that Section
15 of the DECREE in providing that:
All videogram establishments in the
Philippines are hereby given a period
of forty-five (45) days after the
effectivity of this Decree within which
to register with and secure a permit
from the BOARD to engage in the
videogram business and to register
with the BOARD all their inventories of
videograms, including videotapes,
discs, cassettes or other technical
improvements or variations thereof,
before they could be sold, leased, or
otherwise disposed of. Thereafter any
videogram found in the possession of
any person engaged in the videogram
business without the required proof of
registration by the BOARD, shall be
prima facie evidence of violation of the
Decree, whether the possession of
such videogram be for private showing
and/or public exhibition.
raises immediately a prima facie evidence of
violation of the DECREE when the required
proof of registration of any videogram cannot
be presented and thus partakes of the nature
of an ex post facto law.
The argument is untenable. As this Court held
in the recent case of Vallarta vs. Court of
Appeals, et al. 15
... it is now well settled that "there is
no constitutional objection to the
passage of a law providing that the
presumption of innocence may be
overcome by a contrary presumption
founded upon the experience of
human conduct, and enacting what
evidence shall be sufficient to
overcome such presumption of
innocence" (People vs. Mingoa 92
Phil. 856 [1953] at 858-59, citing 1
COOLEY, A TREATISE ON THE
CONSTITUTIONAL LIMITATIONS,
639-641). And the "legislature may
enact that when certain facts have
been proved that they shall be prima
facie evidence of the existence of the
guilt of the accused and shift the
burden of proof provided there be a
rational connection between the facts
proved and the ultimate facts
presumed so that the inference of the
one from proof of the others is not
unreasonable and arbitrary because of
lack of connection between the two in
common experience". 16
Applied to the challenged provision, there is
no question that there is a rational connection
between the fact proved, which is non-
registration, and the ultimate fact presumed
which is violation of the DECREE, besides the
fact that the prima facie presumption of
violation of the DECREE attaches only after a
forty-five-day period counted from its
effectivity and is, therefore, neither
retrospective in character.
6. We do not share petitioner's fears that the
video industry is being over-regulated and
being eased out of existence as if it were a
nuisance. Being a relatively new industry, the
need for its regulation was apparent. While
the underlying objective of the DECREE is to
protect the moribund movie industry, there is
no question that public welfare is at bottom of
its enactment, considering "the unfair
competition posed by rampant film piracy; the
erosion of the moral fiber of the viewing public
brought about by the availability of
unclassified and unreviewed video tapes
containing pornographic films and films with
brutally violent sequences; and losses in
government revenues due to the drop in
theatrical attendance, not to mention the fact
that the activities of video establishments are
virtually untaxed since mere payment of
Mayor's permit and municipal license fees are
required to engage in business. 17
The enactment of the Decree since April 10,
1986 has not brought about the "demise" of
the video industry. On the contrary, video
establishments are seen to have proliferated
in many places notwithstanding the 30% tax
imposed.
In the last analysis, what petitioner basically
questions is the necessity, wisdom and
expediency of the DECREE. These
considerations, however, are primarily and
exclusively a matter of legislative concern.
Only congressional power or
competence, not the wisdom of the
action taken, may be the basis for
declaring a statute invalid. This is as it
ought to be. The principle of
separation of powers has in the main
wisely allocated the respective
authority of each department and
confined its jurisdiction to such a
sphere. There would then be intrusion
not allowable under the Constitution if
on a matter left to the discretion of a
coordinate branch, the judiciary would
substitute its own. If there be
adherence to the rule of law, as there
ought to be, the last offender should
be courts of justice, to which rightly
litigants submit their controversy
precisely to maintain unimpaired the
supremacy of legal norms and
prescriptions. The attack on the
validity of the challenged provision
likewise insofar as there may be
objections, even if valid and cogent on
its wisdom cannot be sustained. 18
In fine, petitioner has not overcome the
presumption of validity which attaches to a
challenged statute. We find no clear violation
of the Constitution which would justify us in
pronouncing Presidential Decree No. 1987 as
unconstitutional and void.
Rabor vs CSC
Facts:
Petitioner Dionisio M. Rabor is a Utility Worker
in the Office of the Mayor, Davao City. He
entered the government service as a Utility
worker on 10 April 1978 at the age of 55
years.
Sometime in May 1991,1 Alma, D. Pagatpatan,
an official in the Office of the Mayor of Davao
City, advised Dionisio M. Rabor to apply for
retirement, considering that he had already
reached the age of sixty-eight (68) years and
seven (7) months, with thirteen (13) years and
one (1) month of government service. Rabor
responded to this advice by exhibiting a
"Certificate of Membership"2 issued by the
Government Service Insurance System
("GSIS") and dated 12 May 1988. At the
bottom of this "Certificate of Membership" is a
typewritten statement of the following tenor:
"Service extended to comply 15 years service
reqts." This statement is followed by a non-
legible initial with the following date "2/28/91."
Thereupon, the Davao City Government,
through Ms. Pagatpatan, wrote to the
Regional Director of the Civil Service
Commission, Region XI, Davao City ("CSRO-
XI"), informing the latter of the foregoing and
requesting advice "as to what action [should]
be taken on this matter."
In a letter dated 26 July 1991, Director
Filemon B. Cawad of CSRO-XI advised
Davao City Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte as
follows:
Please be informed that the
extension of services of Mr.
Rabor is contrary to M.C. No.
65 of the Office of the
President, the relevant portion
of which is hereunder quoted:
Officials and
employees
who have
reached the
compulsory
 retirement age
of 65 years
shall not be
retained the
service, except
for extremely
meritorious
reasons in
which case the
retention shall
not exceed six
(6) months.
IN VIEW WHEREFORE,
please be advised that the
services of Mr. Dominador [M.]
Rabor as Utility Worker in that
office, is already non-
extend[i]ble.3
Accordingly, on 8 August l991, Mayor Duterte
furnished a copy of the 26 July 1991 letter of
Director Cawad to Rabor and advised him "to
stop reporting for work effective August 16,
1991.
Petitioner Rabor then sent to the Regional
Director, CSRO-XI, a letter dated 14 August
1991, asking for extension of his services in
the City Government until he "shall have
completed the fifteen (15) years service
[requirement] in the Government so that [he]
could also avail of the benefits of the
retirement laws given to employees of the
Government." The extension he was asking
for was about two (2) years. Asserting that he
was "still in good health and very able to
perform the duties and functions of [his]
position as Utility Worker," Rabor sought
"extension of [his] service as an exception to
Memorandum Circular No. 65 of the Office of
the President."5 This request was denied by
Director Cawad on 15 August 1991.
Petitioner Rabor next wrote to the Office of the
President on 29 January 1992 seeking
reconsideration of the decision of Director
Cawad, CSRO-XI. The Office of the President
referred Mr. Rabor's letter to the Chairman of
the Civil Service Commission on 5 March
1992.
In its Resolution No. 92-594, dated 28 April
1992, the Civil Service Commission dismissed
the appeal of Mr. Rabor and affirmed the
action of Director Cawad embodied in the
latter's letter of 26 July 1991.
Held:
It was on the bases of the above quoted
provisions of the 1987 Administrative Code
that the Civil Service Commission
promulgated its Memorandum Circular No. 27.
In doing so, the Commission was acting as
"the central personnel agency of the
government empowered to promulgate
policies, standards and guidelines for efficient,
responsive and effective personnel
administration in the government." 23 It was
also discharging its function of "administering
the retirement program for government
officials and employees" and of "evaluat[ing]
qualifications for retirement."
In addition, the Civil Service Commission is
charged by the 1987 Administrative Code with
providing leadership and assistance "in
the development and retention of qualified and
efficient work force in the Civil Service"
(Section 16 [10]) and with the "enforcement
of the constitutional and statutory provisions,
relative to retirement and the regulation for
the effective implementation of the retirement
of government officials and employees"
(Section 16 [14]).
We find it very difficult to suppose that the
limitation of permissible extensions of service
after an employee has reached sixty-five (65)
years of age has no reasonable relationship or
is not germane to the foregoing provisions of
the present Civil Service Law. The
physiological and psychological processes
associated with ageing in human beings are in
fact related to the efficiency and quality of the
service that may be expected from individual
persons. The policy considerations which
guided the Civil Service Commission in
limiting the maximum extension of service
allowable for compulsory retirees, were
summarized by Griño-Aquino, J. in her
dissenting opinion in Cena:
 Worth pondering also are the
points raised by the Civil
Service Commission that
extending the service of
compulsory retirees for longer
than one (1) year would: (1)
give a premium to late-
comers in the government
service and in effect
discriminate against those who
enter the service at a younger
age; (2) delay the promotion of
the latter and of next-in-rank
employees; and (3) prejudice
the chances for employment of
qualified young civil service
applicants who have already
passed the various
government examination but
must wait for jobs to be
vacated by "extendees" who
have long passed the
mandatory retirement age but
are enjoying extension of their
government service to
complete 15 years so they
may qualify for old-age
pension. 24 (Emphasis
supplied).
Cena laid heavy stress on the interest of
retirees or would be retirees, something that
is, in itself, quite appropriate. At the same
time, however, we are bound to note that
there should be countervailing stress on the
interests of the employer agency and of other
government employees as a whole. The
results flowing from the striking down of the
limitation established in Civil Service
Memorandum Circular No. 27 may well be
"absurd and inequitable," as suggested by
Mme. Justice Griño-Aquino in her dissenting
opinion. An employee who has rendered only
three (3) years of government service at age
sixty-five (65) can have his service extended
for twelve (12) years and finally retire at the
age of seventy-seven (77). This reduces the
significance of the general principle of
compulsory retirement at age sixty-five (65)
very close to the vanishing point.
The very real difficulties posed by
the Cena doctrine for rational personnel
administration and management in the Civil
Service, are aggravated when Cena is
considered together with the case of Toledo v.
Civil Service Commission. 25 Toledo involved
the provisions of Rule III, Section 22, of the
Civil Service Rules on Personnel Action and
Policies (CSRPAP) which prohibited the
appointment of persons fifty-seven (57) years
old or above in government service without
prior approval of the Civil Service
Commission. Civil Service Memorandum
Circular No. 5, Series of 1983 provided that a
person fifty-seven (57) years of age may be
appointed to the Civil Service provided that
the exigencies of the government service so
required and provided that the appointee
possesses special qualifications not
possessed by other officers or employees in
the Civil Service and that the vacancy cannot
be filled by promotion of qualified officers or
employees of the Civil Service. Petitioner
Toledo was appointed Manager of the
Education and Information Division of the
Commission on Elections when he was almost
fifty-nine (59) years old. No authority for such
appointment had been obtained either from
the President of the Philippines or from the
Civil Service Commission and the
Commission found that the other conditions
laid down in Section 22 of Rule III, CSRPAP,
did not exist. The Court nevertheless struck
down Section 22, Rule III on the same
exceedingly restrictive view of permissible
administrative legislation that Cena relied on.26
When one combines the doctrine
of Toledo with the ruling in Cena, very strange
results follow. Under these combined
doctrines, a person sixty-four (64) years of
age may be appointed to the government
service and one (1) year later may demand
extension of his service for the next fourteen
(14) years; he would retire at age seventy-
nine (79). The net effect is thus that the
general statutory policy of compulsory
retirement at sixty-five (65) years is heavily
eroded and effectively becomes
unenforceable. That general statutory policy
may be seen to embody the notion that there
should be a certain minimum turn-over in the
government service and that opportunities for
government service should be distributed as
broadly as possible, specially to younger
people, considering that the bulk of our
population is below thirty (30) years of age.
That same general policy also reflects the life
expectancy of our people which is still
significantly lower than the life expectancy of,
e.g., people in Northern and Western Europe,
North America and Japan.
Our conclusion is that the doctrine
of Cena should be and is hereby modified to
this extent: that Civil Service Memorandum
Circular No. 27, Series of 1990, more
specifically paragraph (1) thereof, is hereby
declared valid and effective. Section 11 (b) of
P.D. No. 1146 must, accordingly, be read
together with Memorandum Circular No. 27.
We reiterate, however, the holding
in Cena that the head of the government
agency concerned is vested with discretionary
authority to allow or disallow extension of the
service of an official or employee who has
reached sixty-five (65) years of age without
completing fifteen (15) years of government
service; this discretion is, nevertheless, to be
exercised conformably with the provisions of
Civil Service Memorandum Circular No. 27,
Series of 1990.
We do not believe it necessary to deal
specifically with Memorandum Circular No. 65
of the Office of the President dated 14 June
1988. It will be noted from the text
quoted supra (pp. 11-12) that the text itself of
Memorandum Circular No. 65 (and for that
matter, that of Memorandum Circular No. 163,
also of the Office of the President, dated 5
March 1968) 27 does not purport to
apply only to officers or employees who have
reached the age of sixty-five (65) years and
who have at least fifteen (l5) years of
government service. We noted earlier
that Cena interpreted Memorandum Circular
No. 65 as referring only to officers and
employees who have both reached the
compulsory retirement age of sixty-five (65)
and completed the fifteen (15) years of
government service. Cena so interpreted this
Memorandum Circular precisely
because Cena had reached the conclusion
that employees who have reached sixty-five
(65) years of age, but who have less than
fifteen (15) years of government service, may
be allowed such extension of service as may
be needed to complete fifteen (15) years of
service. In other words, Cena read
Memorandum Circular No. 65 in such a way
as to comfort with Cena's own conclusion
reached without regard to that Memorandum
Circular. In view of the conclusion that we
today reached in the instant case, this last
ruling of Cena is properly regarded as
merely orbiter.
We also do not believe it necessary to
determine whether Civil Service Memorandum
Circular No. 27 is fully compatible with Office
of the President's Memorandum Circular No.
65; this question must be reserved for detailed
analysis in some future justiciable case.
Applying now the results of our reexamination
of Cena to the instant case, we believe and so
hold that Civil Service Resolution No. 92-594
dated 28 April 1992 dismissing the appeal of
petitioner Rabor and affirming the action of
CSRO-XI Director Cawad dated 26 July 1991,
must be upheld and affirmed.
ACCORDINGLY, for all the foregoing, the
Petition for Certiorari is hereby DISMISSED
for lack of merit. No pronouncement as to
costs.
Pal vs CAB
Facts:
Original petition for certiorari, to set aside and
annul a resolution of the Civil Aeronautics
Board — hereinafter referred to as CAB —
granting respondent Filipinas Orient Airways
Inc. — hereinafter referred to as Fairways —
"provisional authority to operate scheduled
and non-scheduled domestic air services with
the use of DC-3 aircrafts", subject to specified
conditions.
Pursuant to Republic Act No. 4147, granting
thereto "a franchise to establish, operate and
maintain transport services for the carriage of
passengers, mail, industrial flights and cargo
by air in and between any and all points and
places throughout the Philippines and other
countries", on September 16, 1964, Fairways
filed with CAB the corresponding application
for a "certificate of public convenience and
necessity", which was Docketed as economic
proceedings (EP) No. 625, and was objected
to by herein petitioner, Philippine Air Lines,
Inc., hereinafter referred to as PAL.
Subsequently, a CAB hearing officer began to
receive evidence on said application. After
several hearings before said officer, or on
December 14, 1964, Fairways filed an "urgent
petition for provisional authority to operate"
under a detailed "program of implementation"
attached to said petition, and for the approval
of its bond therefor, as well as the provisional
approval of its "tariff regulations and the
conditions of carriage to be printed at the back
of the passenger tickets." Despite PAL's
opposition thereto, in a resolution issued on
January 5, 1965, CAB granted said urgent
petition of Fairways. The pertinent part of said
resolution provides:
Filipinas Orient Airways, Inc.,
(FAIRWAYS) having presented to the
Board evidence showing prima
facie its fitness, willingness and ability
to operate the services applied for and
the public need for more air
transportation service, and to
encourage and develop commercial
air transportation, RESOLVED, to
grant, as the Board hereby grants, the
said Filipinas Orient Airways, Inc.,
provisional authority to operate
scheduled and non-scheduled
domestic air services with the use of
DC-3 aircraft, subject to the following
conditions;
1. The term of the provisional authority
herein granted shall be until such time
as the main application for a certificate
of public convenience and necessity is
finally decided or for such period as
the Board may at any time determine;
xxx xxx xxx
A reconsideration of this resolution having
been denied, PAL filed the present civil action
alleging that, in issuing said resolution, CAB
had acted illegally and in excess of its
jurisdiction or with grave abuse of discretion,
because:
(1) CAB is not empowered to grant any
provisional authority to operate, prior to the
submission for decision of the main
application for a certificate of public
convenience and necessity;
(2) CAB had no evidence before it that could
have justified the granting of the provisional
authority complained of;
(3) PAL was denied due process when CAB
granted said authority before the presentation
of its evidence on Fairway's main application;
and
(4) In granting said provisional authority, the
CAB had prejudged the merits of said
application.
Held:
A reconsideration of this resolution having
been denied, PAL filed the present civil action
alleging that, in issuing said resolution, CAB
had acted illegally and in excess of its
jurisdiction or with grave abuse of discretion,
because:
(1) CAB is not empowered to grant
any provisional authority to operate,
prior to the submission for decision of
the main application for a certificate of
public convenience and necessity;
(2) CAB had no evidence before it that
could have justified the granting of the
provisional authority complained of;
(3) PAL was denied due process when
CAB granted said authority before the
presentation of its evidence on
Fairway's main application; and
(4) In granting said provisional
authority, the CAB had prejudged the
merits of said application.
The first ground is devoid of merit. Section 10-
C(1) of Republic Act No. 776, reading:
 (C) The Board shall have the following
specific powers and duties:
(1) In accordance with the provisions
of Chapter IV of this Act, to issue,
deny, amend, revise, alter, modify,
cancel suspend or revoke, in whole or
in part, upon petitioner complaint, or
upon its own initiative, any temporary
operating permit or Certificate of
Public Convenience and Necessity;
Provided, however, That in the case of
foreign air carriers, the permit shall be
issued with the approval of the
President of the Republic of the
Philippines....
explicitly authorizes CAB to issue a
"temporary operating permit," and nothing
contained, either in said section, or in Chapter
IV of Republic Act No. 776, negates the power
to issue said "permit", before the completion
of the applicant's evidence and that of the
oppositor thereto on the main petition. Indeed,
the CAB's authority to grant a temporary
permit "upon its own initiative," strongly
suggests the power to exercise said authority,
even before the presentation of said evidence
has begun.
Moreover, we perceive no cogent reason to
depart, in connection with the commercial air
transport service, from the policy of our public
service law, which sanctions the issuance of
temporary or provisional permits or certificates
of public convenience and necessity, before
the submission of a case for decision on the
merits.1 The overriding considerations in both
instances are the same, namely, that the
service be required by public convenience and
necessity, and, that the applicant is fit, as well
as willing and able to render such service
properly, in conformity with law and the
pertinent rules, regulations and requirements.2
As regards PAL's second contention, we have
no more than PAL's assertion and conclusion
regarding the absence of substantial evidence
in support of the finding, in the order
complained of, to the effect that Fairways'
evidence had established " prima facie its
fitness, willingness and ability to operate the
services applied for and the public need for
more transportation service ...". Apart from
PAL's assertion being contradicted by the
tenor of said order, there is the legal
presumption that official duty has been duly
performed.
Such presumption is particularly strong as
regards administrative agencies, like the CAB,
vested with powers said to be quasi-judicial in
nature, in connection with the enforcement of
laws affecting particular fields of activity, the
proper regulation and/or promotion of which
requires a technical or special training, aside
from a good knowledge and grasp of the
overall conditions, relevant to said field,
obtaining in the nation.3 The consequent
policy and practice underlying our
Administrative Law is that courts of justice
should respect the findings of fact of said
administrative agencies, unless there is
absolutely no evidence in support thereof or
such evidence is clearly, manifestly and
patently insubstantial.4 This, in turn, is but a
recognition of the necessity of permitting the
executive department to adjust law
enforcement to changing conditions, without
being unduly hampered by the rigidity and the
delays often attending ordinary court
proceedings or the enactment of new or
amendatory legislations. In the case at bar,
petitioner has not satisfactorily shown that the
aforementioned findings of the CAB are
lacking in the necessary evidentiary support.
Needless to say, the case of Ang Tibay vs.
C.I.R.5 on which petitioner relies, is not in
point. Said case refers to the conditions
essential to a valid decision on the merits,
from the viewpoint of due process, whereas,
in the case at bar, we are concerned with
an interlocutory order prior to the rendition of
said decision. In fact, interlocutory orders may
sometimes be issued ex parte, particularly, in
administrative proceedings, without previous
notice and hearing, consistently with due
process.6 Again, the constitutional provision to
the effect that "no decision shall be rendered
by any court of record without expressing
therein clearly and distinctly the facts and the
law on which it is based",7applies, not to such
interlocutory orders, but to the determination
of the case on the merits.8
Lastly, the provisional nature of the permit
granted to Fairways refutes the assertion that
it prejudges the merits of Fairways' application
and PAL's opposition thereto. As stated in the
questioned order, CAB's findings therein
made reflect its view merely on the prima
facie effect of the evidence so far introduced
and do not connote a pronouncement or an
advanced expression of opinion on the merits
of the case.
US vs Ang tang ho
Facts:
At its special session of 1919, the Philippine
Legislature passed Act No. 2868, entitled "An
Act penalizing the monopoly and holding of,
and speculation in, palay, rice, and corn under
extraordinary circumstances, regulating the
distribution and sale thereof, and authorizing
the Governor-General, with the consent of the
Council of State, to issue the necessary rules
and regulations therefor, and making an
appropriation for this purpose," the material
provisions of which are as follows:
Section 1. The Governor-General is
hereby authorized, whenever, for any
cause, conditions arise resulting in an
extraordinary rise in the price of palay,
rice or corn, to issue and promulgate,
with the consent of the Council of
State, temporary rules and emergency
measures for carrying out the purpose
of this Act, to wit:
(a) To prevent the monopoly and
hoarding of, and speculation in, palay,
rice or corn.
(b) To establish and maintain a
government control of the distribution
or sale of the commodities referred to
or have such distribution or sale made
by the Government itself.
(c) To fix, from time to time the
quantities of palay rice, or corn that a
company or individual may acquire,
and the maximum sale price that the
industrial or merchant may demand.
(d) . . .
SEC. 2. It shall be unlawful to destroy,
limit, prevent or in any other manner
obstruct the production or milling of
palay, rice or corn for the purpose of
raising the prices thereof; to corner or
hoard said products as defined in
section three of this Act; . . .
Section 3 defines what shall constitute a
monopoly or hoarding of palay, rice or corn
within the meaning of this Act, but does not
specify the price of rice or define any basic for
fixing the price.
SEC. 4. The violations of any of the
provisions of this Act or of the
regulations, orders and decrees
promulgated in accordance therewith
shall be punished by a fine of not
more than five thousands pesos, or by
imprisonment for not more than two
years, or both, in the discretion of the
court: Provided, That in the case of
companies or corporations the
manager or administrator shall be
criminally liable.
SEC. 7. At any time that the Governor-
General, with the consent of the
Council of State, shall consider that
the public interest requires the
application of the provisions of this
Act, he shall so declare by
proclamation, and any provisions of
other laws inconsistent herewith shall
from then on be temporarily
suspended.
Upon the cessation of the reasons for
which such proclamation was issued,
the Governor-General, with the
consent of the Council of State, shall
declare the application of this Act to
have likewise terminated, and all laws
temporarily suspended by virtue of the
same shall again take effect, but such
termination shall not prevent the
prosecution of any proceedings or
cause begun prior to such termination,
nor the filing of any proceedings for an
 offense committed during the period
covered by the Governor-General's
proclamation.
August 1, 1919, the Governor-General issued
a proclamation fixing the price at which rice
should be sold.
August 8, 1919, a complaint was filed against
the defendant, Ang Tang Ho, charging him
with the sale of rice at an excessive price as
follows:
The undersigned accuses Ang Tang
Ho of a violation of Executive Order
No. 53 of the Governor-General of the
Philippines, dated the 1st of August,
1919, in relation with the provisions of
sections 1, 2 and 4 of Act No. 2868,
committed as follows:
That on or about the 6th day of
August, 1919, in the city of Manila,
Philippine Islands, the said Ang Tang
Ho, voluntarily, illegally and criminally
sold to Pedro Trinidad, one ganta of
rice at the price of eighty centavos
(P.80), which is a price greater than
that fixed by Executive Order No. 53
of the Governor-General of the
Philippines, dated the 1st of August,
1919, under the authority of section 1
of Act No. 2868. Contrary to law.
Upon this charge, he was tried, found guilty
and sentenced to five months' imprisonment
and to pay a fine of P500, from which he
appealed to this court, claiming that the lower
court erred in finding Executive Order No. 53
of 1919, to be of any force and effect, in
finding the accused guilty of the offense
charged, and in imposing the sentence.
The official records show that the Act was to
take effect on its approval; that it was
approved July 30, 1919; that the Governor-
General issued his proclamation on the 1st of
August, 1919; and that the law was first
published on the 13th of August, 1919; and
that the proclamation itself was first published
on the 20th of August, 1919.
Held
Construing it in 136 Wis., 526; 128 A. S. R.,
1100,1 the Supreme Court of that State says:
We regard the ordinance as void for
two reasons; First, because it attempts
to confer arbitrary power upon an
executive officer, and allows him, in
executing the ordinance, to make
unjust and groundless discriminations
among persons similarly situated;
second, because the power to
regulate saloons is a law-making
power vested in the village board,
which cannot be delegated. A
legislative body cannot delegate to a
mere administrative officer power to
make a law, but it can make a law with
provisions that it shall go into effect or
be suspended in its operations upon
the ascertainment of a fact or state of
facts by an administrative officer or
board. In the present case the
ordinance by its terms gives power to
the president to decide arbitrary, and
in the exercise of his own discretion,
when a saloon shall close. This is an
attempt to vest legislative discretion in
him, and cannot be sustained.
The legal principle involved there is squarely
in point here.
It must be conceded that, after the passage of
act No. 2868, and before any rules and
regulations were promulgated by the
Governor-General, a dealer in rice could sell it
at any price, even at a peso per "ganta," and
that he would not commit a crime, because
there would be no law fixing the price of rice,
and the sale of it at any price would not be a
crime. That is to say, in the absence of a
proclamation, it was not a crime to sell rice at
any price. Hence, it must follow that, if the
defendant committed a crime, it was because
the Governor-General issued the
proclamation. There was no act of the
Legislature making it a crime to sell rice at any
price, and without the proclamation, the sale
of it at any price was to a crime.
The law says that the Governor-General may
fix "the maximum sale price that the industrial
or merchant may demand." The law is a
general law and not a local or special law.
The proclamation undertakes to fix one price
for rice in Manila and other and different
prices in other and different provinces in the
Philippine Islands, and delegates the power to
determine the other and different prices to
provincial treasurers and their deputies. Here,
then, you would have a delegation of
legislative power to the Governor-General,
and a delegation by him of that power to
provincial treasurers and their deputies, who
"are hereby directed to communicate with,
and execute all instructions emanating from
the Director of Commerce and Industry, for
the most effective and proper enforcement of
the above regulations in their respective
localities." The issuance of the proclamation
by the Governor-General was the exercise of
the delegation of a delegated power, and was
even a sub delegation of that power.
Assuming that it is valid, Act No. 2868 is a
general law and does not authorize the
Governor-General to fix one price of rice in
Manila and another price in Iloilo. It only
purports to authorize him to fix the price of rice
in the Philippine Islands under a law, which is
General and uniform, and not local or special.
Under the terms of the law, the price of rice
fixed in the proclamation must be the same all
over the Islands. There cannot be one price at
Manila and another at Iloilo. Again, it is a
mater of common knowledge, and of which
this court will take judicial notice, that there
are many kinds of rice with different and
corresponding market values, and that there is
a wide range in the price, which varies with
the grade and quality. Act No. 2868 makes no
distinction in price for the grade or quality of
the rice, and the proclamation, upon which the
defendant was tried and convicted, fixes the
selling price of rice in Manila "at P15 per sack
of 57½ kilos, or 63 centavos per ganta," and is
uniform as to all grades of rice, and says
nothing about grade or quality. Again, it will be
noted that the law is confined to palay, rice
and corn. They are products of the Philippine
Islands. Hemp, tobacco, coconut, chickens,
eggs, and many other things are also
products. Any law which single out palay, rice
or corn from the numerous other products of
the Islands is not general or uniform, but is a
local or special law. If such a law is valid, then
by the same principle, the Governor-General
could be authorized by proclamation to fix the
price of meat, eggs, chickens, coconut, hemp,
and tobacco, or any other product of the
Islands. In the very nature of things, all of that
class of laws should be general and uniform.
Otherwise, there would be an unjust
discrimination of property rights, which, under
the law, must be equal and inform. Act No.
2868 is nothing more than a floating law,
which, in the discretion and by a proclamation
of the Governor-General, makes it a floating
crime to sell rice at a price in excess of the
proclamation, without regard to grade or
quality.
When Act No. 2868 is analyzed, it is the
violation of the proclamation of the Governor-
General which constitutes the crime. Without
that proclamation, it was no crime to sell rice
at any price. In other words, the Legislature
left it to the sole discretion of the Governor-
General to say what was and what was not
"any cause" for enforcing the act, and what
was and what was not "an extraordinary rise
in the price of palay, rice or corn," and under
certain undefined conditions to fix the price at
which rice should be sold, without regard to
grade or quality, also to say whether a
proclamation should be issued, if so, when,
and whether or not the law should be
enforced, how long it should be enforced, and
when the law should be suspended. The
Legislature did not specify or define what was
"any cause," or what was "an extraordinary
rise in the price of rice, palay or corn," Neither
did it specify or define the conditions upon
which the proclamation should be issued. In
the absence of the proclamation no crime was
committed. The alleged sale was made a
crime, if at all, because the Governor-General
issued the proclamation. The act or
proclamation does not say anything about the
different grades or qualities of rice, and the
defendant is charged with the sale "of one
ganta of rice at the price of eighty centavos
(P0.80) which is a price greater than that fixed
by Executive order No. 53."
We are clearly of the opinion and hold that Act
No. 2868, in so far as it undertakes to
authorized the Governor-General in his
discretion to issue a proclamation, fixing the
price of rice, and to make the sale of rice in
violation of the price of rice, and to make the
sale of rice in violation of the proclamation a
crime, is unconstitutional and void.
It may be urged that there was an
extraordinary rise in the price of rice and
profiteering, which worked a severe hardship
on the poorer classes, and that an emergency
existed, but the question here presented is the
constitutionality of a particular portion of a
statute, and none of such matters is an
argument for, or against, its constitutionality.
The Constitution is something solid,
permanent an substantial. Its stability protects
the life, liberty and property rights of the rich
and the poor alike, and that protection ought
not to change with the wind or any emergency
condition. The fundamental question involved
in this case is the right of the people of the
Philippine Islands to be and live under a
republican form of government. We make the
broad statement that no state or nation, living
under republican form of government, under
the terms and conditions specified in Act No.
2868, has ever enacted a law delegating the
power to any one, to fix the price at which rice
should be sold. That power can never be
delegated under a republican form of
government.
In the fixing of the price at which the
defendant should sell his rice, the law was not
dealing with government property. It was
dealing with private property and private
rights, which are sacred under the
Constitution. If this law should be sustained,
upon the same principle and for the same
reason, the Legislature could authorize the
Governor-General to fix the price of every
product or commodity in the Philippine
Islands, and empower him to make it a crime
to sell any product at any other or different
price.
It may be said that this was a war measure,
and that for such reason the provision of the
Constitution should be suspended. But the
Stubborn fact remains that at all times the
judicial power was in full force and effect, and
that while that power was in force and effect,
such a provision of the Constitution could not
be, and was not, suspended even in times of
war. It may be claimed that during the war, the
United States Government undertook to, and
did, fix the price at which wheat and flour
should be bought and sold, and that is true.
There, the United States had declared war,
and at the time was at war with other nations,
and it was a war measure, but it is also true
that in doing so, and as a part of the same act,
the United States commandeered all the
wheat and flour, and took possession of it,
either actual or constructive, and the
government itself became the owner of the
wheat and flour, and fixed the price to be paid
for it. That is not this case. Here the rice sold
was the personal and private property of the
defendant, who sold it to one of his
customers. The government had not bought
and did not claim to own the rice, or have any
interest in it, and at the time of the alleged
sale, it was the personal, private property of
the defendant. It may be that the law was
passed in the interest of the public, but the
members of this court have taken on solemn
oath to uphold and defend the Constitution,
and it ought not to be construed to meet the
changing winds or emergency conditions.
Again, we say that no state or nation under a
republican form of government ever enacted a
law authorizing any executive, under the
conditions states, to fix the price at which a
price person would sell his own rice, and
make the broad statement that no decision of
any court, on principle or by analogy, will ever
be found which sustains the constitutionality of
the particular portion of Act No. 2868 here in
question. By the terms of the Organic Act,
subject only to constitutional limitations, the
power to legislate and enact laws is vested
exclusively in the Legislative, which is elected
by a direct vote of the people of the Philippine
Islands. As to the question here involved, the
authority of the Governor-General to fix the
maximum price at which palay, rice and corn
may be sold in the manner power in violation
of the organic law.
This opinion is confined to the particular
question here involved, which is the right of
the Governor-General, upon the terms and
conditions stated in the Act, to fix the price of
rice and make it a crime to sell it at a higher
price, and which holds that portions of the Act
unconstitutional. It does not decide or
undertake to construe the constitutionality of
any of the remaining portions of the Act.
Ynot vs IAC
Facts:
The petitioner had transported six carabaos in
a pump boat from Masbate to Iloilo on
January 13, 1984, when they were
confiscated by the police station commander
of Barotac Nuevo, Iloilo, for violation of the
above measure. 1 The petitioner sued for recovery, and
the Regional Trial Court of Iloilo City issued a writ
of replevin upon his filing of a supersedeas bond of P12,000.00.
After considering the merits of the case, the court sustained the
confiscation of the carabaos and, since they could no longer be
produced, ordered the confiscation of the bond. The court also
declined to rule on the constitutionality of the executive order, as
raise by the petitioner, for lack of authority and also for its
presumed validity. 2
The petitioner appealed the decision to the
Intermediate Appellate Court,* 3 which upheld the
trial court, ** and he has now come before us in this petition for
review on certiorari.
The thrust of his petition is that the executive
order is unconstitutional insofar as it
authorizes outright confiscation of the carabao
or carabeef being transported across
provincial boundaries. His claim is that the
penalty is invalid because it is imposed
without according the owner a right to be
heard before a competent and impartial court
as guaranteed by due process. He complains
that the measure should not have been
presumed, and so sustained, as constitutional.
There is also a challenge to the improper
exercise of the legislative power by the former
President under Amendment No. 6 of the
1973 Constitution. 4
While also involving the same executive order,
the case of Pesigan v. Angeles 5 is not
applicable here. The question raised there
was the necessity of the previous publication
of the measure in the Official Gazette before it
could be considered enforceable. We imposed
the requirement then on the basis of due
process of law. In doing so, however, this
Court did not, as contended by the Solicitor
General, impliedly affirm the constitutionality
of Executive Order No. 626-A. That is an
entirely different matter.
The challenged measure is denominated an
executive order but it is really presidential
decree, promulgating a new rule instead of
merely implementing an existing law. It was
issued by President Marcos not for the
purpose of taking care that the laws were
faithfully executed but in the exercise of his
legislative authority under Amendment No. 6.
It was provided thereunder that whenever in
his judgment there existed a grave emergency
or a threat or imminence thereof or whenever
the legislature failed or was unable to act
adequately on any matter that in his judgment
required immediate action, he could, in order
to meet the exigency, issue decrees, orders or
letters of instruction that were to have the
force and effect of law. As there is no showing
of any exigency to justify the exercise of that
extraordinary power then, the petitioner has
reason, indeed, to question the validity of the
executive order. Nevertheless, since the
determination of the grounds was supposed to
have been made by the President "in his
judgment, " a phrase that will lead to
protracted discussion not really necessary at
this time, we reserve resolution of this matter
until a more appropriate occasion. For the
nonce, we confine ourselves to the more
fundamental question of due process.
Held:
The minimum requirements of due process
are notice and hearing
In the light of the tests mentioned above, we
hold with the Toribio Case that the carabao,
as the poor man's tractor, so to speak, has a
direct relevance to the public welfare and so is
a lawful subject of Executive Order No. 626.
The method chosen in the basic measure is
also reasonably necessary for the purpose
sought to be achieved and not unduly
oppressive upon individuals, again following
the above-cited doctrine. There is no doubt
that by banning the slaughter of these animals
except where they are at least seven years
old if male and eleven years old if female
upon issuance of the necessary permit, the
executive order will be conserving those still fit
for farm work or breeding and preventing their
improvident depletion.
But while conceding that the amendatory
measure has the same lawful subject as the
original executive order, we cannot say with
equal certainty that it complies with the
second requirement, viz., that there be a
lawful method. We note that to strengthen the
original measure, Executive Order No. 626-A
imposes an absolute ban not on
the slaughter of the carabaos but on
their movement, providing that "no carabao
regardless of age, sex, physical condition or
purpose (sic) and no carabeef shall be
transported from one province to another."
The object of the prohibition escapes us. The
reasonable connection between the means
employed and the purpose sought to be
achieved by the questioned measure is
missing
We do not see how the prohibition of the inter-
provincial transport of carabaos can prevent
their indiscriminate slaughter, considering that
they can be killed anywhere, with no less
difficulty in one province than in another.
Obviously, retaining the carabaos in one
province will not prevent their slaughter there,
any more than moving them to another
province will make it easier to kill them there.
As for the carabeef, the prohibition is made to
apply to it as otherwise, so says executive
order, it could be easily circumvented by
simply killing the animal. Perhaps so.
However, if the movement of the live animals
for the purpose of preventing their slaughter
cannot be prohibited, it should follow that
there is no reason either to prohibit their
transfer as, not to be flippant dead meat.
Even if a reasonable relation between the
means and the end were to be assumed, we
would still have to reckon with the sanction
that the measure applies for violation of the
prohibition. The penalty is outright confiscation
of the carabao or carabeef being transported,
to be meted out by the executive authorities,
usually the police only. In the Toribio Case,
the statute was sustained because the penalty
prescribed was fine and imprisonment, to be
imposed by the court after trial and conviction
of the accused. Under the challenged
measure, significantly, no such trial is
prescribed, and the property being transported
is immediately impounded by the police and
declared, by the measure itself, as forfeited to
the government.
In the instant case, the carabaos were
arbitrarily confiscated by the police station
commander, were returned to the petitioner
only after he had filed a complaint for recovery
and given a supersedeas bond of P12,000.00,
which was ordered confiscated upon his
failure to produce the carabaos when ordered
by the trial court. The executive order defined
the prohibition, convicted the petitioner and
immediately imposed punishment, which was
carried out forthright. The measure struck at
once and pounced upon the petitioner without
giving him a chance to be heard, thus denying
him the centuries-old guaranty of elementary
fair play.
It has already been remarked that there are
occasions when notice and hearing may be
validly dispensed with notwithstanding the
usual requirement for these minimum
guarantees of due process. It is also
conceded that summary action may be validly
taken in administrative proceedings as
procedural due process is not necessarily
judicial only. 20 In the exceptional cases
accepted, however. there is a justification for
the omission of the right to a previous hearing,
to wit, the immediacy of the problem sought to
be corrected and the urgency of the need to
correct it.
In the case before us, there was no such
pressure of time or action calling for the
petitioner's peremptory treatment. The
properties involved were not even inimical per
se as to require their instant destruction.
There certainly was no reason why the
offense prohibited by the executive order
should not have been proved first in a court of
justice, with the accused being accorded all
the rights safeguarded to him under the
Constitution. Considering that, as we held
in Pesigan v. Angeles, 21 Executive Order No.
626-A is penal in nature, the violation thereof
should have been pronounced not by the
police only but by a court of justice, which
alone would have had the authority to impose
the prescribed penalty, and only after trial and
conviction of the accused.
We also mark, on top of all this, the
questionable manner of the disposition of the
confiscated property as prescribed in the
questioned executive order. It is there
authorized that the seized property shall "be
distributed to charitable institutions and other
similar institutions as the Chairman of the
National Meat Inspection Commission may
see fit, in the case of carabeef, and to
deserving farmers through dispersal as the
Director of Animal Industry may see fit, in the
case of carabaos." (Emphasis supplied.) The
phrase "may see fit" is an extremely generous
and dangerous condition, if condition it is. It is
laden with perilous opportunities for partiality
and abuse, and even corruption. One
searches in vain for the usual standard and
the reasonable guidelines, or better still, the
limitations that the said officers must observe
when they make their distribution. There is
none. Their options are apparently boundless.
Who shall be the fortunate beneficiaries of
their generosity and by what criteria shall they
be chosen? Only the officers named can
supply the answer, they and they alone may
choose the grantee as they see fit, and in their
own exclusive discretion. Definitely, there is
here a "roving commission," a wide and
sweeping authority that is not "canalized
within banks that keep it from overflowing," in
short, a clearly profligate and therefore invalid
delegation of legislative powers.
To sum up then, we find that the challenged
measure is an invalid exercise of the police
power because the method employed to
conserve the carabaos is not reasonably
necessary to the purpose of the law and,
worse, is unduly oppressive. Due process is
violated because the owner of the property
confiscated is denied the right to be heard in
his defense and is immediately condemned
and punished. The conferment on the
administrative authorities of the power to
adjudge the guilt of the supposed offender is a
clear encroachment on judicial functions and
militates against the doctrine of separation of
powers. There is, finally, also an invalid
delegation of legislative powers to the officers
mentioned therein who are granted unlimited
discretion in the distribution of the properties
arbitrarily taken. For these reasons, we
hereby declare Executive Order No. 626-A
unconstitutional.
We agree with the respondent court, however,
that the police station commander who
confiscated the petitioner's carabaos is not
liable in damages for enforcing the executive
order in accordance with its mandate. The law
was at that time presumptively valid, and it
was his obligation, as a member of the police,
to enforce it. It would have been impertinent of
him, being a mere subordinate of the
President, to declare the executive order
unconstitutional and, on his own responsibility
alone, refuse to execute it. Even the trial
court, in fact, and the Court of Appeals itself
did not feel they had the competence, for all
their superior authority, to question the order
we now annul.
The Court notes that if the petitioner had not
seen fit to assert and protect his rights as he
saw them, this case would never have
reached us and the taking of his property
under the challenged measure would have
become a faitaccompli despite its invalidity.
We commend him for his spirit. Without the
present challenge, the matter would have
ended in that pump boat in Masbate and
another violation of the Constitution, for all its
obviousness, would have been perpetrated,
allowed without protest, and soon forgotten in
the limbo of relinquished rights.
The strength of democracy lies not in the
rights it guarantees but in the courage of the
people to invoke them whenever they are
ignored or violated. Rights are but weapons
on the wall if, like expensive tapestry, all they
do is embellish and impress. Rights, as
weapons, must be a promise of protection.
They become truly meaningful, and fulfill the
role assigned to them in the free society, if
they are kept bright and sharp with use by
those who are not afraid to assert them.
Pelaez vs Auditor General
Facts
During the period from September 4 to
October 29, 1964 the President of the
Philippines, purporting to act pursuant to
Section 68 of the Revised Administrative
Code, issued Executive Orders Nos. 93 to
121, 124 and 126 to 129; creating thirty-three
(33) municipalities enumerated in the
margin.1 Soon after the date last mentioned,
or on November 10, 1964 petitioner
Emmanuel Pelaez, as Vice President of the
Philippines and as taxpayer, instituted the
present special civil action, for a writ of
prohibition with preliminary injunction, against
the Auditor General, to restrain him, as well as
his representatives and agents, from passing
in audit any expenditure of public funds in
implementation of said executive orders
and/or any disbursement by said
municipalities.
Petitioner alleges that said executive orders
are null and void, upon the ground that said
Section 68 has been impliedly repealed by
Republic Act No. 2370 and constitutes an
undue delegation of legislative power.
Respondent maintains the contrary view and
avers that the present action is premature and
that not all proper parties — referring to the
officials of the new political subdivisions in
question — have been impleaded.
Subsequently, the mayors of several
municipalities adversely affected by the
aforementioned executive orders — because
the latter have taken away from the former the
barrios composing the new political
subdivisions — intervened in the case.
Moreover, Attorneys Enrique M. Fernando
and Emma Quisumbing-Fernando were
allowed to and did appear as amici curiae.
The third paragraph of Section 3 of Republic
Act No. 2370, reads:
Barrios shall not be created or their
boundaries altered nor their names
changed except under the provisions
of this Act or by Act of Congress.
Pursuant to the first two (2) paragraphs of the
same Section 3:
All barrios existing at the time of the
passage of this Act shall come under
the provisions hereof.
Upon petition of a majority of the
voters in the areas affected, a new
barrio may be created or the name of
an existing one may be changed by
the provincial board of the province,
upon recommendation of the council
of the municipality or municipalities in
which the proposed barrio is
stipulated. The recommendation of the
municipal council shall be embodied in
a resolution approved by at least two-
thirds of the entire membership of the
said council: Provided, however, That
no new barrio may be created if its
population is less than five hundred
persons.
Hence, since January 1, 1960, when Republic
Act No. 2370 became effective, barrios may
"not be created or their boundaries altered nor
their names changed" except by Act of
Congress or of the corresponding provincial
board "upon petition of a majority of the voters
in the areas affected" and the
"recommendation of the council of the
municipality or municipalities in which the
proposed barrio is situated." Petitioner argues,
accordingly: "If the President, under this new
law, cannot even create a barrio, can he
create a municipality which is composed of
several barrios, since barrios are units of
municipalities?"
Respondent alleges that the power of the
President to create municipalities under this
section does not amount to an undue
delegation of legislative power, relying
upon Municipality of Cardona vs. Municipality
of Binañgonan (36 Phil. 547), which, he
claims, has settled it. Such claim is untenable,
for said case involved, not the creation of a
new municipality, but a mere transfer of
territory — from an already
existing municipality (Cardona) to another
municipality (Binañgonan), likewise, existing
at the time of and prior to said transfer (See
Gov't of the P.I. ex rel. Municipality of
Cardona vs. Municipality, of Binañgonan [34
Phil. 518, 519-5201) — in consequence of the
fixing and definition, pursuant to Act No. 1748,
of the common boundaries of two
municipalities.
Held
It is obvious, however, that, whereas the
power to fix such common boundary, in order
to avoid or settle conflicts of jurisdiction
between adjoining municipalities, may partake
of an administrative nature — involving, as it
does, the adoption of means and ways
to carry into effect the law creating said
municipalities — the authority to create
municipal corporations is
essentially legislative in nature. In the
language of other courts, it is "strictly a
legislative function" (State ex rel. Higgins vs.
Aicklen, 119 S. 425, January 2, 1959) or
"solely and exclusively the exercise
of legislative power" (Udall vs. Severn, May
29, 1938, 79 P. 2d 347-349). As the Supreme
Court of Washington has put it (Territory ex
rel. Kelly vs. Stewart, February 13, 1890, 23
Pac. 405, 409), "municipal corporations
are purely the creatures of statutes."
Although1a Congress may delegate to another
branch of the Government the power to fill in
the details in the execution, enforcement or
administration of a law, it is essential, to
forestall a violation of the principle of
separation of powers, that said law: (a) be
complete in itself — it must set forth therein
the policy to be executed, carried out or
implemented by the delegate2 — and (b) fix a
standard — the limits of which are sufficiently
determinate or determinable — to which the
delegate must conform in the performance of
his functions.2a Indeed, without a statutory
declaration of policy, the delegate would in
effect, make or formulate such policy, which is
the essence of every law; and, without the
aforementioned standard, there would be no
means to determine, with reasonable
certainty, whether the delegate has acted
within or beyond the scope of his
authority.2b Hence, he could thereby arrogate
upon himself the power, not only to make the
law, but, also — and this is worse — to
unmake it, by adopting measures inconsistent
with the end sought to be attained by the Act
of Congress, thus nullifying the principle of
separation of powers and the system of
checks and balances, and, consequently,
undermining the very foundation of our
Republican system.
Section 68 of the Revised Administrative
Code does not meet these well settled
requirements for a valid delegation of the
power to fix the details in the enforcement of a
law. It does not enunciate any policy to be
carried out or implemented by the President.
Neither does it give a standard sufficiently
precise to avoid the evil effects above referred
to. In this connection, we do not overlook the
fact that, under the last clause of the first
sentence of Section 68, the President:
... may change the seat of the
government within any subdivision to
such place therein as the public
welfare may require.
It is apparent, however, from the language of
this clause, that the phrase "as the public
welfare may require" qualified, not the clauses
preceding the one just quoted,
but only the place to which the seat of the
government may be transferred. This fact
becomes more apparent when we consider
that said Section 68 was originally Section 1
of Act No. 1748,3 which provided that,
"whenever in the judgment of the Governor-
General the public welfare requires, he may,
by executive order," effect the changes
enumerated therein (as in said section 68),
including the change of the seat of the
government "to such place ... as the public
interest requires." The opening statement of
said Section 1 of Act No. 1748 — which
was not included in Section 68 of the Revised
Administrative Code — governed the time at
which, or the conditions under which, the
powers therein conferred could be exercised;
whereas the last part of the first sentence of
said section referred exclusively to
the place to which the seat of the government
was to be transferred.
At any rate, the conclusion would be the
same, insofar as the case at bar is concerned,
even if we assumed that the phrase "as the
public welfare may require," in said Section
68, qualifies all other clauses thereof. It is true
that in Calalang vs. Williams (70 Phil. 726)
and People vs. Rosenthal (68 Phil. 328), this
Court had upheld "public welfare" and "public
interest," respectively, as sufficient standards
for a valid delegation of the authority to
execute the law. But, the doctrine laid down in
these cases — as all judicial pronouncements
— must be construed in relation to the specific
facts and issues involved therein, outside of
which they do not constitute precedents and
have no binding effect.4 The law construed in
the Calalang case conferred upon the Director
of Public Works, with the approval of the
Secretary of Public Works and
Communications, the power to issue rules and
regulations to promote safe transitupon
national roads and streets. Upon the other
hand, the Rosenthal case referred to the
authority of the Insular Treasurer, under Act
No. 2581, to issue and cancel certificates or
permits for the sale of speculative securities.
Both cases involved grants
to administrative officers of powers related to
the exercise of their administrative functions,
calling for the determination of questions
of fact.
Such is not the nature of the powers dealt with
in section 68. As above indicated, the creation
of municipalities, is not
an administrative function, but one which is
essentially and eminently legislative in
character. The question of whether or not
"public interest" demands the exercise of such
power is not one of fact. it is "purely a
legislativequestion "(Carolina-Virginia Coastal
Highway vs. Coastal Turnpike Authority, 74
S.E. 2d. 310-313, 315-318), or
a political question (Udall vs. Severn, 79 P.
2d. 347-349). As the Supreme Court of
Wisconsin has aptly characterized it, "the
question as to whether incorporation is for
the best interest of the community in any case
is emphatically a question of public policy and
statecraft" (In re Village of North Milwaukee,
67 N.W. 1033, 1035-1037).
For this reason, courts of justice have
annulled, as constituting undue delegation of
legislative powers, state laws granting the
judicial department, the power to determine
whether certain territories should be annexed
to a particular municipality (Udall vs.
Severn, supra, 258-359); or vesting in a
Commission the right to determine the plan
and frame of government of proposed villages
and what functions shall be exercised by the
same, although the powers and functions of
the village are specifically limited by statute (In
re Municipal Charters, 86 Atl. 307-308); or
conferring upon courts the authority to declare
a given town or village incorporated, and
designate its metes and bounds, upon petition
of a majority of the taxable inhabitants thereof,
setting forth the area desired to be included in
such village (Territory ex rel Kelly vs. Stewart,
23 Pac. 405-409); or authorizing the territory
of a town, containing a given area and
population, to be incorporated as a town, on
certain steps being taken by the inhabitants
thereof and on certain determination by a
court and subsequent vote of the inhabitants
in favor thereof, insofar as the court is allowed
to determine whether the lands embraced in
the petition "ought justly" to be included in the
village, and whether the interest of the
inhabitants will be promoted by such
incorporation, and to enlarge and diminish the
boundaries of the proposed village "as justice
may require" (In re Villages of North
Milwaukee, 67 N.W. 1035-1037); or creating a
Municipal Board of Control which shall
determine whether or not the laying out,
construction or operation of a toll road is in the
"public interest" and whether the requirements
of the law had been complied with, in which
case the board shall enter an order creating a
municipal corporation and fixing the name of
the same (Carolina-Virginia Coastal Highway
vs. Coastal Turnpike Authority, 74 S.E. 2d.
310).
Insofar as the validity of a delegation of power
by Congress to the President is concerned,
the case of Schechter Poultry Corporation vs.
U.S. (79 L. Ed. 1570) is quite relevant to the
one at bar. The Schechter case involved the
constitutionality of Section 3 of the National
Industrial Recovery Act authorizing the
President of the United States to approve
"codes of fair competition" submitted to him by
one or more trade or industrial associations or
corporations which "impose no inequitable
restrictions on admission to membership
therein and are truly representative," provided
that such codes are not designed "to promote
monopolies or to eliminate or oppress small
enterprises and will not operate to
discriminate against them, and will tend to
effectuate the policy" of said Act. The Federal
Supreme Court held:
To summarize and conclude upon this
point: Sec. 3 of the Recovery Act is
without precedent. It supplies no
standards for any trade, industry or
activity. It does not undertake to
prescribe rules of conduct to be
applied to particular states of fact
determined by appropriate
administrative procedure. Instead of
prescribing rules of conduct, it
authorizes the making of codes to
prescribe them. For that legislative
undertaking, Sec. 3 sets up no
standards, aside from the statement of
the general aims of rehabilitation,
correction and expansion described in
Sec. 1. In view of the scope of that
broad declaration, and of the nature of
the few restrictions that are imposed,
the discretion of the President in
approving or prescribing codes, and
thus enacting laws for the government
of trade and industry throughout the
country, is virtually unfettered. We
think that the code making authority
thus conferred is an unconstitutional
delegation of legislative power.
If the term "unfair competition" is so broad as
to vest in the President a discretion that is
"virtually unfettered." and, consequently,
tantamount to a delegation of legislative
power, it is obvious that "public welfare,"
which has even a broader connotation, leads
to the same result. In fact, if the validity of the
delegation of powers made in Section 68 were
upheld, there would no longer be any legal
impediment to a statutory grant of authority to
the President to do anything which, in his
opinion, may be required by public welfare or
public interest. Such grant of authority would
be a virtual abdication of the powers of
Congress in favor of the Executive, and would
bring about a total collapse of the democratic
system established by our Constitution, which
it is the special duty and privilege of this Court
to uphold.
It may not be amiss to note that the executive
orders in question were issued after the
legislative bills for the creation of the
municipalities involved in this case had failed
to pass Congress. A better proof of the fact
that the issuance of said executive orders
entails the exercise of purely legislative
functions can hardly be given.
Again, Section 10 (1) of Article VII of our
fundamental law ordains:
The President shall have control of all
the executive departments, bureaus,
or offices, exercise general
supervision over all local governments
as may be provided by law, and take
care that the laws be faithfully
executed.
The power of control under this provision
implies the right of the President to interfere in
the exercise of such discretion as may be
vested by law in the officers of the executive
departments, bureaus, or offices of the
national government, as well as to act in lieu
of such officers. This power is denied by the
Constitution to the Executive, insofar as local
governments are concerned. With respect to
the latter, the fundamental law permits him to
wield no more authority than that of checking
whether said local governments or the officers
thereof perform their duties as provided by
statutory enactments. Hence, the President
cannot interfere with local governments, so
long as the same or its officers act Within the
scope of their authority. He may not enact an
ordinance which the municipal council has
failed or refused to pass, even if it had thereby
violated a duty imposed thereto by law,
although he may see to it that the
corresponding provincial officials take
appropriate disciplinary action therefor.
Neither may he vote, set aside or annul an
ordinance passed by said council within the
scope of its jurisdiction, no matter how
patently unwise it may be. He may not even
suspend an elective official of a regular
municipality or take any disciplinary action
against him, except on appeal from a decision
of the corresponding provincial board.5
Upon the other hand if the President could
create a municipality, he could, in effect,
remove any of its officials, by creating a new
municipality and including therein the barrio in
which the official concerned resides, for his
office would thereby become vacant.6 Thus,
by merely brandishing the power to create a
new municipality (if he had it), without actually
creating it, he could compel local officials to
submit to his dictation, thereby, in effect,
exercising over them the power of control
denied to him by the Constitution.
Then, also, the power of control of the
President over executive departments,
bureaus or offices implies no more than the
authority to assume directly the functions
thereof or to interfere in the exercise of
discretion by its officials. Manifestly, such
control does not include the authority either to
abolish an executive department or bureau, or
to create a new one. As a consequence, the
alleged power of the President to create
municipal corporations would necessarily
connote the exercise by him of an authority
even greater than that of control which he has
over the executive departments, bureaus or
offices. In other words, Section 68 of the
Revised Administrative Code does not merely
fail to comply with the constitutional mandate
above quoted. Instead of giving the President
less power over local governments than that
vested in him over the executive departments,
bureaus or offices, it reverses the process and
does the exact opposite, by conferring upon
him more power over municipal corporations
than that which he has over said executive
departments, bureaus or offices.
In short, even if it did entail an undue
delegation of legislative powers, as it certainly
does, said Section 68, as part of the Revised
Administrative Code, approved on March 10,
1917, must be deemed repealed by the
subsequent adoption of the Constitution, in
1935, which is utterly incompatible and
inconsistent with said statutory enactment.7
There are only two (2) other points left for
consideration, namely, respondent's claim (a)
that "not all the proper parties" — referring to
the officers of the newly created municipalities
— "have been impleaded in this case," and (b)
that "the present petition is premature."
As regards the first point, suffice it to say that
the records do not show, and the parties do
not claim, that the officers of any of said
municipalities have been appointed or elected
and assumed office. At any rate, the Solicitor
General, who has appeared on behalf of
respondent Auditor General, is the officer
authorized by law "to act and represent the
Government of the Philippines, its offices and
agents, in any official investigation,
proceeding or matter requiring the services of
a lawyer" (Section 1661, Revised
Administrative Code), and, in connection with
the creation of the aforementioned
municipalities, which involves a political, not
proprietary, function, said local officials, if any,
are mere agents or representatives of the
national government. Their interest in the case
at bar has, accordingly, been, in effect, duly
represented.8
With respect to the second point, respondent
alleges that he has not as yet acted on any of
the executive order & in question and has not
intimated how he would act in connection
therewith. It is, however, a matter of common,
public knowledge, subject to judicial
cognizance, that the President has, for many
years, issued executive orders creating
municipal corporations and that the same
have been organized and in actual operation,
thus indicating, without peradventure of doubt,
that the expenditures incidental thereto have
been sanctioned, approved or passed in audit
by the General Auditing Office and its officials.
There is no reason to believe, therefore, that
respondent would adopt a different policy as
regards the new municipalities involved in this
case, in the absence of an allegation to such
effect, and none has been made by him.