CRUZ VS SECRETARY OF ENVIRONMENT

EN BANC
[G.R. No. 135385. December 6, 2000]
ISAGANI CRUZ and CESAR EUROPA, petitioners, vs. SECRETARY OF ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCES, SECRETARY OF
BUDGET AND MANAGEMENT and CHAIRMAN and COMMISSIONERS OF THE NATIONAL COMMISSION ON INDIGENOUS
PEOPLES, respondents.
HON. JUAN M .FLAVIER, HON. PONCIANO BENNAGEN, BAYANI ASCARRAGA, EDTAMI MANSAYANGAN, BASILIO WANDAG, EVELYN
DUNUAN, YAOM TUGAS, ALFREMO CARPIANO, LIBERATO A. GABIN, MATERNIDAD M. COLAS, NARCISA M. DALUPINES,
BAI KIRAM-CONNIE SATURNO, BAE MLOMO-BEATRIZ T. ABASALA, DATU BALITUNGTUNG-ANTONIO D. LUMANDONG,
DATU MANTUMUKAW TEOFISTO SABASALES, DATU EDUAARDO BANDA, DATU JOEL UNAD, DATU RAMON BAYAAN,
TIMUAY JOSE ANOY, TIMUAY MACARIO D. SALACAO, TIMUAY EDWIN B. ENDING, DATU SAHAMPONG MALANAW VI,
DATU BEN PENDAO CABIGON, BAI NANAPNAY-LIZA SAWAY, BAY INAY DAYA-MELINDA S. REYMUNDO, BAI TINANGHAGA
HELINITA T. PANGAN, DATU MAKAPUKAW ADOLINO L. SAWAY, DATU MAUDAYAW-CRISPEN SAWAY, VICKY MAKAY,
LOURDES D. AMOS, GILBERT P. HOGGANG, TERESA GASPAR, MANUEL S. ONALAN, MIA GRACE L. GIRON, ROSEMARIE G.
PE, BENITO CARINO, JOSEPH JUDE CARANTES, LYNETTE CARANTES-VIVAL, LANGLEY SEGUNDO, SATUR S. BUGNAY,
CARLING DOMULOT, ANDRES MENDIOGRIN, LEOPOLDO ABUGAN, VIRGILIO CAYETANO, CONCHITA G. DESCAGA, LEVY
ESTEVES, ODETTE G. ESTEVEZ, RODOLFO C. AGUILAR, MAURO VALONES, PEPE H. ATONG, OFELIA T. DAVI, PERFECTO B.
GUINOSAO, WALTER N. TIMOL, MANUEL T. SELEN, OSCAR DALUNHAY, RICO O. SULATAN, RAFFY MALINDA, ALFREDO
ABILLANOS, JESSIE ANDILAB, MIRLANDO H. MANGKULINTAS, SAMIE SATURNO, ROMEO A. LINDAHAY, ROEL S.
MANSANG-CAGAN, PAQUITO S. LIESES, FILIPE G. SAWAY, HERMINIA S. SAWAY, JULIUS S. SAWAY, LEONARDA SAWAY,
JIMMY UGYUB, SALVADOR TIONGSON, VENANCIO APANG, MADION MALID, SUKIM MALID, NENENG MALID,
MANGKATADONG AUGUSTO DIANO, JOSEPHINE M. ALBESO, MORENO MALID, MARIO MANGCAL, FELAY DIAMILING,
SALOME P. SARZA, FELIPE P. BAGON, SAMMY SALNUNGAN, ANTONIO D. EMBA, NORMA MAPANSAGONOS, ROMEO
SALIGA, SR., JERSON P. GERADA, RENATO T. BAGON, JR., SARING MASALONG, SOLEDAD M. GERARDA, ELIZABETH L.
MENDI, MORANTE S. TIWAN, DANILO M. MALUDAO, MINORS MARICEL MALID, represented by her father CORNELIO MALID,
MARCELINO M. LADRA, represented by her father MONICO D. LADRA, JENNYLYN MALID, represented by her father TONY MALID,
ARIEL M. EVANGELISTA, represented by her mother LINAY BALBUENA, EDWARD M. EMUY, SR., SUSAN BOLANIO, OND, PULA
BATO BLAAN TRIBAL FARMERS ASSOCIATION, INTER-PEOPLES EXCHANGE, INC. and GREEN FORUM-WESTERN
VISAYAS, intervenors.
COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS, intervenor.
IKALAHAN INDIGENOUS PEOPLE and HARIBON FOUNDATION FOR THE CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES, INC., intervenor.
R E S O L U T I O N
PER CURI AM:
Petitioners Isagani Cruz and Cesar Europa brought this suit for prohibition and mandamus as citizens and taxpayers, assailing the constitutionality of certain
provisions of Republic Act No. 8371 (R.A. 8371), otherwise known as the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act of 1997 (IPRA), and its Implementing Rules and
Regulations (Implementing Rules).
In its resolution of September 29, 1998, the Court required respondents to comment.
[1]
In compliance, respondents Chairperson and Commissioners of the
National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), the government agency created under the IPRA to implement its provisions, filed on October 13, 1998 their
Comment to the Petition, in which they defend the constitutionality of the IPRA and pray that the petition be dismissed for lack of merit.
On October 19, 1998, respondents Secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and Secretary of the Department of Budget
and Management (DBM) filed through the Solicitor General a consolidated Comment. The Solicitor General is of the view that the IPRA is partly
unconstitutional on the ground that it grants ownership over natural resources to indigenous peoples and prays that the petition be granted in part.
On November 10, 1998, a group of intervenors, composed of Sen. Juan Flavier, one of the authors of the IPRA, Mr. Ponciano Bennagen, a member of the
1986 Constitutional Commission, and the leaders and members of 112 groups of indigenous peoples (Flavier, et. al), filed thei r Motion for Leave to
Intervene. They join the NCIP in defending the constitutionality of IPRA and praying for the dismissal of the petition.
On March 22, 1999, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) likewise filed a Motion to Intervene and/or to Appear as Amicus Curiae. The CHR asserts
that IPRA is an expression of the principle of parens patriae and that the State has the responsibility to protect and guarantee t he rights of those who are at a
serious disadvantage like indigenous peoples. For this reason it prays that the petition be dismissed.
On March 23, 1999, another group, composed of the Ikalahan Indigenous People and the Haribon Foundation for the Conservation of Natural Resources,
Inc. (Haribon, et al.), filed a motion to Intervene with attached Comment-in-Intervention. They agree with the NCIP and Flavier, et al. that IPRA is consistent
with the Constitution and pray that the petition for prohibition and mandamus be dismissed.
The motions for intervention of the aforesaid groups and organizations were granted.
Oral arguments were heard on April 13, 1999. Thereafter, the parties and intervenors filed their respective memoranda in which they reiterate the
arguments adduced in their earlier pleadings and during the hearing.
Petitioners assail the constitutionality of the following provisions of the IPRA and its Implementing Rules on the ground that they amount to an unlawful
deprivation of the States ownership over lands of the public domain as well as minerals and other natural resources therein, in violation of the regalian doctrine
embodied in Section 2, Article XII of the Constitution:
(1) Section 3(a) which defines the extent and coverage of ancestral domains, and Section 3(b) which, in turn, defines ancestral lands;
(2) Section 5, in relation to section 3(a), which provides that ancestral domains including inalienable public lands, bodies of water, mineral and
other resources found within ancestral domains are private but community property of the indigenous peoples;
(3) Section 6 in relation to section 3(a) and 3(b) which defines the composition of ancestral domains and ancestral lands;
(4) Section 7 which recognizes and enumerates the rights of the indigenous peoples over the ancestral domains;
(5) Section 8 which recognizes and enumerates the rights of the indigenous peoples over the ancestral lands;
(6) Section 57 which provides for priority rights of the indigenous peoples in the harvesting, extraction, development or exploration of minerals and
other natural resources within the areas claimed to be their ancestral domains, and the right to enter into agreements with nonindigenous peoples
for the development and utilization of natural resources therein for a period not exceeding 25 years, renewable for not more than 25 years; and
(7) Section 58 which gives the indigenous peoples the responsibility to maintain, develop, protect and conserve the ancestral domains and portions
thereof which are found to be necessary for critical watersheds, mangroves, wildlife sanctuaries, wilderness, protected areas, forest cover or
reforestation.
[2]

Petitioners also content that, by providing for an all-encompassing definition of ancestral domains and ancestral lands which might even include private
lands found within said areas, Sections 3(a) and 3(b) violate the rights of private landowners.
[3]

In addition, petitioners question the provisions of the IPRA defining the powers and jurisdiction of the NCIP and making customary law applicable to the
settlement of disputes involving ancestral domains and ancestral lands on the ground that these provisions violate the due process clause of the Constitution.
[4]

These provisions are:
(1) sections 51 to 53 and 59 which detail the process of delineation and recognition of ancestral domains and which vest on the NCIP the sole
authority to delineate ancestral domains and ancestral lands;
(2) Section 52[i] which provides that upon certification by the NCIP that a particular area is an ancestral domain and upon notification to the
following officials, namely, the Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources, Secretary of Interior and Local Governments, Secretary of
Justice and Commissioner of the National Development Corporation, the jurisdiction of said officials over said area terminates;
(3) Section 63 which provides the customary law, traditions and practices of indigenous peoples shall be applied first with respect to property rights,
claims of ownership, hereditary succession and settlement of land disputes, and that any doubt or ambiguity in the interpretation thereof shall be
resolved in favor of the indigenous peoples;
(4) Section 65 which states that customary laws and practices shall be used to resolve disputes involving indigenous peoples; and
(5) Section 66 which vests on the NCIP the jurisdiction over all claims and disputes involving rights of the indigenous peoples.
[5]

Finally, petitioners assail the validity of Rule VII, Part II, Section 1 of the NCIP Administrative Order No. 1, series of 1998, which provides that the
administrative relationship of the NCIP to the Office of the President is characterized as a lateral but autonomous relationship for purposes of policy and program
coordination. They contend that said Rule infringes upon the Presidents power of control over executive departments under Section 17, Article VII of the
Constitution.
[6]

Petitioners pray for the following:
(1) A declaration that Sections 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 52[I], 57, 58, 59, 63, 65 and 66 and other related provisions of R.A. 8371 are unconstitutional and
invalid;
(2) The issuance of a writ of prohibition directing the Chairperson and Commissioners of the NCIP to cease and desist from implementing the
assailed provisions of R.A. 8371 and its Implementing Rules;
(3) The issuance of a writ of prohibition directing the Secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to cease and desist from
implementing Department of Environment and Natural Resources Circular No. 2, series of 1998;
(4) The issuance of a writ of prohibition directing the Secretary of Budget and Management to cease and desist from disbursing public funds for the
implementation of the assailed provisions of R.A. 8371; and
(5) The issuance of a writ of mandamus commanding the Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources to comply with his duty of carrying out
the States constitutional mandate to control and supervise the exploration, development, utilization and conservation of Philippine natural
resources.
[7]

After due deliberation on the petition, the members of the Court voted as follows:
Seven (7) voted to dismiss the petition. Justice Kapunan filed an opinion, which the Chief Justice and Justices Bellosillo, Quisumbing, and Santiago join,
sustaining the validity of the challenged provisions of R.A. 8371. Justice Puno also filed a separate opinion sustaining all challenged provisions of the law with
the exception of Section 1, Part II, Rule III of NCIP Administrative Order No. 1, series of 1998, the Rules and Regulations Implementing the IPRA, and Section
57 of the IPRA which he contends should be interpreted as dealing with the large-scale exploitation of natural resources and should be read in conjunction with
Section 2, Article XII of the 1987 Constitution. On the other hand, Justice Mendoza voted to dismiss the petition solely on the ground that it does not raise a
justiciable controversy and petitioners do not have standing to question the constitutionality of R.A. 8371.
Seven (7) other members of the Court voted to grant the petition. Justice Panganiban filed a separate opinion expressing the view that Sections 3 (a)(b), 5,
6, 7 (a)(b), 8, and related provisions of R.A. 8371 are unconstitutional. He reserves judgment on the constitutionality of Sections 58, 59, 65, and 66 of the law,
which he believes must await the filing of specific cases by those whose rights may have been violated by the IPRA. Justice Vitug also filed a separate opinion
expressing the view that Sections 3(a), 7, and 57 of R.A. 8371 are unconstitutional. Justices Melo, Pardo, Buena, Gonzaga-Reyes, and De Leon join in the
separate opinions of Justices Panganiban and Vitug.
As the votes were equally divided (7 to 7) and the necessary majority was not obtained, the case was redeliberated upon. However, after redeliberation, the
voting remained the same. Accordingly, pursuant to Rule 56, Section 7 of the Rules of Civil Procedure, the petition is DISMISSED.
Attached hereto and made integral parts thereof are the separate opinions of Justices Puno, Vitug, Kapunan, Mendoza, and Panganiban.
SO ORDERED.
CASE DIGEST:
Cruz, a noted constitutionalist, assailed the validity of the RA 8371 or the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act on the ground that the law amount to an unlawful
deprivation of the States ownership over lands of the public domain as well as minerals and other natural resources therein, in violation of the regalian doctrine
embodied in Section 2, Article XII of the Constitution. The IPRA law basically enumerates the rights of the indigenous peoples over ancestral domains which may
include natural resources. Cruz et al contend that, by providing for an all-encompassing definition of ancestral domains and ancestral lands which might even
include private lands found within said areas, Sections 3(a) and 3(b) of said law violate the rights of private landowners.
ISSUE: Whether or not the IPRA law is unconstitutional.
HELD: The SC deliberated upon the matter. After deliberation they voted and reached a 7-7 vote. They deliberated again and the same result transpired. Since
there was no majority vote, Cruzs petition was dismissed and the IPRA law was sustained. Hence, ancestral domains may include public domain somehow
against the regalian doctrine.

Republic Act 8171
AN ACT PROVIDING FOR THE REPATRIATION OF FILIPINO WOMEN WHO HAVE LOST THEIR PHILIPPINE CITIZENSHIP BY
MARRIAGE TO ALIENS AND OF NATURAL-BORN FILIPINOS.
Section 1. Filipino women who have lost their Philippine citizenship by marriage to aliens and natural-born Filipinos who have lost their Philippine citizenship,
including their minor children, on account of political or economic necessity, may reacquire Philippine citizenship
through repatriation in the manner provided in Section 4 of Commonwealth Act No. 63, as amended: Provided, That the applicant
is not a:
(1) Person opposed to organized government or affiliated with any association or group of persons who uphold and teach doctrines opposing organized
government;
(2) Person defending or teaching the necessity or propriety of violence, personal assault, or associatEon for the predominance of their ideas;
(3) Person convictad of crimes involving moral turpitude; or
(4) Person suffering from mental alienation or incurablecontagious diseases.
Sec. 2. Repatriation shall be effected by taking the necessary oath of allegiance to the Republic of the Philippines and registration in the proper civil registry and in
the Bureau or Immigration. The Bureau of Immigration shall thereupon cancel the pertinent alien
certificate of registration and issue the certificate of identification as Filipino citizen to the repatriated citizen.
Sec. 3. All laws, decrees, orders, rules and regulations, or parts thereof inconsistent with this Act are hereby repealed or amended accordingly.
Sec. 4. This Act shall take effect thirty (30) days after its publication in a newspaper of general circulation.
Signed: October 23, 1995
Congress of the Philippines
Twelfth Congress
Third Regular Session


Begun held in Metro Manila on Monday, the twenty-eighth day of July, two thousand three.



Republic Act No. 9225 August 29, 2003
AN ACT MAKING THE CITIZENSHIP OF PHILIPPINE CITIZENS WHO ACQUIRE FOREIGN CITIZENSHIP PERMANENT.
AMENDING FOR THE PURPOSE COMMONWEALTH ACT. NO. 63, AS AMENDED AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the Philippines in Congress assembled:
Section 1. Short Title this act shall be known as the "Citizenship Retention and Re-acquisition Act of 2003."
Section 2. Declaration of Policy- It is hereby declared the policy of the State that all Philippine citizens of another country shall be deemed not to have lost their
Philippine citizenship under the conditions of this Act.
Section 3. Retention of Philippine Citizenship- Any provision of law to the contrary notwithstanding, natural-born citizenship by reason of their naturalization as
citizens of a foreign country are hereby deemed to have re-acquired Philippine citizenship upon taking the following oath of allegiance to the Republic:
"I _____________________, solemny swear (or affrim) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines and obey the
laws and legal orders promulgated by the duly constituted authorities of the Philippines; and I hereby declare that I recognize and accept the supreme
authority of the Philippines and will maintain true faith and allegiance thereto; and that I imposed this obligation upon myself voluntarily without
mental reservation or purpose of evasion."
Natural born citizens of the Philippines who, after the effectivity of this Act, become citizens of a foreign country shall retain their Philippine citizenship upon
taking the aforesaid oath.
Section 4. Derivative Citizenship - The unmarried child, whether legitimate, illegitimate or adopted, below eighteen (18) years of age, of those who re-acquire
Philippine citizenship upon effectivity of this Act shall be deemed citizenship of the Philippines.
Section 5. Civil and Political Rights and Liabilities - Those who retain or re-acquire Philippine citizenship under this Act shall enjoy full civil and political rights
and be subject to all attendant liabilities and responsibilities under existing laws of the Philippines and the following conditions:
(1) Those intending to exercise their right of surffrage must Meet the requirements under Section 1, Article V of the Constitution, Republic Act No.
9189, otherwise known as "The Overseas Absentee Voting Act of 2003" and other existing laws;
(2) Those seeking elective public in the Philippines shall meet the qualification for holding such public office as required by the Constitution and
existing laws and, at the time of the filing of the certificate of candidacy, make a personal and sworn renunciation of any and all foreign citizenship
before any public officer authorized to administer an oath;
(3) Those appointed to any public office shall subscribe and swear to an oath of allegiance to the Republic of the Philippines and its duly constituted
authorities prior to their assumption of office: Provided, That they renounce their oath of allegiance to the country where they took that oath;
(4) Those intending to practice their profession in the Philippines shall apply with the proper authority for a license or permit to engage in such
practice; and
(5) That right to vote or be elected or appointed to any public office in the Philippines cannot be exercised by, or extended to, those who:
(a) are candidates for or are occupying any public office in the country of which they are naturalized citizens; and/or
(b) are in active service as commissioned or non-commissioned officers in the armed forces of the country which they are naturalized
citizens.
Section 6. Separability Clause- If any section or provision of this Act is held unconstitutional or invalid, any other section or provision not affected thereby shall
remain valid and effective.
Section 7. Repealing Clause- All laws, decrees, orders, rules and regulations inconsistent with the provisions of this Act are hereby repealed or modified
accordingly.
Section 8. Effectivity Clause This Act shall take effect after fifteen (15) days following its publication in theOfficial Gazette or two (2) newspaper of general
circulation.


Approved,
FRANKLIN DRILON
President of the Senate
JOSE DE VENECIA JR.
Speaker of the House of Representatives
This Act, which is a consolidation of Senate Bill No. 2130 and House Bill No. 4720 was finally passed by the the House of Representatives and Senate on August
25, 2003 and August 26, 2003, respectively.
OSCAR G. YABES
Secretary of Senate
ROBERTO P. NAZARENO
Secretary General
House of Represenatives
Approved: August 29, 2003
GLORIA MACAPAGAL-ARROYO
President of the Philippines











VELASCO VS COMELEC
Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila
EN BANC
G.R. No. 166931 February 22, 2007
RANILO A. VELASCO, Petitioner,
vs.
COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS and BENIGNO C. LAYESA, JR., Respondents.
D E C I S I O N
CARPIO, J .:
The Case
This is a petition for the writs of certiorari and prohibition to set aside the Resolution
1
dated 10 February 2003 of the Commission on Elections (COMELEC)
Second Division and the Resolution dated 18 January 2005 of the COMELEC En Banc in an election protest case involving the office of the Punong Barangay of
Sta. Ana, San Pablo City.
The Facts
Petitioner Ranilo A. Velasco (petitioner) and respondent Benigno C. Layesa, Jr. (respondent) were two of the four candidates for Punong Barangay of Sta. Ana,
San Pablo City in the 15 July 2002 barangay elections. After the canvassing of votes, the Barangay Board of Canvassers proclaimed petitioner winner with 390
votes. Petitioners nearest rival, respondent, received 375 votes.
Claiming that some votes cast in his favor were erroneously excluded from the canvassing, respondent filed an election protest in the Municipal Trial Court in
Cities, San Pablo City (trial court). Respondent prayed for the revision of 26 ballots from four precincts.
2

Petitioner initially moved to dismiss the case but, in an Amended Answer, counterclaimed for the revision of ballots cast in another precinct.
3

The Ruling of the Trial Court
In its Decision dated 23 August 2002, the trial court declared the election results tied, with petitioner and respondent each obtaining 390 votes. On the uncontested
ballots, the trial court found that petitioner and respondent received 389 and 375 votes, respectively. After revision of the contested ballots, the trial court credited
15 more votes to respondent and one more vote to petitioner, thus leaving petitioner and respondent with 390 votes each. The trial court ordered the drawing of
lots to break the tie and determine the winner.
4

Petitioner appealed to the COMELEC, contending that the trial court erred in crediting respondent with 15 more votes. Petitioners appeal was raffled to the
COMELECs Second Division.
The Ruling of the COMELEC Second Division
In its Resolution dated 10 February 2003, the COMELEC Second Division affirmed the trial courts ruling, applying in its appreciation of some ballots the
"neighborhood rule."
Petitioner and respondent both sought reconsideration. In his motion, petitioner limited his objection to five ballots, namely:
- Exhibit "9" with the name "JR=LAYESA" written on the left uppermost portion of the ballot, beside the seal of the Republic of the Philippines, with
the space for Punong Barangay left unfilled;
- Exhibits "7," "8," and "10" with respondents name written on the first space for Barangay Kagawad, leaving blank the space for Punong Barangay.
Further, in Exhibit "10," the word "JR.LAYESCharman" is also found on the top right portion of the ballot, above the instructions to the voter.
- Exhibit "13" with respondents name written above the instructions to the voter with the space for Punong Barangay left unfilled.
Petitioner contended that: (1) Exhibit "9" is a stray ballot because the name "JR=LAYESA" was written by another person and, at any rate, such was written "too
far away" from the space provided for Punong Barangay for the "neighborhood rule" to apply; (2) Exhibit "13" is also a stray ballot because respondents name
was not written on the space provided for Punong Barangay; (3) Exhibits "7" and "8" were prepared by only one person; and (4) Exhibit "10" is a marked ballot
because respondents name, or that which sounds like it, was written twice.
For his part, respondent contended that the ballot admitted in evidence as Exhibit "A," with the word "ANET" (petitioners nickname) written above the space for
Punong Barangay, is a marked ballot. Further, respondent claimed that the vote cast in the ballot marked Exhibit "4" should be credited to him as his name is
found in the second line for Kagawad.
The Ruling of the COMELEC En Banc
In its Resolution
5
dated 18 January 2005, the COMELEC En Banc denied reconsideration of the Second Divisions ruling. Traversing the matters petitioner raised
in his motion, the COMELEC En Banc held that (1) the Second Division properly credited respondent with the votes cast for him in Exhibits "9" and "13" under
the "neighborhood rule"; (2) Exhibits "7" and "8" were not prepared by one person; and (3) Exhibit "10" is not a marked ballot.
On the contentions respondent raised in his motion for reconsideration, the COMELEC En Banc ruled that Exhibit "A" is not a marked ballot and that the vote for
petitioner was properly credited in his favor under the "neighborhood rule." The COMELEC En Banc further ruled that Exhibit "4" cannot be credited to
respondent as intent to vote for respondent cannot be ascertained.
6

Hence, this petition
Petitioner has narrowed the scope of his appeal to three ballots Exhibits "9," "10," and "13." Petitioner reiterates his contention below that the votes cast for
respondent in these ballots are stray and should not have been credited to respondent under the "neighborhood rule."
7

The Issue
The issue is whether the COMELEC correctly credited respondent with the votes cast in the three ballots in question.
The Ruling of the Court
The petition is partly meritorious. The vote cast for respondent in Exhibit "10" is valid while those in Exhibits "9" and "13" are stray.
On the Appreciation of Ballots with Misplaced Votes
The votes contested in this appeal are all misplaced votes, i.e., votes cast for a candidate for the wrong or, in this case, inexistent office. In appreciating such
votes, the COMELEC applied the "neighborhood rule." As used by the Court, this nomenclature, loosely based on a rule of the same name devised by the House
of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET),
8
refers to an exception
9
to the rule on appreciation of misplaced votes under Section 211(19) of Batas Pambansa
Blg. 881 (Omnibus Election Code) which provides:
Any vote in favor of a person who has not filed a certificate of candidacy or in favor of a candidate for an office for which he did not present himself shall be
considered as a stray vote but it shall not invalidate the whole ballot.
10
(Emphasis supplied)
Section 211(19) is meant to avoid confusion in the minds of the election officials as to the candidates actually voted for and to stave off any scheming design to
identify the vote of the elector, thus defeating the secrecy of the ballot which is a cardinal feature of our election laws.
11
Section 211(19) also enforces Section 195
of the Omnibus Election Code which provides that in preparing the ballot, each voter must "fill his ballot by writing in the proper place for each office the name of
the individual candidate for whom he desires to vote."
12

Excepted from Section 211(19) are ballots with (1) a general misplacement of an entire series of names intended to be voted for the successive offices appearing
in the ballot;
13
(2) a single
14
or double
15
misplacement of names where such names were preceded or followed by the title of the contested office or where the voter
wrote after the candidates name a directional symbol indicating the correct office for which the misplaced name was intended;
16
and (3) a single misplacement of
a name written (a) off-center from the designated space,
17
(b) slightly underneath the line for the contested office,
18
(c) immediately above the title for the
contested office,
19
or (d) in the space for an office immediately following that for which the candidate presented himself.
20
In these instances, the misplaced votes
are nevertheless credited to the candidates for the office for which they presented themselves because the voters intention to so vote is clear from the face of the
ballots.
21
This is in consonance with the settled doctrine that ballots should be appreciated with liberality to give effect to the voters will.
The Foregoing Rule and Exceptions Applied to the Case
Exhibit "10"
In this ballot, the voter wrote respondents name twice on the upper right side of the ballot above the instructions to the voter and on the first line for
Sangguniang Barangay Kagawad, leaving blank the space for Punong Barangay. Both names are followed by the word "Charman."
The COMELEC correctly credited respondent with the vote cast for him in this ballot following the exception to Section 211(19) of ballots with a single
misplaced name followed by the title of the contested office. The voters repetition of respondents name in the first line for Sangguniang Barangay Kagawad
followed by the word "Charman" renders the vote valid. The voters intent to cast his vote for respondent as Punong Barangay or barangay chairman is obvious
when he wrote the word "Charman" which can only stand for "[Barangay] Chairman" after respondents name.
Exhibits "9" and "13"
As described, the voter in Exhibit "9" wrote respondents name on the left uppermost portion of the ballot, beside the seal of the Republic of the Philippines. In
Exhibit "13," the voter also wrote respondents name in the upper portion of the ballot, above the instructions to the voter but below the words "San Pablo City."
In both ballots, the voters left unfilled the space for Punong Barangay but each wrote a name in the first line for Sangguniang Barangay Kagawad (Ronel O.
Gutierrez in Exhibit "9" and Volter Estreleado in Exhibit "13").
22

The Court holds that the votes for respondent in these ballots are stray and cannot be counted in his favor.
Respondents name is not found on or near any of the lines corresponding to the offices of Punong Barangay or Sangguniang Barangay Kagawad the offices in
contention in the 15 July 2002 barangay elections. Instead, respondents name is found outside of where these lines begin and end, namely, beside the seal of the
Republic of the Philippines on the topmost portion of the ballot (Exhibit "9") and above the instructions to the voter, underneath the words "San Pablo City"
(Exhibit "13"). Section 211(19), which treats misplaced votes as stray, speaks of a vote for a candidate "for an office for which he did not present himself." Thus,
there is more reason to apply this rule here as the votes in Exhibits "9" and "13" do not even relate to any office.
Nor do the votes in question fall under any of the exceptions to Section 211(19) enumerated above. Exhibits "9" and "13" are not similar or analogous to ballots
with a general misplacement of a series of names; a single or double misplacement of names preceded or followed by the title of the contested office or by a
symbol indicating the correct office to which the vote was intended; or a single misplacement of a name written off-center, under the correct line, immediately
above the name of the contested office, or in the space for an office immediately following that for which the candidate presented himself. Indeed, unlike these
exceptions where the voters mistake or confusion is evident from the face of the ballot, Exhibits "9" and "13" present an unusual case of extremes while
respondents name was written way off its proper place, the names of persons who were presumably candidates for Sangguniang Barangay Kagawad were
properly placed, without the slightest deviation, in the first of the seven lines for that office.
This gives only two possible impressions. First, that the voters in these two ballots knew in fact where to write the candidates names, in which case the votes for
respondent written way off its proper place become stray votes. Second, the voters manner of voting was a devise to identify the ballots, which renders the ballots
invalid. We adopt the more liberal view that the misplaced votes in Exhibits "9" and "13" are stray votes under Section 211(19), thus, leaving the ballots
valid.1awphi1.net
Significantly, the chances of voter confusion generated by the appearance of the ballot are not as high in the 15 July 2002 barangay elections as in other elections
involving local and national officials. In the 15 July 2002 elections, the ballots contained only one column consisting of blank lines or spaces for the offices of
Punong Barangay and Barangay Kagawad (7 lines). In contrast, the ballots used in the 10 May 2004 local and national elections contained two columns: the first
consisted of blank lines or spaces for the offices of President, Vice-President, Senators (12 lines), and Party-List Representative while the second consisted of
blank lines for the offices of Representative, Governor, Vice-Governor, members of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan (4 lines), Mayor, Vice-Mayor, and members
of the Sangguniang Bayan (8 lines). This is a material factor which dissuades us from indulging in presumptions of mistake or confusion to explain the misplaced
votes in Exhibits "9" and "13."
This Court is ever mindful of the need, under our republican form of government, to give full expression to the voters will as indicated in the ballots. This
explains the numerous exceptions we have carved out of Section 211(19). However, liberality in ballot appreciation ends where subversion of the legislatures will
begins. Congress enacted Sections 195 and 211(19) precisely to guard against the extreme irregularity Exhibits "9" and "13" present. Thus, we here draw the line
between permissible deviations from Sections 195 and 211(19) and flagrant disregard of an elementary rule in voting under our present electoral system.
Accordingly, the votes in Exhibits "9" and "13" are deducted from the total number of votes credited to respondent, leaving a total of 388 votes in his favor. As
petitioners total number of votes remains unchanged at 390 votes, he is the duly elected Punong Barangay of Sta. Ana, San Pablo City.
WHEREFORE, we GRANT the petition. We SET ASIDE the Resolution dated 10 February 2003 of the Commission on Elections Second Division and the
Resolution dated 18 January 2005 of the Commission on Elections En Banc. We PROCLAIM petitioner Ranilo A. Velasco as the duly elected Punong Barangay
of Sta. Ana, San Pablo City.
SO ORDERED.
GOVERNMENT
US VS DORR

Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila
EN BANC
G.R. No. 1051 May 19, 1903
THE UNITED STATES, complainant-appellee,
vs.
FRED L. DORR, ET AL., defendants-appellants.
F. G. Waite for appellants.
Solicitor-General Araneta for appellee.
LADD, J .:
The defendants have been convicted upon a complaint charging them with the offense of writing, publishing, and circulating a scurrilous libel against the
Government of the United States and the Insular Government of the Philippine Islands. The complaint is based upon section 8 of Act No. 292 of the Commission,
which is as follows:
Every person who shall utter seditious words or speeches, write, publish, or circulate scurrilous libels against the Government of the United States or
the Insular Government of the Philippine Islands, or which tend to disturb or obstruct any lawful officer in executing his office, or which tend to
instigate others to cabal or meet together for unlawful purposes, or which suggest or incite rebellious conspiracies or riots, or which tend to stir up the
people against the lawful authorities, or to disturb the peace of the community, the safety and order of the Government, or who shall knowingly conceal
such evil practices, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars or by imprisonment not exceeding two years, or both, in the
discretion of the court.
The alleged libel was published as an editorial in the issue of the "Manila Freedom" of April 6, 1902, under the caption of "A few hard facts."
The Attorney-General in his brief indicates the following passages of the article as those upon which he relies to sustain the conviction:
Sidney Adamson, in a late letter in "Leslie's Weekly," has the following to say of the action of the Civil Commission in appointing rascally natives to
important Government positions:
"It is a strong thing to say, but nevertheless true, that the Civil Commission, through its ex-insurgent office holders, and by its continual
disregard for the records of natives obtained during the military rule of the Islands, has, in its distribution of offices, constituted a
protectorate over a set of men who should be in jail or deported. . . . [Reference is then made to the appointment of one Tecson as justice of
the peace.] This is the kind of foolish work that the Commission is doing all over the Islands, reinstating insurgents and rogues and turning
down the men who have during the struggle, at the risk of their lives, aided the Americans."
xxx xxx xxx
There is no doubt but that the Filipino office holders of the Islands are in a good many instances rascals.
xxx xxx xxx
The commission has exalted to the highest positions in the Islands Filipinos who are alleged to be notoriously corrupt and rascally, and men of no
personal character.
xxx xxx xxx
Editor Valdez, of "Miau," made serious charges against two of the native Commissioners charges against Trinidad H. Pardo de Tavera, which, if true, would
brand the man as a coward and a rascal, and with what result? . . . [Reference is then made to the prosecution and conviction of Valdez for libel "under a law
which specifies that the greater the truth the greater the libel."] Is it the desire of the people of the United States that the natives against whom these charges have
been made (which, if true, absolutely vilify their personal characters) be permitted to retain their seats on the Civil Commission, the executive body of the
Philippine Government, without an investigation?
xxx xxx xxx
It is a notorious fact that many branches of the Government organized by the Civil Commission are rotten and corrupt. The fiscal system, upon which
life, liberty, and justice depends, is admitted by the Attorney-General himself to be most unsatisfactory. It is a fact that the Philippine judiciary is far
from being what it should. Neither fiscals nor judges can be persuaded to convict insurgents when they wish to protect them.
xxx xxx xxx
Now we hear all sorts of reports as to rottenness existing in the province [of Tayabas], and especially the northern end of it; it is said that it is
impossible to secure the conviction of lawbreakers and outlaws by the native justices, or a prosecution by the native fiscals.
xxx xxx xxx
The long and short of it is that Americans will not stand for an arbitrary government, especially when evidences of carpetbagging and rumors of graft
are too thick to be pleasant.
We do not understand that it is claimed that the defendants succeeded in establishing at the trial the truth of any of the foregoing statements. The only question
which we have considered is whether their publication constitutes an offense under section 8 of Act No. 292, above cited.
Several allied offenses or modes of committing the same offense are defined in that section, viz: (1) The uttering of seditious words or speeches; (2) the writing,
publishing, or circulating of scurrilous libels against the Government of the United States or the Insular Government of the Philippine Islands; (3) the writing,
publishing, or circulating of libels which tend to disturb or obstruct any lawful officer in executing his office; (4) or which tend to instigate others to cabal or meet
together for unlawful purposes; (5) or which suggest or incite rebellious conspiracies or riots; (6) or which tend to stir up the people against the lawful authorities
or to disturb the peace of the community, the safety and order of the Government; (7) knowingly concealing such evil practices.
The complaint appears to be framed upon the theory that a writing, in order to be punishable as a libel under this section, must be of a scurrilous nature and
directed against the Government of the United States or the Insular Government of the Philippine Islands, and must, in addition, tend to some one of the results
enumerated in the section. The article in question is described in the complaint as "a scurrilous libel against the Government of the United States and the Insular
Government of the Philippine Islands, which tends to obstruct the lawful officers of the United States and the Insular Government of the Philippine Islands in the
execution of their offices, and which tends to instigate others to cabal and meet together for unlawful purposes, and which suggests and incites rebellious
conspiracies, and which tends to stir up the people against the lawful authorities, and which disturbs the safety and order of the Government of the United States
and the Insular Government of the Philippine Islands." But it is "a well-settled rule in considering indictments that where an offense may be committed in any of
several different modes, and the offense, in any particular instance, is alleged to have been committed in two or more modes specified, it is sufficient to prove the
offense committed in any one of them, provided that it be such as to constitute the substantive offense" (Com. vs. Kneeland, 20 Pick., Mass., 206, 215), and the
defendants may, therefore, be convicted if any one of the substantive charges into which the complaint may be separated has been made out.
We are all, however, agreed upon the proposition that the article in question has no appreciable tendency to "disturb or obstruct any lawful officer in executing his
office," or to "instigate" any person or class of persons "to cabal or meet together for unlawful purposes," or to "suggest or incite rebellious conspiracies or riots,"
or to "stir up the people against the lawful authorities or to disturb the peace of the community, the safety and order of the Government." All these various
tendencies, which are described in section 8 of Act No. 292, each one of which is made an element of a certain form of libel, may be characterized in general
terms as seditious tendencies. This is recognized in the description of the offenses punished by this section, which is found in the title of the act, where they are
defined as the crimes of the "seditious utterances, whether written or spoken."
Excluding from consideration the offense of publishing "scurrilous libels against the Government of the United States or the Insular Government of the Philippine
Islands," which may conceivably stand on a somewhat different footing, the offenses punished by this section all consist in inciting, orally or in writing, to acts of
disloyalty or disobedience to the lawfully constituted authorities in these Islands. And while the article in question, which is, in the main, a virulent attack against
the policy of the Civil Commission in appointing natives to office, may have had the effect of exciting among certain classes dissatisfaction with the Commission
and its measures, we are unable to discover anything in it which can be regarded as having a tendency to produce anything like what may be called disaffection,
or, in other words, a state of feeling incompatible with a disposition to remain loyal to the Government and obedient to the laws. There can be no conviction,
therefore, for any of the offenses described in the section on which the complaint is based, unless it is for the offense of publishing a scurrilous libel against the
Government of the of the United States or the Insular Government of the Philippine Islands.
Can the article be regarded as embraced within the description of "scurrilous libels against the Government of the United States or the Insular Government of the
Philippine Islands?" In the determination of this question we have encountered great difficulty, by reason of the almost entire lack of American precedents which
might serve as a guide in the construction of the law. There are, indeed, numerous English decisions, most of them of the eighteenth century, on the subject of
libelous attacks upon the "Government, the constitution, or the law generally," attacks upon the Houses of Parliament, the Cabinet, the Established Church, and
other governmental organisms, but these decisions are not now accessible to us, and, if they were, they were made under such different conditions from those
which prevail at the present day, and are founded upon theories of government so foreign to those which have inspired the legislation of which the enactment in
question forms a part, that they would probably afford but little light in the present inquiry. In England, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, any "written
censure upon public men for their conduct as such," as well as any written censure "upon the laws or upon the institutions of the country," would probably have
been regarded as a libel upon the Government. (2 Stephen, History of the Criminal Law of England, 348.) This has ceased to be the law in England, and it is
doubtful whether it was ever the common law of any American State. "It is true that there are ancient dicta to the effect that any publication tending to "possess the
people with an ill opinion of the Government" is a seditious libel ( per Holt, C. J., in R. vs. Tuchin, 1704, 5 St. Tr., 532, and Ellenborough, C. J., in R. vs. Cobbett,
1804, 29 How. St. Tr., 49), but no one would accept that doctrine now. Unless the words used directly tend to foment riot or rebellion or otherwise to disturb the
peace and tranquility of the Kingdom, the utmost latitude is allowed in the discussion of all public affairs." (11 Enc. of the Laws of England, 450.) Judge Cooley
says (Const. Lim., 528): "The English common law rule which made libels on the constitution or the government indictable, as it was administered by the courts,
seems to us unsuited to the condition and circumstances of the people of America, and therefore never to have been adopted in the several States."
We find no decisions construing the Tennessee statute (Code, sec. 6663), which is apparently the only existing American statute of a similar character to that in
question, and from which much of the phraseology of then latter appears to have been taken, though with some essential modifications.
The important question is to determine what is meant in section 8 of Act No. 292 by the expression "the Insular Government of the Philippine Islands." Does it
mean in a general and abstract sense the existing laws and institutions of the Islands, or does it mean the aggregate of the individuals by whom the government of
the Islands is, for the time being, administered? Either sense would doubtless be admissible.
We understand, in modern political science, . . . by the term government, that institution or aggregate of institutions by which an independent society makes and
carries out those rules of action which are unnecessary to enable men to live in a social state, or which are imposed upon the people forming that society by those
who possess the power or authority of prescribing them. Government is the aggregate of authorities which rule a society. By "dministration, again, we understand
in modern times, and especially in more or less free countries, the aggregate of those persons in whose hands the reins of government are for the time being (the
chief ministers or heads of departments)." (Bouvier, Law Dictionary, 891.) But the writer adds that the terms "government" and "administration" are not always
used in their strictness, and that "government" is often used for "administration."
In the act of Congress of July 14, 1798, commonly known as the "Sedition Act," it is made an offense to "write, print, utter, or published," or to "knowingly and
willingly assist or aid in writing, printing, uttering, or publishing any false, scandalous, and malicious writing or writings against the Government of the United
States, or either House of the Congress of the United States, or the President of the United States, with intent to defame the said Government, or either House of
the said Congress, or the said President, or to bring them, or either of them, into contempt or disrepute, or to excite against them or either or any of them the hatred
of the good people of the United States," etc. The term "government" would appear to be used here in the abstract sense of the existing political system, as
distinguished from the concrete organisms of the Government the Houses of Congress and the Executive which are also specially mentioned.
Upon the whole, we are of the opinion that this is the sense in which the term is used in the enactment under consideration.
It may be said that there can be no such thing as a scurrilous libel, or any sort of a libel, upon an abstraction like the Government in the sense of the laws and
institutions of a country, but we think an answer to this suggestion is that the expression "scurrilous libel" is not used in section 8 of Act No. 292 in the sense in
which it is used in the general libel law (Act No. 277) that is, in the sense of written defamation of individuals but in the wider sense, in which it is applied
in the common law to blasphemous, obscene, or seditious publications in which there may be no element of defamation whatever. "The word 'libel' as popularly
used, seems to mean only defamatory words; but words written, if obscene, blasphemous, or seditious, are technically called libels, and the publication of them is,
by the law of England, an indictable offense." (Bradlaugh vs. The Queen, 3 Q. B. D., 607, 627, per Bramwell L. J. See Com. vs. Kneeland, 20 Pick., 206, 211.)
While libels upon forms of government, unconnected with defamation of individuals, must in the nature of things be of uncommon occurrence, the offense is by
no means an imaginary one. An instance of a prosecution for an offense essentially of this nature is Republica vs. Dennie, 4 Yeates (Pa.), 267, where the defendant
was indicted "as a factious and seditious person of a wicked mind and unquiet and turbulent disposition and conversation, seditiously, maliciously, and willfully
intending, as much as in him lay, to bring into contempt and hatred the independence of the United States, the constitution of this Commonwealth and of the
United States, to excite popular discontent and dissatisfaction against the scheme of polity instituted, and upon trial in the said United States and in the said
Commonwealth, to molest, disturb, and destroy the peace and tranquility of the said United States and of the said Commonwealth, to condemn the principles of
the Revolution, and revile, depreciate, and scandalize the characters of the Revolutionary patriots and statesmen, to endanger, subvert, and totally destroy the
republican constitutions and free governments of the said United States and this Commonwealth, to involve the said United States and this Commonwealth in civil
war, desolation, and anarchy, and to procure by art and force a radical change and alteration in the principles and forms of the said constitutions and governments,
without the free will, wish, and concurrence of the people of the said United States and this Commonwealth, respectively," the charge being that "to fulfill, perfect,
and bring to effect his wicked, seditious, and detestable intentions aforesaid he . . . falsely, maliciously, factiously, and seditiously did make, compose, write, and
publish the following libel, to wit; 'A democracy is scarcely tolerable at any period of national history. Its omens are always sinister and its powers are
unpropitious. With all the lights or experience blazing before our eyes, it is impossible not to discover the futility of this form of government. It was weak and
wicked at Athens, it was bad in Sparta, and worse in Rome. It has been tried in France and terminated in despotism. it was tried in England and rejected with the
utmost loathing and abhorrence. It is on its trial here and its issue will be civil war, desolation, and anarchy. No wise man but discerns its imperfections; no good
man but shudders at its miseries; no honest man but proclaims its fraud, and no brave man but draws his sword against its force. The institution of a scheme of
polity so radically contemptible and vicious is a memorable example of what the villainy of some men can devise, the folly of others receive, and both establish, in
despite of reason, reflection, and sensation.'"
An attack upon the lawfully established system of civil government in the Philippine Islands, like that which Dennie was accused of making upon the republican
form of government lawfully established in the United States and in the State of Pennsylvania would, we think, if couched in scandalous language, constitute the
precise offense described in section 8 of Act No. 292 as a scurrilous libel against the Insular Government of the Philippine Islands.
Defamation of individuals, whether holding official positions or not, and whether directed to their public conduct or to their private life, may always be adequately
punished under the general libel law. Defamation of the Civil Commission as an aggregation, it being "a body of persons definite and small enough for its
individual members to be recognized as such" (Stephen, Digest of the Criminal Law, art. 277), as well as defamation of any of the individual members of the
Commission or of the Civil Governor, either in his public capacity or as a private individual, may be so punished. The general libel law enacted by the
Commission was in force when Act No. 292, was passed. There was no occasion for any further legislation on the subject of libels against the individuals by
whom the Insular Government is administered against the Insular Government in the sense of the aggregate of such individuals. There was occasion for
stringent legislation against seditious words or libels, and that is the main if not the sole purpose of the section under consideration. It is not unreasonable to
suppose that the Commission, in enacting this section, may have conceived of attacks of a malignant or scurrilous nature upon the existing political system of the
United States, or the political system established in these Islands by the authority of the United States, as necessarily of a seditious tendency, but it is not so
reasonable to suppose that they conceived of attacks upon the personnel of the government as necessarily tending to sedition. Had this been their view it seems
probable that they would, like the framers of the Sedition Act of 1798, have expressly and specifically mentioned the various public officials and collegiate
governmental bodies defamation of which they meant to punish as sedition.
The article in question contains no attack upon the governmental system of the United States, and it is quite apparent that, though grossly abusive as respects both
the Commission as a body and some of its individual members, it contains no attack upon the governmental system by which the authority of the United States is
enforced in these Islands. The form of government by a Civil Commission and a Civil Governor is not assailed. It is the character of the men who are intrusted
with the administration of the government that the writer is seeking to bring into disrepute by impugning the purity of their motives, their public integrity, and
their private morals, and the wisdom of their policy. The publication of the article, therefore, no seditious tendency being apparent, constitutes no offense under
Act No. 292, section 8.
The judgment of conviction is reversed and the defendants are acquitted, with costs de oficio.
CASE DIGEST:
THE UNITED STATES, complainant-appellee
Vs
FRED L DORR, ET AL., defendants-appellants
May 19, 1903
G.R. No. 1051

FACTS OF THE CASE
The defendants were charged of scurrilous libel against the Government of the United States and the Insular Government of the Philippine Islands because of an
editorial it published in the issue of Manila Freedom. The defendants were convicted for said offense basing upon Section 8 of Act. No. 292 of the Commission.
Defendants then appealed for reversal of judgment made by the lower courts.
ISSUE (ADMINISTRATION)
Is the editorial published by the defendants directed towards the Government of the United States and the Insular Government of the Philippine Islands?
RULING/HELD
No, the editorial was not directed towards the government itself but towards the aggregate of individuals who were administering the government at that time.
We understand, in modern political science, . . . by the term government, that institution or aggregate of institutions by which an independent society makes and
carries out those rules of action which are unnecessary to enable men to live in a social state, or which are imposed upon the people forming that society by those
who possess the power or authority of prescribing them. Government is the aggregate of authorities which rule a society. By "administration, again, we understand
in modern times, and especially in more or less free countries, the aggregate of those persons in whose hands the reins of government are for the time being (the
chief ministers or heads of departments)." (Bouvier, Law Dictionary, 891.) But the writer adds that the terms "government" and "administration" are not always
used in their strictness, and that "government" is often used for "administration."
In this case, the editorial published by defendants where directed towards the personnel of the Commission whom they described as "notoriously corrupt and
rascally, and men of no personal character". This as being ruled out by the Supreme Court was an attack not to the government system but to the aggregate of
individuals by whom the government is being administered.
NOTES
The final judgment of the convictions of the defendants was reversed by the Supreme Court acquitting the defendants with costs against the officials.

BACANI VS NACOCO
EN BANC
[G.R. No. L-9657. November 29, 1956.]
LEOPOLDO T. BACANI and MATEO A. MATOTO, Plaintiffs-Appellees, vs. NATIONAL COCONUT CORPORATION, ET AL., Defendants,
NATIONAL COCONUT CORPORATION and BOARD OF LIQUIDATORS, Defendants-Appellants.

D E C I S I O N
BAUTISTA ANGELO, J .:
Plaintiffs herein are court stenographers assigned in Branch VI of the Court of First Instance of Manila. During the pendency of Civil Case No. 2293 of said court,
entitled Francisco Sycip vs. National Coconut Corporation, Assistant Corporate Counsel Federico Alikpala, counsel forDefendant, requested said stenographers
for copies of the transcript of the stenographic notes taken by them during the hearing. Plaintiffs complied with the request by delivering to Counsel Alikpala the
needed transcript containing 714 pages and thereafter submitted to him their bills for the payment of their fees. The National Coconut Corporation paid the amount
of P564 to Leopoldo T. Bacani and P150 to Mateo A. Matoto for said transcript at the rate of P1 per page.
Upon inspecting the books of this corporation, the Auditor General disallowed the payment of these fees and sought the recovery of the amounts paid. On January
19, 1953, the Auditor General required the Plaintiffs to reimburse said amounts on the strength of a circular of the Department of Justice wherein the opinion was
expressed that the National Coconut Corporation, being a government entity, was exempt from the payment of the fees in question. On February 6, 1954, the
Auditor General issued an order directing the Cashier of the Department of Justice to deduct from the salary of Leopoldo T. Bacani the amount of P25 every
payday and from the salary of Mateo A. Matoto the amount of P10 every payday beginning March 30, 1954. To prevent deduction of these fees from their salaries
and secure a judicial ruling that the National Coconut Corporation is not a government entity within the purview of section 16, Rule 130 of the Rules of Court, this
action was instituted in the Court of First Instance of Manila.
Defendants set up as a defense that the National Coconut Corporation is a government entity within the purview of section 2 of the Revised Administrative Code
of 1917 and, hence, it is exempt from paying the stenographers fees under Rule 130 of the Rules of Court. After trial, the court found for the Plaintiffs declaring
(1) that Defendant National Coconut Corporation is not a government entity within the purview of section 16, Rule 130 of the Rules of Court; chan
roblesvirtualawlibrary(2) that the payments already made by said Defendant to Plaintiffs herein and received by the latter from the former in the total amount of
P714, for copies of the stenographic transcripts in question, are valid, just and legal; chan roblesvirtualawlibraryand (3) that Plaintiffs are under no obligation
whatsoever to make a refund of these payments already received by them. This is an appeal from said decision.
Under section 16, Rule 130 of the Rules of Court, the Government of the Philippines is exempt from paying the legal fees provided for therein, and among these
fees are those which stenographers may charge for the transcript of notes taken by them that may be requested by any interest ed person (section 8). The fees in
question are for the transcript of notes taken during the hearing of a case in which the National Coconut Corporation is interested, and the transcript was requested
by its assistant corporate counsel for the use of said corporation.
On the other hand, section 2 of the Revised Administrative Code defines the scope of the term Government of the Republic of the Philippines as
follows:chanroblesvirtuallawlibrary
The Government of the Philippine Islands is a term which refers to the corporate governmental entity through which the functions of government are exercised
throughout the Philippine Islands, including, save as the contrary appears from the context, the various arms through which political authority is made effective in
said Islands, whether pertaining to the central Government or to the provincial or municipal branches or other form of local government.
The question now to be determined is whether the National Coconut Corporation may be considered as included in the term Government of the Republic of the
Philippines for the purposes of the exemption of the legal fees provided for in Rule 130 of the Rules of Court.
As may be noted, the term Government of the Republic of the Philippines refers to a government entity through which the functions of government are
exercised, including the various arms through which political authority is made effective in the Philippines, whether pertaining to the central government or to the
provincial or municipal branches or other form of local government. This requires a little digression on the nature and functions of our government as instituted in
our Constitution.
To begin with, we state that the term Government may be defined as that institution or aggregate of institutions by which an independent society makes and
carries out those rules of action which are necessary to enable men to live in a social state, or which are imposed upon the people forming that society by those
who possess the power or authority of prescribing them (U.S. vs. Dorr, 2 Phil., 332). This institution, when referring to the national government, has reference to
what our Constitution has established composed of three great departments, the legislative, executive, and the judicial, through which the powers and functions of
government are exercised. These functions are twofold:chanroblesvirtuallawlibrary constitute and ministrant. The former are those which constitute the very
bonds of society and are compulsory in nature; chan roblesvirtualawlibrarythe latter are those that are undertaken only by way of advancing the general interests
of society, and are merely optional. President Wilson enumerates the constituent functions as follows:chanroblesvirtuallawlibrary
(1) The keeping of order and providing for the protection of persons and property from violence and robbery.
(2) The fixing of the legal relations between man and wife and between parents and children.
(3) The regulation of the holding, transmission, and interchange of property, and the determination of its liabilities for debt or for crime.
(4) The determination of contract rights between individuals.
(5) The definition and punishment of crime.
(6) The administration of justice in civil cases.
(7) The determination of the political duties, privileges, and relations of citizens.
(8) Dealings of the state with foreign powers:chanroblesvirtuallawlibrary the preservation of the state from external danger or encroachment and the
advancement of its international interests. (Malcolm, The Government of the Philippine Islands, p. 19.)
The most important of the ministrant functions are:chanroblesvirtuallawlibrary public works, public education, public charity, health and safety regulations, and
regulations of trade and industry. The principles deter mining whether or not a government shall exercise certain of these optional functions
are:chanroblesvirtuallawlibrary (1) that a government should do for the public welfare those things which private capital would not naturally undertake and (2)
that a government should do these things which by its very nature it is better equipped to administer for the public welfare than is any private individual or group
of individuals. (Malcolm, The Government of the Philippine Islands, pp. 19-20.)
From the above we may infer that, strictly speaking, there are functions which our government is required to exercise to promote its objectives as expressed in our
Constitution and which are exercised by it as an attribute of sovereignty, and those which it may exercise to promote merely the welfare, progress and prosperity
of the people. To this latter class belongs the organization of those corporations owned or controlled by the government to promote certain aspects of the
economic life of our people such as the National Coconut Corporation. These are what we call government-owned or controlled corporations which may take on
the form of a private enterprise or one organized with powers and formal characteristics of a private corporations under the Corporation Law.
The question that now arises is:chanroblesvirtuallawlibrary Does the fact that these corporation perform certain functions of government make them a part of the
Government of the Philippines?
The answer is simple:chanroblesvirtuallawlibrary they do not acquire that status for the simple reason that they do not come under the classification of municipal
or public corporation. Take for instance the National Coconut Corporation. While it was organized with the purpose of adjusting the coconut industry to a
position independent of trade preferences in the United States and of providing Facilities for the better curing of copra products and the proper utilization of
coconut by-products, a function which our government has chosen to exercise to promote the coconut industry, however, it was given a corporate power separate
and distinct from our government, for it was made subject to the provisions of our Corporation Law in so far as its corporate existence and the powers that it may
exercise are concerned (sections 2 and 4, Commonwealth Act No. 518). It may sue and be sued in the same manner as any other private corporations, and in this
sense it is an entity different from our government. As this Court has aptly said, The mere fact that the Government happens to be a majority stockholder does not
make it a public corporation (National Coal Co. vs. Collector of Internal Revenue, 46 Phil., 586-587). By becoming a stockholder in the National Coal
Company, the Government divested itself of its sovereign character so far as respects the transactions of the corporation cralaw . Unlike the Government, the
corporation may be sued without its consent, and is subject to taxation. Yet the National Coal Company remains an agency or instrumentality of government.
(Government of the Philippine Islands vs. Springer, 50 Phil., 288.)
To recapitulate, we may mention that the term Government of the Republic of the Philippines used in section 2 of the Revised Administrative Code refers only
to that government entity through which the functions of the government are exercised as an attribute of sovereignty, and in this are included those arms through
which political authority is made effective whether they be provincial, municipal or other form of local government. These are what we call municipal
corporations. They do not include government entities which are given a corporate personality separate and distinct from the government and which are governed
by the Corporation Law. Their powers, duties and liabilities have to be determined in the light of that law and of their corporate charters. They do not therefore
come within the exemption clause prescribed in section 16, Rule 130 of our Rules of Court.
Public corporations are those formed or organized for the government of a portion of the State. (Section 3, Republic Act No. 1459, Corporation Law).
The generally accepted definition of a municipal corporation would only include organized cities and towns, and like organizations, with political and legislative
powers for the local, civil government and police regulations of the inhabitants of the particular district included in the boundaries of the corporation. Heller vs.
Stremmel, 52 Mo. 309, 312.
In its more general sense the phrase municipal corporation may include both towns and counties, and other public corporati ons created by government for
political purposes. In its more common and limited signification, it embraces only incorporated villages, towns and cities. Dunn vs. Court of County Revenues, 85
Ala. 144, 146, 4 So. 661. (McQuillin, Municipal Corporations, 2nd ed., Vol. 1, p. 385.)
We may, therefore, define a municipal corporation in its historical and strict sense to be the incorporation, by the authority of the government, of the inhabitants
of a particular place or district, and authorizing them in their corporate capacity to exercise subordinate specified powers of legislation and regulation with respect
to their local and internal concerns. This power of local government is the distinctive purpose and the distinguishing feature of a municipal corporation proper.
(Dillon, Municipal Corporations, 5th ed., Vol. I, p. 59.)
It is true that under section 8, Rule 130, stenographers may only charge as fees P0.30 for each page of transcript of not less than 200 words before the appeal is
taken and P0.15 for each page after the filing of the appeal, but in this case the National Coconut Corporation has agreed and in fact has paid P1.00 per page for
the services rendered by the Plaintiffs and has not raised any objection to the amount paid until its propriety was disputed by the Auditor General. The payment of
the fees in question became therefore contractual and as such is valid even if it goes beyond the limit prescribed in section 8, Rule 130 of the Rules of Court.
As regards the question of procedure raised by Appellants, suffice it to say that the same is insubstantial, considering that this case refers not to a money claim
disapproved by the Auditor General but to an action of prohibition the purpose of which is to restrain the officials concerned from deducting from Plaintiffs
salaries the amount paid to them as stenographers fees. This case does not come under section 1, Rule 45 of the Rules of Court relative to appeals from a decision
of the Auditor General.
Wherefore, the decision appealed from is affirmed, without pronouncement as to costs.

CASE DIGEST:
Leopoldo Bacani and Mateo Matoto were court stenographers assigned in a court in Manila. During the pendency of a particular case in said court, counsel for one
of the parties, National Coconut Corporation or NACOCO, requested said stenographers for copies of the transcript of the stenographic notes taken by them
during the hearing. Bacani et al complied with the request and sent 714 pages and thereafter submitted to said counsel their bills for the payment of their fees. The
National Coconut Corporation paid the amount of P564 to Bacani and P150 to Matoto for said transcripts at the rate of P1 per page.
However, in January 1953, the Auditor General required Bacani et al to reimburse said amounts on the strength of a circular of the Department of Justice. It was
expressed that NACOCO, being a government entity, was exempt from the payment of the fees in question. Bacani et al counter that NACOCO is not a
government entity within the purview of section 16, Rule 130 of the Rules of Court. NACOCO set up as a defense that the NACOCO is a government entity
within the purview of section 2 of the Revised Administrative Code of 1917 and, hence, it is exempt from paying the stenographers fees under Rule 130 of the
Rules of Court.
ISSUE: Whether or not NACOCO is a government entity.
HELD: No. Government owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs) do not acquire the status of being part of the government because they do not come under
the classification of municipal or public corporation. Take for instance the NACOCO. While it was organized with the purpose of adjusting the coconut industry
to a position independent of trade preferences in the United States and of providing Facilities for the better curing of copra products and the proper utilization
of coconut by-products, a function which our government has chosen to exercise to promote the coconut industry, it was, however, given a corporate
power separate and distinct from our government, for it was made subject to the provisions of our Corporation Law in so far as its corporate existence and the
powers that it may exercise are concerned (sections 2 and 4, Commonwealth Act No. 518 the law creating NACOCO). It may sue and be sued in the same
manner as any other private corporations, and in this sense it is an entity different from our government.
The Supreme Court also noted the constituent functions of the government. Constituent functions are those which constitute the very bonds of society and are
compulsory in nature. According to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, they are as follows:
1. The keeping of order and providing for the protection of persons and property from violence and robbery.
2. The fixing of the legal relations between man and wife and between parents and children.
3. The regulation of the holding, transmission, and interchange of property, and the determination of its liabilities for debt or for crime.
4. The determination of contract rights between individuals.
5. The definition and punishment of crime.
6. The administration of justice in civil cases.
7. The determination of the political duties, privileges, and relations of citizens.
8. Dealings of the state with foreign powers: the preservation of the state from external danger or encroachment and the advancement of its international interests.
On the other hand, ministrant functions are those that are undertaken only by way of advancing the general interests of society, and are merely optional. The
most important of the ministrant functions are: public works, public education, public charity, health and safety regulations, and regulations of trade and industry.
The principles to consider whether or not a government shall exercise certain of these optional functions are: (1) that a government should do for the public
welfare those things which private capital would not naturally undertake and (2) that a government should do these things which by its very nature it is better
equipped to administer for the public welfare than is any private individual or group of individuals.

ACCFA VS CUGCO
Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila
EN BANC
G.R. No. L-21484 November 29, 1969
THE AGRICULTURAL CREDIT and COOPERATIVE FINANCING ADMINISTRATION (ACCFA), petitioner,
vs.
ACCFA SUPERVISORS' ASSOCIATION, ACCFA WORKERS' ASSOCIATION, and THE COURT OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, respondents.
Deogracias E. Lerma and Esmeraldo U. Guloy for petitioner Agricultural Credit and Cooperative Financing Administration.
Office of the Agrarian Counsel, Department of Justice for petitioner Agricultural Credit Administration
J. C. Espinas and Associates for respendents Confederation of Unions in Government Corporations Offices, et al. Mariano B. Tuason for respondent Court of
Industrial Relations.
MAKALINTAL, J .:
These are two separate appeals by certiorari from the decision dated March 25, 1963 (G.R. No. L-21484) and the order dated May 21, 1964 (G.R. No. L-23605) as
affirmed by the resolutions en banc, of the Court of Industrial Relations, in Cases Nos. 3450-ULP and 1327-MC, respectively. The parties, except the
Confederation of Unions in Government Corporations and Offices (CUGCO), being practically the same and the principal issues involved related, only one
decision is now rendered in these two cases.
The Agricultural Credit and Cooperative Financing Administration (ACCFA) was a government agency created under Republic Act No. 821, as amended. Its
administrative machinery was reorganized and its name changed to Agricultural Credit Administration (ACA) under the Land Reform Code (Republic Act No.
3844). On the other hand, the ACCFA Supervisors' Association (ASA) and the ACCFA Workers' Association (AWA), hereinafter referred to as the Unions, are
labor organizations composed of the supervisors and the rank-and-file employees, respectively, in the ACCFA (now ACA).
G.R. No. L-21484
On September 4, 1961 a collective bargaining agreement, which was to be effective for a period of one (1) year from July 1, 1961, was entered into by and
between the Unions and the ACCFA. A few months thereafter, the Unions started protesting against alleged violations and non-implementation of said agreement.
Finally, on October 25, 1962 the Unions declared a strike, which was ended when the strikers voluntarily returned to work on November 26, 1962.
On October 30, 1962 the Unions, together with its mother union, the Confederation of Unions in Government Corporations and Offices (CUGCO), filed a
complaint with the Court of Industrial Relations against the ACCFA (Case No. 3450-ULP) for having allegedly committed acts of unfair labor practice, namely:
violation of the collective bargaining agreement in order to discourage the members of the Unions in the exercise of their right to self-organization, discrimination
against said members in the matter of promotions, and refusal to bargain. The ACCFA denied the charges and interposed as affirmative and special defenses lack
of jurisdiction of the CIR over the case, illegality of the bargaining contract, expiration of said contract and lack of approval by the office of the President of the
fringe benefits provided for therein. Brushing aside the foregoing defenses, the CIR in its decision dated March 25, 1963 ordered the ACCFA:
1. To cease and desist from committing further acts tending to discourage the members of complainant unions in the exercise of their right to self-
organization;
2. To comply with and implement the provision of the collective bargaining contract executed on September 4, 1961, including the payment of P30.00
a month living allowance;
3. To bargain in good faith and expeditiously with the herein complainants.
The ACCFA moved to reconsider but was turned down in a resolution dated April 25, 1963 of the CIR en banc. Thereupon it brought this appeal by certiorari.
The ACCFA raises the following issues in its petition, to wit:
1. Whether or not the respondent court has jurisdiction over this case, which in turn depends on whether or not ACCFA exercised governmental or
proprietary functions.
2. Whether or not the collective bargaining agreement between the petitioner and the respondent union is valid; if valid, whether or not it has already
lapsed; and if not, whether or not its (sic) fringe benefits are already enforceable.
3. Whether or not there is a legal and/or factual basis for the finding of the respondent court that the petitioner had committed acts of unfair labor
practice.
4. Whether or not it is within the competence of the court to enforce the collective bargaining agreement between the petitioner and the respondent
unions, the same having already expired.
G.R. No. L-23605
During the pendency of the above mentioned case (G.R. No. L-21484), specifically on August 8, 1963, the President of the Philippines signed into law the
Agricultural Land Reform Code (Republic Act No. 3844), which among other things required the reorganization of the administrative machinery of the
Agricultural Credit and Cooperative Financing Administration (ACCFA) and changed its name to Agricultural Credit Administration (ACA). On March 17, 1964
the ACCFA Supervisors' Association and the ACCFA Workers' Association filed a petition for certification election with the Court of Industrial Relations (Case
No. 1327-MC) praying that they be certified as the exclusive bargaining agents for the supervisors and rank-and-file employees, respectively, in the ACA. The
trial Court in its order dated March 30, 1964 directed the Manager or Officer-in-Charge of the ACA to allow the posting of said order "for the information of all
employees and workers thereof," and to answer the petition. In compliance therewith, the ACA, while admitting most of the allegations in the petition, denied that
the Unions represented the majority of the supervisors and rank-and-file workers, respectively, in the ACA. It further alleged that the petition was premature, that
the ACA was not the proper party to be notified and to answer the petition, and that the employees and supervisors could not lawfully become members of the
Unions, nor be represented by them. However, in a joint manifestation of the Unions dated May 7, 1964, with the conformity of the ACA Administrator and of the
Agrarian Counsel in his capacity as such and as counsel for the National Land Reform Council, it was agreed "that the union petitioners in this case represent the
majority of the employees in their respective bargaining units" and that only the legal issues raised would be submitted for the resolution of the trial Court.
Finding the remaining grounds for ACA's opposition to the petition to be without merit, the trial Court in its order dated May 21, 1964 certified "the ACCFA
Workers' Association and the ACCFA Supervisors' Association as the sole and exclusive bargaining representatives of the rank-and-file employees and
supervisors, respectively, of the Agricultural Credit Administration." Said order was affirmed by the CIR en banc in its resolution dated August 24, 1964.
On October 2, 1964 the ACA filed in this Court a petition for certiorari with urgent motion to stay the CIR order of May 21, 1964. In a resolution dated October 6,
1964, this Court dismissed the petition for "lack of adequate allegations," but the dismissal was later reconsidered when the ACA complied with the formal
requirement stated in said resolution. As prayed for, this Court ordered the CIR to stay the execution of its order of May 21, 1964.
In this appeal, the ACA in effect challenges the jurisdiction of the CIR to entertain the petition of the Unions for certification election on the ground that it (ACA)
is engaged in governmental functions. The Unions join the issue on this single point, contending that the ACA forms proprietary functions.
Under Section 3 of the Agricultural Land Reform Code the ACA was established, among other governmental agencies,
1
to extend credit and similar assistance to
agriculture, in pursuance of the policy enunciated in Section 2 as follows:
SEC. 2. Declaration of Policy. It is the policy of the State:
(1) To establish owner-cultivatorships and the economic family-size farm as the basis of Philippine agriculture and, as a consequence, divert landlord
capital in agriculture to industrial development;
(2) To achieve a dignified existence for the small farmers free from pernicious institutional restraints and practices;
(3) To create a truly viable social and economic structure in agriculture conducive to greater productivity and higher farm incomes;
(4) To apply all labor laws equally and without discrimination to both industrial and agricultural wage earners;
(5) To provide a more vigorous and systematic land resettlement program and public land distribution; and
(6) To make the small farmers more independent, self-reliant and responsible citizens, and a source of genuine strength in our democratic society.
The implementation of the policy thus enunciated, insofar as the role of the ACA therein is concerned, is spelled out in Sections 110 to 118, inclusive, of the Land
Reform Code. Section 110 provides that "the administrative machinery of the ACCFA shall be reorganized to enable it to align its activities with the requirements
and objective of this Code and shall be known as the Agricultural Credit Administration." Under Section 112 the sum of P150,000,000 was appropriated out of
national funds to finance the additional credit functions of the ACA as a result of the land reform program laid down in the Code. Section 103 grants the ACA the
privilege of rediscounting with the Central Bank, the Development Bank of the Philippines and the Philippine National Bank. Section 105 directs the loaning
activities of the ACA "to stimulate the development of farmers' cooperatives," including those "relating to the production and marketing of agricultural products
and those formed to manage and/or own, on a cooperative basis, services and facilities, such as irrigation and transport systems, established to support production
and/or marketing of agricultural products." Section 106 deals with the extension by ACA of credit to small farmers in order to stimulate agricultural production.
Sections 107 to 112 lay down certain guidelines to be followed in connection with the granting of loans, such as security, interest and supervision of credit.
Sections 113 to 118, inclusive, invest the ACA with certain rights and powers not accorded to non-governmental entities, thus:
SEC. 113. Auditing of Operations. For the effective supervision of farmers' cooperatives, the head of the Agricultural Credit Administration shall
have the power to audit their operations, records and books of account and to issue subpoena and subpoena duces tecum to compel the attendance of
witnesses and the production of books, documents and records in the conduct of such audit or of any inquiry into their affairs. Any person who, without
lawful cause, fails to obey such subpoena or subpoena duces tecum shall, upon application of the head of Agricultural Credit Administration with the
proper court, be liable to punishment for contempt in the manner provided by law and if he is an officer of the Association, to suspension or removal
from office.
SEC. 114. Prosecution of officials. The Agricultural Credit Administration, through the appropriate provincial or city fiscal, shall have the power to
file and prosecute any and all actions which it may have against any and all officials or employees of farmers' cooperatives arising from misfeasance or
malfeasance in office.
SEC. 115. Free Notarial Service. Any justice of the peace, in his capacity as notary ex-officio, shall render service free of charge to any person
applying for a loan under this Code either in administering the oath or in the acknowledgment of instruments relating to such loan.
SEC. 116. Free Registration of Deeds. Any register of deeds shall accept for registration, free of charge any instrument relative to a loan made
under this Code.
SEC. 117. Writing-off Unsecured and Outstanding Loans. Subject to the approval of the President upon recommendation of the Auditor General,
the Agricultural Credit Administration may write-off from its books, unsecured and outstanding loans and accounts receivable which may become
uncollectible by reason of the death or disappearance of the debtor, should there be no visible means of collecting the same in the foreseeable future, or
where the debtor has been verified to have no income or property whatsoever with which to effect payment. In all cases, the writing-off shall be after
five years from the date the debtor defaults.
SEC. 118. Exemption from Duties, Taxes and Levies. The Agricultural Credit Administration is hereby exempted from the payment of all duties,
taxes, levies, and fees, including docket and sheriff's fees, of whatever nature or kind, in the performance of its functions and in the exercise of its
powers hereunder.
The power to audit the operations of farmers' cooperatives and otherwise inquire into their affairs, as given by Section 113, is in the nature of the visitorial power
of the sovereign, which only a government agency specially delegated to do so by the Congress may legally exercise.
On March 19, 1964 Executive Order No. 75 was promulgated. It is entitled: "Rendering in Full Force and Effect the Plan of Reorganization Proposed by the
Special Committee on Reorganization of Agencies for Land Reform for the Administrative Machinery of the Agricultural Land Reform Code," and contains the
following pertinent provisions:
Section 3. The Land Reform Project Administration
2
shall be considered a single organization and the personnel complement of the member agencies
including the legal officers of the Office of the Agrarian Counsel which shall provide legal services to the LRPA shall be regarded as one personnel
pool from which the requirements of the operations shall be drawn and subject only to the civil service laws, rules and regulations, persons from one
agency may be freely assigned to positions in another agency within the LRPA when the interest of the service so demands.
Section 4. The Land Reform Project Administration shall be considered as one organization with respect to the standardization of job descriptions
position classification and wage and salary structures to the end that positions involving the same or equivalent qualifications and equal responsibilities
and effort shall have the same remuneration.
Section 5. The Civil Service laws, rules and regulations with respect to promotions, particularly in the consideration of person next in rank, shall be
made applicable to the Land Reform Project Administration as a single agency so that qualified individuals in one member agency must be considered
in considering promotion to higher positions in another member agency.
The implementation of the land reform program of the government according to Republic Act No. 3844 is most certainly a governmental, not a proprietary,
function; and for that purpose Executive Order No. 75 has placed the ACA under the Land Reform Project Administration together with the other member
agencies, the personnel complement of all of which are placed in one single pool and made available for assignment from one agency to another, subject only to
Civil Service laws, rules and regulations, position classification and wage structures.
The appointing authority in respect of the officials and employees of the ACA is the President of the Philippines, as stated in a 1st indorsement by his office to the
Chairman of the National Reform Council dated May 22, 1964, as follows:
Appointments of officials and employees of the National Land Reform Council and its agencies may be made only by the President, pursuant to the
provisions of Section 79(D) of the Revised Administrative Code. In accordance with the policy and practice, such appointments should be prepared for
the signature of the Executive Secretary, "By Authority ofthe President".
3

When the Agricultural Reform Code was being considered by the Congress, the nature of the ACA was the subject of the following exposition on the Senate floor:
Senator Tolentino: . . . . "The ACA is not going to be a profit making institution. It is supposed to be a public service of the government to the lessees
and farmer-owners of the lands that may be bought after expropriation from owners. It is the government here that is the lender. The government
should not exact a higher interest than what we are telling a private landowner now in his relation to his tenants if we give to their farmers a higher rate
of interest . . . ." (pp. 17 & 18, Senate Journal No. 16, July 3, 1963)
The reason is obvious, to pinpoint responsibility for many losses in the government, in order to avoid irresponsible lending of government money to pinpoint
responsibility for many losses . . . .
Senator Manglapus: ". . . But assuming that hypothesis, that is the reason why we are appropriating P150,000,000.00 for the Agricultural Credit
Administration which will go to intensified credit operations on the barrio level . . ." (p. 3, Senate Journal No. 7).
That it is the reason why we are providing for the expansion of the ACCFA and the weeding out of the cooperative activity of the ACCFA and turning this over to
the Agricultural Productivity Commission, so that the Agricultural Credit Administration will concentrate entirely on the facilitation of credit on the barrio level
with the massive support of 150 million provided by the government. . . . (pp. 4 & 5 of Senate Journal No. 7, July 3, 1963)
. . . But by releasing them from this situation, we feel that we are putting them in a much better condition than that in which they are found by providing them with
a business-like way of obtaining credit, not depending on a paternalistic system but one which is business-like that is to say, a government office, which on the
barrio level will provide them that credit directly . . . . (p. 40, Senate Journal No. 7, July 3, 1963) (emphasis supplied).
The considerations set forth above militate quite strongly against the recognition of collective bargaining powers in the respondent Unions within the context of
Republic Act No. 875, and hence against the grant of their basic petition for certification election as proper bargaining units. The ACA is a government office or
agency engaged in governmental, not proprietary functions. These functions may not be strictly what President Wilson described as "constituent" (as distinguished
from "ministrant"),
4
such as those relating to the maintenance of peace and the prevention of crime, those regulating property and property rights, those relating to
the administration of justice and the determination of political duties of citizens, and those relating to national defense and foreign relations. Under this traditional
classification, such constituent functions are exercised by the State as attributes of sovereignty, and not merely to promote the welfare, progress and prosperity of
the people these letter functions being ministrant he exercise of which is optional on the part of the government.
The growing complexities of modern society, however, have rendered this traditional classification of the functions of government quite unrealistic, not to say
obsolete. The areas which used to be left to private enterprise and initiative and which the government was called upon to enter optionally, and only "because it
was better equipped to administer for the public welfare than is any private individual or group of individuals,"
5
continue to lose their well-defined boundaries and
to be absorbed within activities that the government must undertake in its sovereign capacity if it is to meet the increasing social challenges of the times. Here as
almost everywhere else the tendency is undoubtedly towards a greater socialization of economic forces. Here of course this development was envisioned, indeed
adopted as a national policy, by the Constitution itself in its declaration of principle concerning the promotion of social justice.
It was in furtherance of such policy that the Land Reform Code was enacted and the various agencies, the ACA among them, established to carry out its purposes.
There can be no dispute as to the fact that the land reform program contemplated in the said Code is beyond the capabilities of any private enterprise to translate
into reality. It is a purely governmental function, no less than, say, the establishment and maintenance of public schools and public hospitals. And when, aside
from the governmental objectives of the ACA, geared as they are to the implementation of the land reform program of the State, the law itself declares that the
ACA is a government office, with the formulation of policies, plans and programs vested no longer in a Board of Governors, as in the case of the ACCFA, but in
the National Land Reform Council, itself a government instrumentality; and that its personnel are subject to Civil Service laws and to rules of standardization with
respect to positions and salaries, any vestige of doubt as to the governmental character of its functions disappears.
In view of the foregoing premises, we hold that the respondent Unions are not entitled to the certification election sought in the Court below. Such certification is
admittedly for purposes of bargaining in behalf of the employees with respect to terms and conditions of employment, including the right to strike as a coercive
economic weapon, as in fact the said unions did strike in 1962 against the ACCFA (G.R. No. L-21824).
6
This is contrary to Section 11 of Republic Act No. 875,
which provides:
SEC. 11. Prohibition Against Strike in the Government The terms and conditions of employment in the Government, including any political
subdivision or instrumentality thereof, are governed by law and it is declared to be the policy of this Act that employees therein shall not strike for the
purposes of securing changes or modification in their terms and conditions of employment. Such employees may belong to any labor organization
which does not impose the obligation to strike or to join in strike: Provided, However, that this section shall apply only to employees employed in
governmental functions of the Government including but not limited to governmental corporations.
7

With the reorganization of the ACCFA and its conversion into the ACA under the Land Reform Code and in view of our ruling as to the governmental character
of the functions of the ACA, the decision of the respondent Court dated March 25, 1963, and the resolution en banc affirming it, in the unfair labor practice case
filed by the ACCFA, which decision is the subject of the present review in G. R. No. L-21484, has become moot and academic, particularly insofar as the order to
bargain collectively with the respondent Unions is concerned.
What remains to be resolved is the question of fringe benefits provided for in the collective bargaining contract of September 4, 1961. The position of the ACCFA
in this regard is that the said fringe benefits have not become enforceable because the condition that they should first be approved by the Office of the President
has not been complied with. The Unions, on the other hand, contend that no such condition existed in the bargaining contract, and the respondent Court upheld
this contention in its decision.
It is to be listed that under Section 3, Article XIV, of the agreement, the same "shall not become effective unless and until the same is duly ratified by the Board of
Governors of the Administration." Such approval was given even before the formal execution of the agreement, by virtue of "Resolution No. 67, Regular Meeting
No. 7, FY 1960-61, held on August 17, 1961," but with the proviso that "the fringe benefits contained therein shall take effect only if approved by the office of the
President." The condition is, therefore, deemed to be incorporated into the agreement by reference.
On October 23, 1962 the Office of the President, in a letter signed by the Executive Secretary, expressed its approval of the bargaining contract "provided the
salaries and benefits therein fixed are not in conflict with applicable laws and regulations, are believed to be reasonable considering the exigencies of the service
and the welfare of the employees, and are well within the financial ability of the particular corporation to bear."
On July 1, 1963 the ACCFA management and the Unions entered into an agreement for the implementation of the decision of the respondent Court concerning the
fringe benefits, thus:
In the meantime, only Cost of Living Adjustment, Longevity Pay, and Night Differential Benefits accruing from July 1, 1961 to June 30, 1963 shall be
paid to all employees entitled thereto, in the following manner:
A) The sum of P180,000 shall be set aside for the payment of:
1) Night differential benefits for Security Guards.
2) Cost of Living Adjustment and Longevity Pay.
3) The unpaid balance due employees on Item A (1) and (2) this paragraph shall be paid in monthly installments as finances permit but not beyond
December 20, 1963.
3. All benefits accruing after July 1, 1963, shall be allowed to accumulate but payable only after all benefits accruing up to June 30, 1963, as per CIR
decision hereinabove referred to shall have been settled in full; provided, however, that commencing July 1, 1963 and for a period of only two (2)
months thereafter (during which period the ACCFA and the Unions shall negotiate a new Collective Bargaining Agreement) the provisions of the
September 4, 1961 Collective Bargaining Agreement shall be temporarily suspended, except as to Cost of Living Adjustment and "political" or non-
economic privileges and benefits thereunder.
On July 24, 1963 the ACCFA Board of Governors ratified the agreement thus entered into, pursuant to the provision thereof requiring such ratification, but with
the express qualification that the same was "without prejudice to the pending appeal in the Supreme Court . . . in Case No. 3450-ULP." The payment of the fringe
benefits agreed upon, to our mind, shows that the same were within the financial capability of the ACCFA then, and hence justifies the conclusion that this
particular condition imposed by the Office of the President in its approval of the bargaining contract was satisfied.
We hold, therefore, that insofar as the fringe benefits already paid are concerned, there is no reason to set aside the decision of the respondent Court, but that since
the respondent Unions have no right to the certification election sought by them nor, consequently, to bargain collectively with the petitioner, no further fringe
benefits may be demanded on the basis of any collective bargaining agreement.
The decisions and orders appealed from are set aside and/or modified in accordance with the foregoing pronouncements. No costs.
Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, J.B.L., Dizon, Sanchez, Castro, Teehankee and Barredo, JJ., concur.
Zaldivar, J., concurs in the result.
CASE DIGEST:
In September 1961 a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) was agreed upon by labor unions (ASA and AWA) and ACCFA (Agricultural Credit and
Cooperative Financing Administration). The said CBA was supposed to be effective on July 1, 1962. Due to non-implementation of the CBA the unions held a
strike on October 25, 1962. And 5 days later CUGCO (Confederation of Unions in Government Corporations and Offices), the mother union of ASA and AWA
filed a complaint against ACCFA due to unfair labor practices, among others, which CUGCO was able to win in court.
In April 1963, ACCFA appealed the decision and while the appeal was pending, Republic Act No. 3844 was passed which effectively turned ACCFA to ACA
(Agricultural Credit Administration). In March 1964, ASA and AWA then petitioned that they may have sole bargaining rights with ACA. While this petition was
not yet decided upon, in the same month of March 1964, Executive Order No. 75 was also passed which placed ACA under the Land Reform Project
Administration (LRPA). Notwithstanding the latest legislation passed, the trial court and the appellate court ruled in favor of ASA and AWA and ruled that they
have bargaining rights with ACA..
ISSUE: Whether or not ASA and AWA can be given sole bargaining rights with ACA.
HELD: No. The Unions have no bargaining rights with ACA. EO 75 placed ACA under the LRPA and by virtue of RA 3844 the implementation of the Land
Reform Program of the government is a governmental function NOT a proprietary function. Being such, ACA can no longer step down to deal privately with said
unions as it may have been doing when it was still ACCFA.
The Supreme Court also made a pronouncement which recognized the growing complexities of modern society which have rendered the classification of the
governmental functions (ministrant and constituent) as unrealistic, if not obsolete. Ministerial and governmental functions continue to lose their well-defined
boundaries and are absorbed within the activities that the government must undertake in its sovereign capacity if it to meet the increasing social challenges of the
times and move towards a greater socialization of economic forces. Hence, gone are the days where constituent functions are exclusively performed by the
government and not delegated to private institutions. In this case, a constituent function is left to be performed by a private entity like ACA (formerly ACCFA).

CO KIM CHAN VS VALDEZ
Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila
EN BANC
G.R. No. L-5 September 17, 1945
CO KIM CHAM (alias CO KIM CHAM), petitioner,
vs.
EUSEBIO VALDEZ TAN KEH and ARSENIO P. DIZON, Judge of First Instance of Manila, respondents.
1

Marcelino Lontok for petitioner.
P. A. Revilla for respondent Valdez Tan Keh.
Respondent Judge Dizon in his own behalf.
FERIA, J .:
This petition for mandamus in which petitioner prays that the respondent judge of the lower court be ordered to continue the proceedings in civil case No. 3012 of
said court, which were initiated under the regime of the so-called Republic of the Philippines established during the Japanese military occupation of these Islands.
The respondent judge refused to take cognizance of and continue the proceedings in said case on the ground that the proclamation issued on October 23, 1944, by
General Douglas MacArthur had the effect of invalidating and nullifying all judicial proceedings and judgements of the court of the Philippines under the
Philippine Executive Commission and the Republic of the Philippines established during the Japanese military occupation, and that, furthermore, the lower courts
have no jurisdiction to take cognizance of and continue judicial proceedings pending in the courts of the defunct Republic of the Philippines in the absence of an
enabling law granting such authority. And the same respondent, in his answer and memorandum filed in this Court, contends that the government established in
the Philippines during the Japanese occupation were no de facto governments.
On January 2, 1942, the Imperial Japanese Forces occupied the City of Manila, and on the next day their Commander in Chief proclaimed "the Military
Administration under law over the districts occupied by the Army." In said proclamation, it was also provided that "so far as the Military Administration permits,
all the laws now in force in the Commonwealth, as well as executive and judicial institutions, shall continue to be effective for the time being as in the past," and
"all public officials shall remain in their present posts and carry on faithfully their duties as before."
A civil government or central administration organization under the name of "Philippine Executive Commission was organized by Order No. 1 issued on January
23, 1942, by the Commander in Chief of the Japanese Forces in the Philippines, and Jorge B. Vargas, who was appointed Chairman thereof, was instructed to
proceed to the immediate coordination of the existing central administrative organs and judicial courts, based upon what had existed therefore, with approval of
the said Commander in Chief, who was to exercise jurisdiction over judicial courts.
The Chairman of the Executive Commission, as head of the central administrative organization, issued Executive Orders Nos. 1 and 4, dated January 30 and
February 5, 1942, respectively, in which the Supreme Court, Court of Appeals, Courts of First Instance, and the justices of the peace and municipal courts under
the Commonwealth were continued with the same jurisdiction, in conformity with the instructions given to the said Chairman of the Executive Commission by the
Commander in Chief of Japanese Forces in the Philippines in the latter's Order No. 3 of February 20, 1942, concerning basic principles to be observed by the
Philippine Executive Commission in exercising legislative, executive and judicial powers. Section 1 of said Order provided that "activities of the administration
organs and judicial courts in the Philippines shall be based upon the existing statutes, orders, ordinances and customs. . . ."
On October 14, 1943, the so-called Republic of the Philippines was inaugurated, but no substantial change was effected thereby in the organization and
jurisdiction of the different courts that functioned during the Philippine Executive Commission, and in the laws they administered and enforced.
On October 23, 1944, a few days after the historic landing in Leyte, General Douglas MacArthur issued a proclamation to the People of the Philippines which
declared:
1. That the Government of the Commonwealth of the Philippines is, subject to the supreme authority of the Government of the United States, the sole
and only government having legal and valid jurisdiction over the people in areas of the Philippines free of enemy occupation and control;
2. That the laws now existing on the statute books of the Commonwealth of the Philippines and the regulations promulgated pursuant thereto are in full
force and effect and legally binding upon the people in areas of the Philippines free of enemy occupation and control; and
3. That all laws, regulations and processes of any other government in the Philippines than that of the said Commonwealth are null and void and
without legal effect in areas of the Philippines free of enemy occupation and control.
On February 3, 1945, the City of Manila was partially liberated and on February 27, 1945, General MacArthur, on behalf of the Government of the United States,
solemnly declared "the full powers and responsibilities under the Constitution restored to the Commonwealth whose seat is here established as provided by law."
In the light of these facts and events of contemporary history, the principal questions to be resolved in the present case may be reduced to the following:(1)
Whether the judicial acts and proceedings of the court existing in the Philippines under the Philippine Executive Commission and the Republic of the Philippines
were good and valid and remained so even after the liberation or reoccupation of the Philippines by the United States and Filipino forces; (2)Whether the
proclamation issued on October 23, 1944, by General Douglas MacArthur, Commander in Chief of the United States Army, in which he declared "that all laws,
regulations and processes of any of the government in the Philippines than that of the said Commonwealth are null and void and without legal effect in areas of the
Philippines free of enemy occupation and control," has invalidated all judgements and judicial acts and proceedings of the said courts; and (3) If the said judicial
acts and proceedings have not been invalidated by said proclamation, whether the present courts of the Commonwealth, which were the same court existing prior
to, and continued during, the Japanese military occupation of the Philippines, may continue those proceedings pending in said courts at the time the Philippines
were reoccupied and liberated by the United States and Filipino forces, and the Commonwealth of the Philippines were reestablished in the Islands.
We shall now proceed to consider the first question, that is, whether or not under the rules of international law the judicial acts and proceedings of the courts
established in the Philippines under the Philippine Executive Commission and the Republic of the Philippines were good and valid and remained good and valid
even after the liberation or reoccupation of the Philippines by the United States and Filipino forces.
1. It is a legal truism in political and international law that all acts and proceedings of the legislative, executive, and judicial departments of a de facto government
are good and valid. The question to be determined is whether or not the governments established in these Islands under the names of the Philippine Executive
Commission and Republic of the Philippines during the Japanese military occupation or regime were de facto governments. If they were, the judicial acts and
proceedings of those governments remain good and valid even after the liberation or reoccupation of the Philippines by the American and Filipino forces.
There are several kinds of de facto governments. The first, or government de facto in a proper legal sense, is that government that gets possession and control of,
or usurps, by force or by the voice of the majority, the rightful legal governments and maintains itself against the will of the latter, such as the government of
England under the Commonwealth, first by Parliament and later by Cromwell as Protector. The second is that which is established and maintained by military
forces who invade and occupy a territory of the enemy in the course of war, and which is denominated a government of paramount force, as the cases of Castine,
in Maine, which was reduced to British possession in the war of 1812, and Tampico, Mexico, occupied during the war with Mexico, by the troops of the United
States. And the third is that established as an independent government by the inhabitants of a country who rise in insurrection against the parent state of such as
the government of the Southern Confederacy in revolt not concerned in the present case with the first kind, but only with the second and third kinds of de
facto governments.
Speaking of government "de facto" of the second kind, the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of Thorington vs. Smith (8 Wall., 1), said: "But there is
another description of government, called also by publicists a government de facto, but which might, perhaps, be more aptly denominated a government of
paramount force. Its distinguishing characteristics are (1), that its existence is maintained by active military power with the territories, and against the rightful
authority of an established and lawful government; and (2), that while it exists it necessarily be obeyed in civil matters by private citizens who, by acts of
obedience rendered in submission to such force, do not become responsible, or wrongdoers, for those acts, though not warranted by the laws of the rightful
government. Actual governments of this sort are established over districts differing greatly in extent and conditions. They are usually administered directly by
military authority, but they may be administered, also, civil authority, supported more or less directly by military force. . . . One example of this sort of
government is found in the case of Castine, in Mine, reduced to British possession in the war of 1812 . . . U. S. vs. Rice (4 Wheaton, 253). A like example is found
in the case of Tampico, occupied during the war with Mexico, by the troops of the United States . . . Fleming vs. Page (9 Howard, 614). These were cases of
temporary possessions of territory by lawfull and regular governments at war with the country of which the territory so possessed was part."
The powers and duties of de facto governments of this description are regulated in Section III of the Hague Conventions of 1907, which is a revision of the
provisions of the Hague Conventions of 1899 on the same subject of said Section III provides "the authority of the legislative power having actually passed into
the hands of the occupant, the latter shall take steps in his power to reestablish and insure, as far as possible, public order and safety, while respecting, unless
absolutely prevented, the laws in force in the country."
According to the precepts of the Hague Conventions, as the belligerent occupant has the right and is burdened with the duty to insure public order and safety
during his military occupation, he possesses all the powers of a de facto government, and he can suspended the old laws and promulgate new ones and make such
changes in the old as he may see fit, but he is enjoined to respect, unless absolutely prevented by the circumstances prevailing in the occupied territory, the
municipal laws in force in the country, that is, those laws which enforce public order and regulate social and commercial life of the country. On the other hand,
laws of a political nature or affecting political relations, such as, among others, the right of assembly, the right to bear arms, the freedom of the press, and the right
to travel freely in the territory occupied, are considered as suspended or in abeyance during the military occupation. Although the local and civil administration of
justice is suspended as a matter of course as soon as a country is militarily occupied, it is not usual for the invader to take the whole administration into his own
hands. In practice, the local ordinary tribunals are authorized to continue administering justice; and judges and other judicial officers are kept in their posts if they
accept the authority of the belligerent occupant or are required to continue in their positions under the supervision of the military or civil authorities appointed, by
the Commander in Chief of the occupant. These principles and practice have the sanction of all publicists who have considered the subject, and have been asserted
by the Supreme Court and applied by the President of the United States.
The doctrine upon this subject is thus summed up by Halleck, in his work on International Law (Vol. 2, p. 444): "The right of one belligerent to occupy and
govern the territory of the enemy while in its military possession, is one of the incidents of war, and flows directly from the right to conquer. We, therefore, do not
look to the Constitution or political institutions of the conqueror, for authority to establish a government for the territory of the enemy in his possession, during its
military occupation, nor for the rules by which the powers of such government are regulated and limited. Such authority and such rules are derived directly from
the laws war, as established by the usage of the of the world, and confirmed by the writings of publicists and decisions of courts in fine, from the law of
nations. . . . The municipal laws of a conquered territory, or the laws which regulate private rights, continue in force during military occupation, excepts so far as
they are suspended or changed by the acts of conqueror. . . . He, nevertheless, has all the powers of a de facto government, and can at his pleasure either change
the existing laws or make new ones."
And applying the principles for the exercise of military authority in an occupied territory, which were later embodied in the said Hague Conventions, President
McKinley, in his executive order to the Secretary of War of May 19,1898, relating to the occupation of the Philippines by United States forces, said in part:
"Though the powers of the military occupant are absolute and supreme, and immediately operate upon the political condition of the inhabitants, the municipal
laws of the conquered territory, such as affect private rights of person and property and provide for the punishment of crime, are considered as continuing in force,
so far as they are compatible with the new order of things, until they are suspended or superseded by the occupying belligerent; and in practice they are not usually
abrogated, but are allowed to remain in force and to be administered by the ordinary tribunals, substantially as they were before the occupation. This enlightened
practice is, so far as possible, to be adhered to on the present occasion. The judges and the other officials connected with the administration of justice may, if they
accept the authority of the United States, continue to administer the ordinary law of the land as between man and man under the supervision of the American
Commander in Chief." (Richardson's Messages and Papers of President, X, p. 209.)
As to "de facto" government of the third kind, the Supreme Court of the United States, in the same case of Thorington vs. Smith, supra, recognized the
government set up by the Confederate States as a de factogovernment. In that case, it was held that "the central government established for the insurgent States
differed from the temporary governments at Castine and Tampico in the circumstance that its authority did no originate in lawful acts of regular war; but it was
not, on the account, less actual or less supreme. And we think that it must be classed among the governments of which these are examples. . . .
In the case of William vs. Bruffy (96 U. S. 176, 192), the Supreme Court of the United States, discussing the validity of the acts of the Confederate States, said:
"The same general form of government, the same general laws for the administration of justice and protection of private rights, which had existed in the States
prior to the rebellion, remained during its continuance and afterwards. As far as the Acts of the States do not impair or tend to impair the supremacy of the national
authority, or the just rights of citizens under the Constitution, they are, in general, to be treated as valid and binding. As we said in Horn vs. Lockhart (17 Wall.,
570; 21 Law. ed., 657): "The existence of a state of insurrection and war did not loosen the bonds of society, or do away with civil government or the regular
administration of the laws. Order was to be preserved, police regulations maintained, crime prosecuted, property protected, contracts enforced, marriages
celebrated, estates settled, and the transfer and descent of property regulated, precisely as in the time of peace. No one, that we are aware of, seriously questions
the validity of judicial or legislative Acts in the insurrectionary States touching these and kindered subjects, where they were not hostile in their purpose or mode
of enforcement to the authority of the National Government, and did not impair the rights of citizens under the Constitution'. The same doctrine has been asserted
in numerous other cases."
And the same court, in the case of Baldy vs. Hunter (171 U. S., 388, 400), held: "That what occured or was done in respect of such matters under the authority of
the laws of these local de facto governments should not be disregarded or held to be invalid merely because those governments were organized in hostility to the
Union established by the national Constitution; this, because the existence of war between the United States and the Confederate States did not relieve those who
are within the insurrectionary lines from the necessity of civil obedience, nor destroy the bonds of society nor do away with civil government or the regular
administration of the laws, and because transactions in the ordinary course of civil society as organized within the enemy's territory although they may have
indirectly or remotely promoted the ends of the de facto or unlawful government organized to effect a dissolution of the Union, were without blame 'except when
proved to have been entered intowith actual intent to further invasion or insurrection:'" and "That judicial and legislative acts in the respective states composing
the so-called Confederate States should be respected by the courts if they were not hostile in their purpose or mode of enforcement to the authority of the National
Government, and did not impair the rights of citizens under the Constitution."
In view of the foregoing, it is evident that the Philippine Executive Commission, which was organized by Order No. 1, issued on January 23, 1942, by the
Commander of the Japanese forces, was a civil government established by the military forces of occupation and therefore a de facto government of the second
kind. It was not different from the government established by the British in Castine, Maine, or by the United States in Tampico, Mexico. As Halleck says, "The
government established over an enemy's territory during the military occupation may exercise all the powers given by the laws of war to the conqueror over the
conquered, and is subject to all restrictions which that code imposes. It is of little consequence whether such government be called a military or civil government.
Its character is the same and the source of its authority the same. In either case it is a government imposed by the laws of war, and so far it concerns the
inhabitants of such territory or the rest of the world, those laws alone determine the legality or illegality of its acts." (Vol. 2, p. 466.) The fact that the Philippine
Executive Commission was a civil and not a military government and was run by Filipinos and not by Japanese nationals, is of no consequence. In 1806, when
Napoleon occupied the greater part of Prussia, he retained the existing administration under the general direction of a french official (Langfrey History of
Napoleon, 1, IV, 25); and, in the same way, the Duke of Willington, on invading France, authorized the local authorities to continue the exercise of their functions,
apparently without appointing an English superior. (Wellington Despatches, XI, 307.). The Germans, on the other hand, when they invaded France in 1870,
appointed their own officials, at least in Alsace and Lorraine, in every department of administration and of every rank. (Calvo, pars. 2186-93; Hall, International
Law, 7th ed., p. 505, note 2.)
The so-called Republic of the Philippines, apparently established and organized as a sovereign state independent from any other government by the Filipino
people, was, in truth and reality, a government established by the belligerent occupant or the Japanese forces of occupation. It was of the same character as the
Philippine Executive Commission, and the ultimate source of its authority was the same the Japanese military authority and government. As General
MacArthur stated in his proclamation of October 23, 1944, a portion of which has been already quoted, "under enemy duress, a so-called government styled as the
'Republic of the Philippines' was established on October 14, 1943, based upon neither the free expression of the people's will nor the sanction of the Government
of the United States." Japan had no legal power to grant independence to the Philippines or transfer the sovereignty of the United States to, or recognize the latent
sovereignty of, the Filipino people, before its military occupation and possession of the Islands had matured into an absolute and permanent dominion or
sovereignty by a treaty of peace or other means recognized in the law of nations. For it is a well-established doctrine in International Law, recognized in Article 45
of the Hauge Conventions of 1907 (which prohibits compulsion of the population of the occupied territory to swear allegiance to the hostile power), the belligerent
occupation, being essentially provisional, does not serve to transfer sovereignty over the territory controlled although the de jure government is during the period
of occupancy deprived of the power to exercise its rights as such. (Thirty Hogshead of Sugar vs. Boyle, 9 Cranch, 191; United States vs. Rice, 4 Wheat., 246;
Fleming vs.Page, 9 Howard, 603; Downes vs. Bidwell, 182 U. S., 345.) The formation of the Republic of the Philippines was a scheme contrived by Japan to
delude the Filipino people into believing in the apparent magnanimity of the Japanese gesture of transferring or turning over the rights of government into the
hands of Filipinos. It was established under the mistaken belief that by doing so, Japan would secure the cooperation or at least the neutrality of the Filipino people
in her war against the United States and other allied nations.
Indeed, even if the Republic of the Philippines had been established by the free will of the Filipino who, taking advantage of the withdrawal of the American
forces from the Islands, and the occupation thereof by the Japanese forces of invasion, had organized an independent government under the name with the support
and backing of Japan, such government would have been considered as one established by the Filipinos in insurrection or rebellion against the parent state or the
Unite States. And as such, it would have been a de facto government similar to that organized by the confederate states during the war of secession and recognized
as such by the by the Supreme Court of the United States in numerous cases, notably those of Thorington vs. Smith, Williams vs.Bruffy, and Badly vs. Hunter,
above quoted; and similar to the short-lived government established by the Filipino insurgents in the Island of Cebu during the Spanish-American war, recognized
as a de facto government by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of McCleod vs. United States (299 U. S., 416). According to the facts in the last-
named case, the Spanish forces evacuated the Island of Cebu on December 25, 1898, having first appointed a provisional government, and shortly afterwards, the
Filipinos, formerly in insurrection against Spain, took possession of the Islands and established a republic, governing the Islands until possession thereof was
surrendered to the United States on February 22, 1898. And the said Supreme Court held in that case that "such government was of the class of de
facto governments described in I Moore's International Law Digest, S 20, . . . 'called also by publicists a government de facto, but which might, perhaps, be more
aptly denominated a government of paramount force . . '." That is to say, that the government of a country in possession of belligerent forces in insurrection or
rebellion against the parent state, rests upon the same principles as that of a territory occupied by the hostile army of an enemy at regular war with the legitimate
power.
The governments by the Philippine Executive Commission and the Republic of the Philippines during the Japanese military occupation being de
facto governments, it necessarily follows that the judicial acts and proceedings of the courts of justice of those governments, which are not of a political
complexion, were good and valid, and, by virtue of the well-known principle of postliminy (postliminium) in international law, remained good and valid after the
liberation or reoccupation of the Philippines by the American and Filipino forces under the leadership of General Douglas MacArthur. According to that well-
known principle in international law, the fact that a territory which has been occupied by an enemy comes again into the power of its legitimate government of
sovereignty, "does not, except in a very few cases, wipe out the effects of acts done by an invader, which for one reason or another it is within his competence to
do. Thus judicial acts done under his control, when they are not of a political complexion, administrative acts so done, to the extent that they take effect during the
continuance of his control, and the various acts done during the same time by private persons under the sanction of municipal law, remain good. Were it
otherwise, the whole social life of a community would be paralyzed by an invasion; and as between the state and the individuals the evil would be scarcely less,
it would be hard for example that payment of taxes made under duress should be ignored, and it would be contrary to the general interest that the sentences passed
upon criminals should be annulled by the disappearance of the intrusive government ." (Hall, International Law, 7th ed., p. 518.) And when the occupation and the
abandonment have been each an incident of the same war as in the present case, postliminy applies, even though the occupant has acted as conqueror and for the
time substituted his own sovereignty as the Japanese intended to do apparently in granting independence to the Philippines and establishing the so-called Republic
of the Philippines. (Taylor, International Law, p. 615.)
That not only judicial but also legislative acts of de facto governments, which are not of a political complexion, are and remain valid after reoccupation of a
territory occupied by a belligerent occupant, is confirmed by the Proclamation issued by General Douglas MacArthur on October 23, 1944, which declares null
and void all laws, regulations and processes of the governments established in the Philippines during the Japanese occupation, for it would not have been
necessary for said proclamation to abrogate them if they were invalid ab initio.
2. The second question hinges upon the interpretation of the phrase "processes of any other government" as used in the above-quoted proclamation of General
Douglas MacArthur of October 23, 1944 that is, whether it was the intention of the Commander in Chief of the American Forces to annul and void thereby all
judgments and judicial proceedings of the courts established in the Philippines during the Japanese military occupation.
The phrase "processes of any other government" is broad and may refer not only to the judicial processes, but also to administrative or legislative, as well as
constitutional, processes of the Republic of the Philippines or other governmental agencies established in the Islands during the Japanese occupation. Taking into
consideration the fact that, as above indicated, according to the well-known principles of international law all judgements and judicial proceedings, which are not
of a political complexion, of the de facto governments during the Japanese military occupation were good and valid before and remained so after the occupied
territory had come again into the power of the titular sovereign, it should be presumed that it was not, and could not have been, the intention of General Douglas
MacArthur, in using the phrase "processes of any other government" in said proclamation, to refer to judicial processes, in violation of said principles of
international law. The only reasonable construction of the said phrase is that it refers to governmental processes other than judicial processes of court proceedings,
for according to a well-known rule of statutory construction, set forth in 25 R. C. L., p. 1028, "a statute ought never to be construed to violate the law of nations if
any other possible construction remains."
It is true that the commanding general of a belligerent army of occupation, as an agent of his government, may not unlawfully suspend existing laws and
promulgate new ones in the occupied territory, if and when the exigencies of the military occupation demand such action. But even assuming that, under the law
of nations, the legislative power of a commander in chief of military forces who liberates or reoccupies his own territory which has been occupied by an enemy,
during the military and before the restoration of the civil regime, is as broad as that of the commander in chief of the military forces of invasion and occupation
(although the exigencies of military reoccupation are evidently less than those of occupation), it is to be presumed that General Douglas MacArthur, who was
acting as an agent or a representative of the Government and the President of the United States, constitutional commander in chief of the United States Army, did
not intend to act against the principles of the law of nations asserted by the Supreme Court of the United States from the early period of its existence, applied by
the Presidents of the United States, and later embodied in the Hague Conventions of 1907, as above indicated. It is not to be presumed that General Douglas
MacArthur, who enjoined in the same proclamation of October 23, 1944, "upon the loyal citizens of the Philippines full respect and obedience to the Constitution
of the Commonwealth of the Philippines," should not only reverse the international policy and practice of his own government, but also disregard in the same
breath the provisions of section 3, Article II, of our Constitution, which provides that "The Philippines renounces war as an instrument of national policy, and
adopts the generally accepted principles of international law as part of the law of the Nation."
Moreover, from a contrary construction great inconvenience and public hardship would result, and great public interests would be endangered and sacrificed, for
disputes or suits already adjudged would have to be again settled accrued or vested rights nullified, sentences passed on criminals set aside, and criminals might
easily become immune for evidence against them may have already disappeared or be no longer available, especially now that almost all court records in the
Philippines have been destroyed by fire as a consequence of the war. And it is another well-established rule of statutory construction that where great
inconvenience will result from a particular construction, or great public interests would be endangered or sacrificed, or great mischief done, such construction is to
be avoided, or the court ought to presume that such construction was not intended by the makers of the law, unless required by clear and unequivocal words. (25
R. C. L., pp. 1025, 1027.)
The mere conception or thought of possibility that the titular sovereign or his representatives who reoccupies a territory occupied by an enemy, may set aside or
annul all the judicial acts or proceedings of the tribunals which the belligerent occupant had the right and duty to establish in order to insure public order and
safety during military occupation, would be sufficient to paralyze the social life of the country or occupied territory, for it would have to be expected that litigants
would not willingly submit their litigation to courts whose judgements or decisions may afterwards be annulled, and criminals would not be deterred from
committing crimes or offenses in the expectancy that they may escaped the penalty if judgments rendered against them may be afterwards set aside.
That the proclamation has not invalidated all the judgements and proceedings of the courts of justice during the Japanese regime, is impliedly confirmed by
Executive Order No. 37, which has the force of law, issued by the President of the Philippines on March 10, 1945, by virtue of the emergency legislative power
vested in him by the Constitution and the laws of the Commonwealth of the Philippines. Said Executive order abolished the Court of Appeals, and provided "that
all case which have heretofore been duly appealed to the Court of Appeals shall be transmitted to the Supreme Court final decision." This provision impliedly
recognizes that the judgments and proceedings of the courts during the Japanese military occupation have not been invalidated by the proclamation of General
MacArthur of October 23, because the said Order does not say or refer to cases which have been duly appealed to said court prior to the Japanese occupation, but
to cases which had therefore, that is, up to March 10, 1945, been duly appealed to the Court of Appeals; and it is to be presumed that almost all, if not all, appealed
cases pending in the Court of Appeals prior to the Japanese military occupation of Manila on January 2, 1942, had been disposed of by the latter before the
restoration of the Commonwealth Government in 1945; while almost all, if not all, appealed cases pending on March 10, 1945, in the Court of Appeals were from
judgments rendered by the Court of First Instance during the Japanese regime.
The respondent judge quotes a portion of Wheaton's International Law which say: "Moreover when it is said that an occupier's acts are valid and under
international law should not be abrogated by the subsequent conqueror, it must be remembered that no crucial instances exist to show that if his acts should be
reversed, any international wrong would be committed. What does happen is that most matters are allowed to stand by the restored government, but the matter can
hardly be put further than this." (Wheaton, International Law, War, 7th English edition of 1944, p. 245.) And from this quotion the respondent judge "draws the
conclusion that whether the acts of the occupant should be considered valid or not, is a question that is up to the restored government to decide; that there is no
rule of international law that denies to the restored government to decide; that there is no rule of international law that denies to the restored government the right
of exercise its discretion on the matter, imposing upon it in its stead the obligation of recognizing and enforcing the acts of the overthrown government."
There is doubt that the subsequent conqueror has the right to abrogate most of the acts of the occupier, such as the laws, regulations and processes other than
judicial of the government established by the belligerent occupant. But in view of the fact that the proclamation uses the words "processes of any other
government" and not "judicial processes" prisely, it is not necessary to determine whether or not General Douglas MacArthur had power to annul and set aside all
judgments and proceedings of the courts during the Japanese occupation. The question to be determined is whether or not it was his intention, as representative of
the President of the United States, to avoid or nullify them. If the proclamation had, expressly or by necessary implication, declared null and void the judicial
processes of any other government, it would be necessary for this court to decide in the present case whether or not General Douglas MacArthur had authority to
declare them null and void. But the proclamation did not so provide, undoubtedly because the author thereof was fully aware of the limitations of his powers as
Commander in Chief of Military Forces of liberation or subsequent conqueror.
Not only the Hague Regulations, but also the principles of international law, as they result from the usages established between civilized nations, the laws of
humanity and the requirements of the public of conscience, constitute or from the law of nations. (Preamble of the Hague Conventions; Westlake, International
Law, 2d ed., Part II, p. 61.) Article 43, section III, of the Hague Regulations or Conventions which we have already quoted in discussing the first question,
imposes upon the occupant the obligation to establish courts; and Article 23 (h), section II, of the same Conventions, which prohibits the belligerent occupant "to
declare . . . suspended . . . in a Court of Law the rights and action of the nationals of the hostile party," forbids him to make any declaration preventing the
inhabitants from using their courts to assert or enforce their civil rights. (Decision of the Court of Appeals of England in the case of Porter vs. Fruedenburg, L.R.
[1915], 1 K.B., 857.) If a belligerent occupant is required to establish courts of justice in the territory occupied, and forbidden to prevent the nationals thereof from
asserting or enforcing therein their civil rights, by necessary implication, the military commander of the forces of liberation or the restored government is
restrained from nullifying or setting aside the judgments rendered by said courts in their litigation during the period of occupation. Otherwise, the purpose of these
precepts of the Hague Conventions would be thwarted, for to declare them null and void would be tantamount to suspending in said courts the right and action of
the nationals of the territory during the military occupation thereof by the enemy. It goes without saying that a law that enjoins a person to do something will not
at the same time empower another to undo the same. Although the question whether the President or commanding officer of the United States Army has violated
restraints imposed by the constitution and laws of his country is obviously of a domestic nature, yet, in construing and applying limitations imposed on the
executive authority, the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of Ochoa, vs. Hernandez (230 U.S., 139), has declared that they "arise from general rules
of international law and from fundamental principles known wherever the American flag flies."
In the case of Raymond vs. Thomas (91 U.S., 712), a special order issued by the officer in command of the forces of the United States in South Carolina after the
end of the Civil War, wholly annulling a decree rendered by a court of chancery in that state in a case within its jurisdiction, was declared void, and not warranted
by the acts approved respectively March 2, 1867 (14 Stat., 428), and July 19 of the same year (15 id., 14), which defined the powers and duties of military officers
in command of the several states then lately in rebellion. In the course of its decision the court said; "We have looked carefully through the acts of March 2, 1867
and July 19, 1867. They give very large governmental powers to the military commanders designated, within the States committed respectively to their
jurisdiction; but we have found nothing to warrant the order here in question. . . . The clearest language would be necessary to satisfy us that Congress intended
that the power given by these acts should be so exercised. . . . It was an arbitrary stretch of authority, needful to no good end that can be imagined. Whether
Congress could have conferred the power to do such an act is a question we are not called upon to consider. It is an unbending rule of law that the exercise of
military power, where the rights of the citizen are concerned, shall never be pushed beyond what the exigency requires. (Mithell vs. Harmony, 13 How., 115;
Warden vs. Bailey, 4 Taunt., 67; Fabrigas vs. Moysten, 1 Cowp., 161; s.c., 1 Smith's L.C., pt. 2, p. 934.) Viewing the subject before us from the standpoint
indicated, we hold that the order was void."
It is, therefore, evident that the proclamation of General MacArthur of October 23, 1944, which declared that "all laws, regulations and processes of any other
government in the Philippines than that of the said Commonwealth are null and void without legal effect in areas of the Philippines free of enemy occupation and
control," has not invalidated the judicial acts and proceedings, which are not a political complexion, of the courts of justice in the Philippines that were continued
by the Philippine Executive Commission and the Republic of the Philippines during the Japanese military occupation, and that said judicial acts and proceedings
were good and valid before and now good and valid after the reoccupation of liberation of the Philippines by the American and Filipino forces.
3. The third and last question is whether or not the courts of the Commonwealth, which are the same as those existing prior to, and continued during, the Japanese
military occupation by the Philippine Executive Commission and by the so-called Republic of the Philippines, have jurisdiction to continue now the proceedings
in actions pending in said courts at the time the Philippine Islands were reoccupied or liberated by the American and Filipino forces, and the Commonwealth
Government was restored.
Although in theory the authority the authority of the local civil and judicial administration is suspended as a matter of course as soon as military occupation takes
place, in practice the invader does not usually take the administration of justice into his own hands, but continues the ordinary courts or tribunals to administer the
laws of the country which he is enjoined, unless absolutely prevented, to respect. As stated in the above-quoted Executive Order of President McKinley to the
Secretary of War on May 19, 1898, "in practice, they (the municipal laws) are not usually abrogated but are allowed to remain in force and to be administered by
the ordinary tribunals substantially as they were before the occupation. This enlightened practice is, so far as possible, to be adhered to on the present occasion."
And Taylor in this connection says: "From a theoretical point of view it may be said that the conqueror is armed with the right to substitute his arbitrary will for all
preexisting forms of government, legislative, executive and judicial. From the stand-point of actual practice such arbitrary will is restrained by the provision of the
law of nations which compels the conqueror to continue local laws and institution so far as military necessity will permit." (Taylor, International Public Law,
p.596.) Undoubtedly, this practice has been adopted in order that the ordinary pursuits and business of society may not be unnecessarily deranged, inasmuch as
belligerent occupation is essentially provisional, and the government established by the occupant of transient character.
Following these practice and precepts of the law of nations, Commander in Chief of the Japanese Forces proclaimed on January 3, 1942, when Manila was
occupied, the military administration under martial law over the territory occupied by the army, and ordered that "all the laws now in force in the Commonwealth,
as well as executive and judicial institutions, shall continue to be affective for the time being as in the past," and "all public officials shall remain in their present
post and carry on faithfully their duties as before." When the Philippine Executive Commission was organized by Order No. 1 of the Japanese Commander in
Chief, on January 23, 1942, the Chairman of the Executive Commission, by Executive Orders Nos. 1 and 4 of January 30 and February 5, respectively, continued
the Supreme Court, Court of Appeals, Court of First Instance, and justices of the peace of courts, with the same jurisdiction in conformity with the instructions
given by the Commander in Chief of the Imperial Japanese Army in Order No. 3 of February 20, 1942. And on October 14, 1943 when the so-called Republic of
the Philippines was inaugurated, the same courts were continued with no substantial change in organization and jurisdiction thereof.
If the proceedings pending in the different courts of the Islands prior to the Japanese military occupation had been continued during the Japanese military
administration, the Philippine Executive Commission, and the so-called Republic of the Philippines, it stands to reason that the same courts, which had become
reestablished and conceived of as having in continued existence upon the reoccupation and liberation of the Philippines by virtue of the principle of postliminy
(Hall, International Law, 7th ed., p. 516), may continue the proceedings in cases then pending in said courts, without necessity of enacting a law conferring
jurisdiction upon them to continue said proceedings. As Taylor graphically points out in speaking of said principles "a state or other governmental entity, upon the
removal of a foreign military force, resumes its old place with its right and duties substantially unimpaired. . . . Such political resurrection is the result of a law
analogous to that which enables elastic bodies to regain their original shape upon removal of the external force, and subject to the same exception in case of
absolute crushing of the whole fibre and content." (Taylor, International Public Law, p. 615.)
The argument advanced by the respondent judge in his resolution in support in his conclusion that the Court of First Instance of Manila presided over by him "has
no authority to take cognizance of, and continue said proceedings (of this case) to final judgment until and unless the Government of the Commonwealth of the
Philippines . . . shall have provided for the transfer of the jurisdiction of the courts of the now defunct Republic of the Philippines, and the cases commenced and
the left pending therein," is "that said courts were a government alien to the Commonwealth Government. The laws they enforced were, true enough, laws of the
Commonwealth prior to Japanese occupation, but they had become the laws and the courts had become the institutions of Japan by adoption (U.S. vs. Reiter.
27 F. Cases, No. 16146), as they became later on the laws and institutions of the Philippine Executive Commission and the Republic of the Philippines."
The court in the said case of U.S. vs. Reiter did not and could not say that the laws and institutions of the country occupied if continued by the conqueror or
occupant, become the laws and the courts, by adoption, of the sovereign nation that is militarily occupying the territory. Because, as already shown, belligerent or
military occupation is essentially provisional and does not serve to transfer the sovereignty over the occupied territory to the occupant. What the court said was
that, if such laws and institutions are continued in use by the occupant, they become his and derive their force from him, in the sense that he may continue or set
them aside. The laws and institution or courts so continued remain the laws and institutions or courts of the occupied territory. The laws and the courts of the
Philippines, therefore, did not become, by being continued as required by the law of nations, laws and courts of Japan. The provision of Article 45, section III, of
the Hague Conventions of 1907 which prohibits any compulsion of the population of occupied territory to swear allegiance to the hostile power, "extends to
prohibit everything which would assert or imply a change made by the invader in the legitimate sovereignty. This duty is neither to innovate in the political life of
the occupied districts, nor needlessly to break the continuity of their legal life. Hence, so far as the courts of justice are allowed to continue administering the
territorial laws, they must be allowed to give their sentences in the name of the legitimate sovereign " (Westlake, Int. Law, Part II, second ed., p. 102). According
to Wheaton, however, the victor need not allow the use of that of the legitimate government. When in 1870, the Germans in France attempted to violate that rule
by ordering, after the fall of the Emperor Napoleon, the courts of Nancy to administer justice in the name of the "High German Powers occupying Alsace and
Lorraine," upon the ground that the exercise of their powers in the name of French people and government was at least an implied recognition of the Republic, the
courts refused to obey and suspended their sitting. Germany originally ordered the use of the name of "High German Powers occupying Alsace and Lorraine," but
later offered to allow use of the name of the Emperor or a compromise. (Wheaton, International Law, War, 7th English ed. 1944, p. 244.)
Furthermore, it is a legal maxim, that excepting that of a political nature, "Law once established continues until changed by the some competent legislative power.
It is not change merely by change of sovereignty." (Joseph H. Beale, Cases on Conflict of Laws, III, Summary Section 9, citing Commonwealth vs. Chapman, 13
Met., 68.) As the same author says, in his Treatise on the Conflict on Laws (Cambridge, 1916, Section 131): "There can no break or interregnum in law. From the
time the law comes into existence with the first-felt corporateness of a primitive people it must last until the final disappearance of human society. Once created, it
persists until a change take place, and when changed it continues in such changed condition until the next change, and so forever. Conquest or colonization is
impotent to bring law to an end; in spite of change of constitution, the law continues unchanged until the new sovereign by legislative acts creates a change."
As courts are creatures of statutes and their existence defends upon that of the laws which create and confer upon them their jurisdiction, it is evident that such
laws, not being a political nature, are not abrogated by a change of sovereignty, and continue in force "ex proprio vigore" unless and until repealed by legislative
acts. A proclamation that said laws and courts are expressly continued is not necessary in order that they may continue in force. Such proclamation, if made, is but
a declaration of the intention of respecting and not repealing those laws. Therefore, even assuming that Japan had legally acquired sovereignty over these Islands,
which she had afterwards transferred to the so-called Republic of the Philippines, and that the laws and the courts of these Islands had become the courts of Japan,
as the said courts of the laws creating and conferring jurisdiction upon them have continued in force until now, it necessarily follows that the same courts may
continue exercising the same jurisdiction over cases pending therein before the restoration of the Commonwealth Government, unless and until they are abolished
or the laws creating and conferring jurisdiction upon them are repealed by the said government. As a consequence, enabling laws or acts providing that
proceedings pending in one court be continued by or transferred to another court, are not required by the mere change of government or sovereignty. They are
necessary only in case the former courts are abolished or their jurisdiction so change that they can no longer continue taking cognizance of the cases and
proceedings commenced therein, in order that the new courts or the courts having jurisdiction over said cases may continue the proceedings. When the Spanish
sovereignty in the Philippine Islands ceased and the Islands came into the possession of the United States, the "Audiencia" or Supreme Court was continued and
did not cease to exist, and proceeded to take cognizance of the actions pending therein upon the cessation of the Spanish sovereignty until the said "Audiencia" or
Supreme Court was abolished, and the Supreme Court created in Chapter II of Act No. 136 was substituted in lieu thereof. And the Courts of First Instance of the
Islands during the Spanish regime continued taking cognizance of cases pending therein upon the change of sovereignty, until section 65 of the same Act No. 136
abolished them and created in its Chapter IV the present Courts of First Instance in substitution of the former. Similarly, no enabling acts were enacted during the
Japanese occupation, but a mere proclamation or order that the courts in the Island were continued.
On the other hand, during the American regime, when section 78 of Act No. 136 was enacted abolishing the civil jurisdiction of the provost courts created by the
military government of occupation in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War of 1898, the same section 78 provided for the transfer of all civil actions
then pending in the provost courts to the proper tribunals, that is, to the justices of the peace courts, Court of First Instance, or Supreme Court having jurisdiction
over them according to law. And later on, when the criminal jurisdiction of provost courts in the City of Manila was abolished by section 3 of Act No. 186, the
same section provided that criminal cases pending therein within the jurisdiction of the municipal court created by Act No. 183 were transferred to the latter.
That the present courts as the same courts which had been functioning during the Japanese regime and, therefore, can continue the proceedings in cases pending
therein prior to the restoration of the Commonwealth of the Philippines, is confirmed by Executive Order No. 37 which we have already quoted in support of our
conclusion in connection with the second question. Said Executive Order provides"(1) that the Court of Appeals created and established under Commonwealth
Act No. 3 as amended, be abolished, as it is hereby abolished," and "(2) that all cases which have heretofore been duly appealed to the Court of Appeals shall be
transmitted to the Supreme Court for final decision. . . ." In so providing, the said Order considers that the Court of Appeals abolished was the same that existed
prior to, and continued after, the restoration of the Commonwealth Government; for, as we have stated in discussing the previous question, almost all, if not all, of
the cases pending therein, or which had theretofore (that is, up to March 10, 1945) been duly appealed to said court, must have been cases coming from the Courts
of First Instance during the so-called Republic of the Philippines. If the Court of Appeals abolished by the said Executive Order was not the same one which had
been functioning during the Republic, but that which had existed up to the time of the Japanese occupation, it would have provided that all the cases which had,
prior to and up to that occupation on January 2, 1942, been dully appealed to the said Court of Appeals shall be transmitted to the Supreme Court for final
decision.
It is, therefore, obvious that the present courts have jurisdiction to continue, to final judgment, the proceedings in cases, not of political complexion, pending
therein at the time of the restoration of the Commonwealth Government.
Having arrived at the above conclusions, it follows that the Court of First Instance of Manila has jurisdiction to continue to final judgment the proceedings in civil
case No. 3012, which involves civil rights of the parties under the laws of the Commonwealth Government, pending in said court at the time of the restoration of
the said Government; and that the respondent judge of the court, having refused to act and continue him does a duty resulting from his office as presiding judge of
that court, mandamus is the speedy and adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law, especially taking into consideration the fact that the question of jurisdiction
herein involved does affect not only this particular case, but many other cases now pending in all the courts of these Islands.
In view of all the foregoing it is adjudged and decreed that a writ of mandamus issue, directed to the respondent judge of the Court of First Instance of Manila,
ordering him to take cognizance of and continue to final judgment the proceedings in civil case No. 3012 of said court. No pronouncement as to costs. So ordered.
Moran, C.J., Ozaeta, Paras, Jaranilla and Pablo, JJ., concur.