Due Process 9 To 16

G.R. No.
106498 June 28, 1993
LOLITA DADUBO, petitioner,
vs.
CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION and the DEVELOPMENT BANK OF THE
PHILIPPINES, respondents.
Francisco P. Duran for petitioner.
CRUZ, J.:
Petitioner Lolita A. Dadubo, Senior Accounts Analyst and Rosario B. Cidro, Cash
Supervisor, of the Development Bank of the Philippines, Borongan Branch were
administratively charged with conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the
service.1 The charges were based on reports on the unposted withdrawal of
P60,000.00 from Savings Account No. 87-692 in the name of Eric Tiu, Edgar Tiu,
and/or Pilar Tiu.
The formal investigations revealed that in the morning of August 13, 1987, Erlinda
Veloso, authorized representative of the Tius, presented an undated withdrawal slip
for P60,000.00.2 Dadubo, as acting teller, prepared the corresponding ticket and
voucher in the name of the cash supervisor, Rosario Cidro. Dadubo initialed the
withdrawal slip, ticket and voucher, all dated August 13, 1987, and passed on to
Cidro all the documents on the said transaction. These were then forwarded to the
accountant, Reynaldo Dorado, who signed the voucher ledger card of the Tius'
savings account and forwarded the documents to Apolinario Babaylon, bookkeeper,
who was also acting as posting machine operator. After posting the amount of
P60,000.00 on the ledger card and passbook, Babaylon initialed the withdrawal slip
and returned the documents to Dorado, who approved the withdrawal and
thereafter disbursed the P60,000.00 to Veloso. The Received payment portion of
the withdrawal slip was signed Veloso but Cidro, who disbursed the amount, failed
to initial the passbook.
After banking hours, another withdrawal slip was presented by Feliciano Bugtas, Jr.,
also an employee of the Tius.3 This was the second P60,000.00 withdrawal. Veloso
did not know about it. The withdrawal slip was processed and approved on the same
day, August 13, 1987. The space Posted by was initialed by Babaylon but no posting
was actually made because the passbook was not presented. While the withdrawal
slip was dated August 13, 1987, all other supporting documents were dated August
14, 1987, this being a withdrawal after banking hours (ABH).
The following day, August 14, 1987, prior to the payment of the ABH withdrawal,
Veloso presented another undated withdrawal slip for P60,000.00. 4 This was the
third P60,000.00 withdrawal. The withdrawal slip was received by Dorado, who
handed it to Dadubo. At that time, Cidro was encashing the check at PNB to satisfy
the ABH withdrawal. When she returned from the bank, she paid this withdrawal to
Veloso, who thought that what she was collecting was the P60,000.00
corresponding to the withdrawal slip she presented that morning.
When Dadubo informed Cidro about the third withdrawal, till money of P100,000.00
was made to service it. Prior to the payment of the third P60,000.00 withdrawal,
Veloso came back and presented another withdrawal slip for P40,000.00. 5 The
petitioner claimed she disbursed P100,000.00 to Veloso, covering the third
P60,000.00 and the P40,000.00 withdrawals. On the other hand, Veloso testified
that she received only P40,000.00 from the petitioner. She acknowledged receipt of
the amount by signing the withdrawal slip and indicating opposite her signature the
amount of P40,000.00.
That left the balance of P60,000.00 unaccounted for and directly imputable to
Dadubo.
On the basis of these findings, DBP found Dadubo guilty of dishonesty for
embezzlement of bank funds. She was penalized with dismissal from the
service.6 Cidro was adjudged guilty of gross neglect of duty and fined in an amount
equivalent to one month basic salary, payable through salary deductions in not
more than 12 installments.
Dadubo appealed to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), 7 which affirmed
the decision of the DBP, declaring as follows:
There is nothing in the records to show that the Senior Manager,

Personnel Services and Vice-Chairman, both of the DBP, abused their
discretion in deciding the case against the appellant or that their
decision was made and attended with arbitrariness or unfairness. To all
intents and purposes, the ensuing decision was a necessary
consequence of the evidence.
However, DBP was reversed by the Civil Service Commission in its Resolution No.
91-642, dated May 21, 1991,8 which reduced Dadubo's penalty to suspension for six
months on the ground that:
Although Dadubo made alterations on the dates in the Ledger Card

from August 13 to August 14, the fact remains that the bank was
defrauded on account of said ABH withdrawal (for) which Cidro is held
responsible and accordingly found guilty of Gross Neglect of Duty and
Inefficiency and Incompetence in the Performance of Official Duty. It
was also Dadubo who reported on the irreconcilable P60,000.00. The
most that Dadubo could be charged with is willful violation of office
regulation when she undertook reconciliation for under the Bank
Manual the tellers are not allowed access to the savings account
ledger cards.
Respondent DBP moved reconsideration. On July 16, 1992, the Commission acting
favorably on the motion, promulgated Resolution No.
92-8789 affirming the earlier findings of the DBP as to Dadubo guilt, thus —
The records reveal that Dadubo admitted in her Answer that she
changed entry of the date August 13 to 14 in the ledger in the course
of her reconciliation which she was advised not to do.
xxx xxx xxx
This act of admission needs no further elaboration to prove that

Dadubo is guilty of the charge. Such admission is however treated as a
mitigating circumstance which is offset by the aggravating
circumstance of taking advantage of her official position. There is no
reason for her to change or alter entries in the ledger unless she
intends to benefit therefrom or to conceal some facts.
Further, it should be noted that the report was made only on

September 28, 1987 (the date the report on reconciliation was
submitted to the Regional Office). It should be emphasized as earlier
stated that Dadubo was not authorized to reconcile the subsidiary
ledger cards for the period ending August 20, 1987. Hence, as
emphatically stated in the MSPB decision, ". . . respondent Dadubo
manipulated the bank records to conceal the offense which constituted
the act of dishonesty."
The opinion of an acting Internal Audit Officer, whose report was

among the preliminary findings considered in the investigation of the
case, is not conclusive as there are other available and convincing
evidence to prove the guilt of Dadubo.
Dadubo has brought her case to this Court in this petition for certiorari. She claims
that CSC Resolution No. 92-878 failed to comply with the constitutional requirement
to state clearly and distinctly the facts an the law on which the decision is based;
CSC Resolution No. 92-878 conflicts with the findings of fact in CSC Resolution No.
91-642; the Commission manifestly overlooked or disregarded certain relevant facts
not disputed by the parties; and it based its conclusions entirely on speculations,
surmises or conjectures.
Required to comment, the Solicitor General argued that CSC Resolution No. 92-878
did not need to restate the legal and factual bases of the original decision in CSC-
MSPB No. 497 which already explained the relevant facts and the applicable law.
The petitioner had admitted that she changed the entry of the dates in the
subsidiary ledger card from August 13 to 14 in the course of her reconciliation work
although she was not authorized to do this. This admission, along with the other
evidence Presented during the investigation in the bank, proved Dadubo's guilt.
Moreover, the affidavit of Albert C. Ballicud was inadmissible in evidence because
he was never subjected to cross-examination.
The petitioner's challenges are mainly factual. The rule is that the findings of fact of
administrative bodies, if based on substantial evidence, are controlling on the
reviewing authority. 10 is settled that it is not for the appellate court to substitute its
own judgment for that of the administrative agency on the sufficiency of the
evidence and the credibility of the witnesses. 11 Administrative decisions on matters
within their jurisdiction are entitled to respect and can only be set aside on proof of
grave abuse of discretion, fraud or error of law. 12 None of these vices has been
shown in this case.
The petitioner's invocation of due process is without merit. Her complaint that she
was not sufficiently informed of the charges against her has no basis. While the
rules governing Judicial trials should be observed as much as possible, their strict
observance is not indispensable in administrative cases. 13 As this Court has held,
"the standard of due process that must be met in administrative tribunals allows a
certain latitude as long as the element of fairness is not ignored." 14
The essence of due process is distilled in the immortal cry of Themistocles to

Eurybiades: "Strike, but hear me first!" Less dramatically, it simply connotes an
opportunity to be heard. The petitioner had several opportunities to be heard and to
present evidence that she was not guilty of embezzlement but only of failure to
comply with the tellering procedure. Not only did she testify at her formal
investigation but she also filed a motion for reconsideration with the DBP, then
appealed to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), and later elevated the case
to the Civil Service Commission. Having been given all these opportunities to be
heard, which she fully availed of, she cannot now complain that she was denied due
process.
Appreciation of the evidence submitted by the parties was, to repeat, the

prerogative of the administrative body, subject to reversal only upon a clear
showing of arbitrariness. The rejection of the affidavit of Ballicud, for example, was
not improper because there was nothing in that document showing that the
petitioner did not embezzle the P60,000.00.
It is true that the petitioner was formally charged with conduct prejudicial to the
best interest of the bank and not specifically with embezzlement. Nevertheless, the
allegations and the evidence presented sufficiently proved her guilt of
embezzlement of bank funds, which in unquestionably prejudicial to the best
interest of the bank.
The charge against the respondent in an administrative case need not be drafted
with the precision of an information in a criminal prosecution. It is sufficient that he
is apprised of the substance of the charge against him; what is controlling is the
allegation of the acts complained of, not the designation of the offense. 15
We must also dismiss the petitioner's complaint that CSC Resolution No. 92-878
failed to comply with the constitutional requirement to state clearly and distinctly
the facts and the law on which a decision is based. We have held that this provision
applies only to courts of justice and not to administrative bodies like the Civil
Service Commission. 16 In any event, there was an earlier statement of the facts and
the law involved in the decision rendered by the MSPB dated February 28, 1990,
which affirmed DBP's decision to dismiss the petitioner. In both decisions, the facts
and the law on which they were based were clearly and distinctly stated.
It is worth adding that inasmuch as Civil Service Resolution No. 92-878 was
rendered only to resolve DBP's motion for reconsideration, it was not really
necessary to re-state the factual an, legal bases for the said decisions. Even
resolutions issued by this Court do not need to conform, to the first paragraph of
Article VIII, Section 14, of the Constitution, for reasoning extensively discussed
in Borromeo v. Court of Appeals 17 and other subsequent cases. 18
We find no justification to nullify or modify the questioned resolution. It would

perhaps have been more thorough if certain other officers of the bank had been
also investigated for their part in the anomalous transaction. But that matter is not
before this Court and cannot be resolved by us at this time.
WHEREFORE, the petition is DISMISSED for lack of a clear showing of grave abuse of
discretion on the part of the Civil Service Commission in issuing the questioned
resolutions. Costs against the petitioner.
SO ORDERED.
Narvasa, C.J., Feliciano, Bidin, Griño-Aquino, Regalado, Davide, Jr., Romero, Nocon,
Bellosillo, Melo and Quiazon, JJ., concur.
Padilla, J., is on leave.
CLARITA J. CARBONEL, Petitioner,
vs.
CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION, Respondent.
DECISION
NACHURA, J.:
This is a petition for review on certiorari under Rule 45 of the Rules of Court,
seeking to reverse and set aside the Court of Appeals (CA) Decision 1 dated
November 24, 2008 and Resolution2 dated April 29, 2009 in CA-G.R. SP No. 101599.
Petitioner Clarita J. Carbonel was an employee of the Bureau of Jail Management

and Penology, Makati City. She was formally charged with Dishonesty, Grave
Misconduct, and Falsification of Official Documents by the Civil Service Commission
Regional Office No. IV (CSCRO IV).
The Civil Service Commission (CSC), as affirmed by the CA, established the following
facts:
On May 21, 1999, petitioner went to the CSCRO IV to secure a copy of the result of
the Computer Assisted Test (CATS) Career Service Professional Examination given
on March 14, 1999, because she lost the original copy of her Career Service
Professional Certificate of Rating (hereafter referred to as certificate of
rating).3 Petitioner was directed to accomplish a verification slip. The Examination
Placement and Service Division noticed that petitioner’s personal and physical
appearance was entirely different from the picture of the examinee attached to the
application form and the picture seat plan. It was also discovered that the signature
affixed on the application form was different from that appearing on the verification
slip.4 Because of these discrepancies, the Legal Affairs Division of the CSCRO IV
conducted an investigation.
In the course of the investigation, petitioner voluntarily made a statement 5 before

Atty. Rosalinda S.M. Gepigon, admitting that, sometime in March 1999, she
accepted the proposal of a certain Bettina J. Navarro (Navarro) for the latter to
obtain for petitioner a Career Service Professional Eligibility by merely
accomplishing an application form and paying the amount of ₱10,000.00. Petitioner
thus accomplished an application form to take the CATS Career Service Professional
Examination and gave Navarro ₱5,000.00 as down payment. Upon receipt of the
original copy of the certificate of rating from Navarro, petitioner gave the latter the
remaining ₱5,000.00. Petitioner, however, misplaced the certificate of rating. This
prompted her to secure another copy from the CSCRO IV.
Hence, the formal charge against petitioner.
Denying her admissions in her voluntary statement before the CSCRO IV, petitioner,
in her Answer,6 traversed the charges against her. She explained that after filling up
the application form for the civil service examination, she asked Navarro to submit
the same to the CSC. She, however, admitted that she failed to take the
examination as she had to attend to her ailing mother. Thus, when she received a
certificate of eligibility despite her failure to take the test, she was anxious to know
the mystery behind it. She claimed that she went to the CSCRO IV not to get a copy
of the certificate of rating but to check the veracity of the certificate. More
importantly, she questioned the use of her voluntary statement as the basis of the
formal charge against her inasmuch as the same was made without the assistance
of counsel.
After the formal investigation, the CSCRO IV rendered its March 25, 2002 Decision
No. 0200797 finding petitioner guilty of dishonesty, grave misconduct, and
falsification of official documents. The penalty of dismissal from the service, with all
its accessory penalties, was imposed on her. Petitioner’s motion for reconsideration
was denied by CSCRO IV on November 14, 2003. 8
Petitioner appealed, but the CSC dismissed 9 the same for having been filed almost
three years from receipt of the CSCRO IV decision. The CSC did not give credence to
petitioner’s explanation that she failed to timely appeal the case because of the
death of her counsel. The CSC opined that notwithstanding the death of one lawyer,
the other members of the law firm, petitioner’s counsel of record, could have timely
appealed the decision.10 Petitioner’s motion for reconsideration was denied in
Resolution No. 07204911 dated November 5, 2007.
Unsatisfied, petitioner elevated the matter to the CA. On November 24, 2008, the
CA rendered the assailed decision affirming the decisions and resolutions of the
CSCRO IV and the CSC. Petitioner’s motion for reconsideration was denied by the CA
on April 29, 2009.
Hence, the instant petition based on the following grounds:
SERIOUS ERROR OF FACT AND LAW AMOUNTING TO GRAVE ABUSE OF DISCRETION

WAS COMMITTED BY THE COURT OF APPEALS IN ITS ASSAILED DECISION DATED
NOVEMBER 24, 2008 BECAUSE PETITIONER’S FINDING OF GUILT WAS GROUNDED
ENTIRELY ON HER UNSWORN STATEMENT THAT SHE ADMITTED THE OFFENSES
CHARGED AND WITHOUT THE ASSISTANCE OF A COUNSEL.
II
THE CONCLUSION AND FINDING OF THE COURT OF APPEALS IN ITS ASSAILED

DECISION THAT PETITIONER’S APPEAL WAS LOST THRU HER OWN FAULT OR
NEGLIGENCE WAS PREMISED ON MISAPPREHENSION OF FACTS.
III
THE COURT OF APPEALS IN ITS ASSAILED DECISION HAS DECIDED THE CASE NOT IN
ACCORD WITH THE DECISIONS OF THIS HONORABLE COURT. 12
The petition is without merit.
It is undisputed that petitioner appealed the CSCRO IV’s decision almost three years
from receipt thereof. Undoubtedly, the appeal was filed way beyond the
reglementary period when the decision had long become final and executory. As
held in Bacsasar v. Civil Service Commission,13 citing Talento v. Escalada, Jr. 14 ¾
The perfection of an appeal in the manner and within the period prescribed by law
is mandatory. Failure to conform to the rules regarding appeal will render the
judgment final and executory and beyond the power of the Court’s review.
Jurisprudence mandates that when a decision becomes final and executory, it
becomes valid and binding upon the parties and their successors-in-interest. Such
decision or order can no loner be disturbed or re-opened no matter how erroneous it
may have been.
This notwithstanding, on petition before the CA, the appellate court reviewed the
case and disposed of it on the merits, not on pure technicality.
To accentuate the abject poverty of petitioner’s arguments, we discuss hereunder

the issues she raised.
Petitioner faults the CSC’s finding because it was based solely on her uncounselled
admission taken during the investigation by the CSCRO IV. She claims that her right
to due process was violated because she was not afforded the right to counsel when
her statement was taken.
It is true that the CSCRO IV, the CSC, and the CA gave credence to petitioner’s
uncounselled statements and, partly on the basis thereof, uniformly found petitioner
liable for the charge of dishonesty, grave misconduct, and falsification of official
document.151avvphi1
However, it must be remembered that the right to counsel under Section 12 of the
Bill of Rights is meant to protect a suspect during custodial investigation. 16 Thus, the
exclusionary rule under paragraph (2), Section 12 of the Bill of Rights applies only to
admissions made in a criminal investigation but not to those made in an
administrative investigation.17
While investigations conducted by an administrative body may at times be akin to a

criminal proceeding, the fact remains that, under existing laws, a party in an
administrative inquiry may or may not be assisted by counsel, irrespective of the
nature of the charges and of petitioner’s capacity to represent herself, and no duty
rests on such body to furnish the person being investigated with counsel. 18 The right
to counsel is not always imperative in administrative investigations because such
inquiries are conducted merely to determine whether there are facts that merit the
imposition of disciplinary measures against erring public officers and employees,
with the purpose of maintaining the dignity of government service. 19
As such, the admissions made by petitioner during the investigation may be used as
evidence to justify her dismissal. 20 We have carefully scrutinized the records of the
case below and we find no compelling reason to deviate from the findings of the
CSC and the CA. The written admission of petitioner is replete with details that
could have been known only to her. 21 Besides, petitioner’s written statement was
not the only basis of her dismissal from the service. Records show that the CSCRO
IV’s conclusion was reached after consideration of all the documentary and
testimonial evidence submitted by the parties during the formal investigation.
Now, on petitioner’s liability and penalty.
It has been established that petitioner accepted Navarro’s proposal for the latter to
obtain for petitioner a Career Service Professional Eligibility by merely
accomplishing an application form and in consideration of the amount of
₱10,000.00. Petitioner thus accomplished an application form to take the CATS
Career Service Professional Examination and gave Navarro ₱5,000.00 as down
payment. Upon receipt of the original copy of the certificate of rating from Navarro,
petitioner gave the latter the remaining ₱5,000.00. Petitioner, however, misplaced
the certificate of rating that prompted her to secure another copy from the CSCRO
IV. The CSCRO IV noticed that petitioner’s personal and physical appearance was
entirely different from the picture of the examinee attached to the application form
and the picture seat plan. It was also discovered that the signature affixed on the
same application form was different from that appearing on the verification slip.
Clearly, petitioner falsely represented that she took the civil service examination
when in fact someone else took the examination for her.
CSC Memorandum Circular No. 15, series of 1991, provides:
An act which includes the procurement and/or use of fake/spurious civil service
eligibility, the giving of assistance to ensure the commission or procurement of the
same, cheating, collusion, impersonation, or any other anomalous act which
amounts to any violation of the Civil Service examination, has been categorized as a
grave offense of Dishonesty, Grave Misconduct or Conduct Prejudicial to the Best
Interest of the Service.22
It must be stressed that dishonesty is a serious offense, which reflects on the

person’s character and exposes the moral decay which virtually destroys his honor,
virtue, and integrity. Its immense debilitating effect on the government service
cannot be overemphasized.23 If a government officer or employee is dishonest or is
guilty of oppression or grave misconduct, even if said defects of character are not
connected with his office, they affect his right to continue in office. The government
cannot tolerate in its service a dishonest official, even if he performs his duties
correctly and well, because by reason of his government position, he is given more
and ample opportunity to commit acts of dishonesty against his fellow men, even
against offices and entities of the government other than the office where he is
employed; and by reason of his office, he enjoys and possesses a certain influence
and power which renders the victims of his grave misconduct, oppression, and
dishonesty less disposed and prepared to resist and to counteract his evil acts and
actuations.24
Under the Civil Service Rules, dishonesty is a grave offense punishable by dismissal
which carries the accessory penalties of cancellation of eligibility, forfeiture of
retirement benefits (except leave credits), and disqualification from reemployment
in the government service.25
In Civil Service Commission v. Dasco, 26 Bartolata v. Julaton,27 and Civil Service

Commission v. Sta. Ana,28 we found the respondents-employees therein guilty of
dishonesty when they misrepresented that they took the Civil Service Examination
when in fact someone else took the examination for them. Because of such
dishonesty, the employees were dismissed from government service.
We find no reason to deviate from these previous rulings.
WHEREFORE, premises considered, the petition is DENIED for lack of merit. The
Court of Appeals Decision dated November 24, 2008 and Resolution dated April 29,
2009 in CA-G.R. SP No. 101599 are AFFIRMED.
SO ORDERED.
ANTONIO EDUARDO B. NACHURA

Associate Justice
WE CONCUR:
RENATO C. CORONA
Chief Justice
ANTONIO T. CARPIO CONCHITA CARPIO MORALES

Associate Justice Associate Justice
TERESITA J. LEONARDO-DE
PRESBITERO J. VELASCO, JR.
CASTRO
Associate Justice
Associate Justice
(on official leave)

DIOSDADO M. PERALTA
ARTURO D. BRION*
Associate Justice
Associate Justice
LUCAS P. BERSAMIN ROBERTO A. ABAD

MARIANO C. DEL CASTILLO MARTIN S. VILLARAMA, JR.

JOSE PORTUGAL PEREZ JOSE CATRAL MENDOZA

MARIA LOURDES P. A. SERENO

Associate Justice
CERTIFICATION
Pursuant to Section 13, Article VIII of the Constitution, I hereby certify that the
conclusions in the above Decision had been reached in consultation before the case
was assigned to the writer of the opinion of the Court.
RENATO C. CORONA
Chief Justice
G.R. No. L-46496 February 27, 1940
ANG TIBAY, represented by TORIBIO TEODORO, manager and propietor,

and
NATIONAL WORKERS BROTHERHOOD, petitioners,
vs.
THE COURT OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS and NATIONAL LABOR UNION,
INC., respondents.
Office of the Solicitor-General Ozaeta and Assistant Attorney Barcelona for the
Court of Industrial Relations.
Antonio D. Paguia for National Labor Unon.
Claro M. Recto for petitioner "Ang Tibay".
Jose M. Casal for National Workers' Brotherhood.
LAUREL, J.:
The Solicitor-General in behalf of the respondent Court of Industrial Relations in the

above-entitled case has filed a motion for reconsideration and moves that, for the
reasons stated in his motion, we reconsider the following legal conclusions of the
majority opinion of this Court:
1. Que un contrato de trabajo, asi individual como colectivo, sin termino fijo
de duracion o que no sea para una determinada, termina o bien por voluntad
de cualquiera de las partes o cada vez que ilega el plazo fijado para el pago
de los salarios segun costumbre en la localidad o cunado se termine la obra;
2. Que los obreros de una empresa fabril, que han celebrado contrato, ya
individual ya colectivamente, con ell, sin tiempo fijo, y que se han visto
obligados a cesar en sus tarbajos por haberse declarando paro forzoso en la
fabrica en la cual tarbajan, dejan de ser empleados u obreros de la misma;
3. Que un patrono o sociedad que ha celebrado un contrato colectivo de

trabajo con sus osbreros sin tiempo fijo de duracion y sin ser para una obra
determiminada y que se niega a readmitir a dichos obreros que cesaron
como consecuencia de un paro forzoso, no es culpable de practica injusta in
incurre en la sancion penal del articulo 5 de la Ley No. 213 del
Commonwealth, aunque su negativa a readmitir se deba a que dichos
obreros pertenecen a un determinado organismo obrero, puesto que tales ya
han dejado deser empleados suyos por terminacion del contrato en virtud del
paro.
The respondent National Labor Union, Inc., on the other hand, prays for the vacation
of the judgement rendered by the majority of this Court and the remanding of the
case to the Court of Industrial Relations for a new trial, and avers:
1. That Toribio Teodoro's claim that on September 26, 1938, there was
shortage of leather soles in ANG TIBAY making it necessary for him to
temporarily lay off the members of the National Labor Union Inc., is entirely
false and unsupported by the records of the Bureau of Customs and the
Books of Accounts of native dealers in leather.
2. That the supposed lack of leather materials claimed by Toribio Teodoro

was but a scheme to systematically prevent the forfeiture of this bond
despite the breach of his CONTRACT with the Philippine Army.
3. That Toribio Teodoro's letter to the Philippine Army dated September 29,
1938, (re supposed delay of leather soles from the States) was but a scheme
to systematically prevent the forfeiture of this bond despite the breach of his
CONTRACT with the Philippine Army.
4. That the National Worker's Brotherhood of ANG TIBAY is a company or

employer union dominated by Toribio Teodoro, the existence and functions of
which are illegal. (281 U.S., 548, petitioner's printed memorandum, p. 25.)
5. That in the exercise by the laborers of their rights to collective bargaining,

majority rule and elective representation are highly essential and
indispensable. (Sections 2 and 5, Commonwealth Act No. 213.)
6. That the century provisions of the Civil Code which had been (the) principal
source of dissensions and continuous civil war in Spain cannot and should not
be made applicable in interpreting and applying the salutary provisions of a
modern labor legislation of American origin where the industrial peace has
always been the rule.
7. That the employer Toribio Teodoro was guilty of unfair labor practice for
discriminating against the National Labor Union, Inc., and unjustly favoring
the National Workers' Brotherhood.
8. That the exhibits hereto attached are so inaccessible to the respondents

that even with the exercise of due diligence they could not be expected to
have obtained them and offered as evidence in the Court of Industrial
Relations.
9. That the attached documents and exhibits are of such far-reaching

importance and effect that their admission would necessarily mean the
modification and reversal of the judgment rendered herein.
The petitioner, Ang Tibay, has filed an opposition both to the motion for
reconsideration of the respondent National Labor Union, Inc.
In view of the conclusion reached by us and to be herein after stead with reference
to the motion for a new trial of the respondent National Labor Union, Inc., we are of
the opinion that it is not necessary to pass upon the motion for reconsideration of
the Solicitor-General. We shall proceed to dispose of the motion for new trial of the
respondent labor union. Before doing this, however, we deem it necessary, in the
interest of orderly procedure in cases of this nature, in interest of orderly procedure
in cases of this nature, to make several observations regarding the nature of the
powers of the Court of Industrial Relations and emphasize certain guiding principles
which should be observed in the trial of cases brought before it. We have re-
examined the entire record of the proceedings had before the Court of Industrial
Relations in this case, and we have found no substantial evidence that the exclusion
of the 89 laborers here was due to their union affiliation or activity. The whole
transcript taken contains what transpired during the hearing and is more of a record
of contradictory and conflicting statements of opposing counsel, with sporadic
conclusion drawn to suit their own views. It is evident that these statements and
expressions of views of counsel have no evidentiary value.
The Court of Industrial Relations is a special court whose functions are specifically
stated in the law of its creation (Commonwealth Act No. 103). It is more an
administrative than a part of the integrated judicial system of the nation. It is not
intended to be a mere receptive organ of the Government. Unlike a court of justice
which is essentially passive, acting only when its jurisdiction is invoked and deciding
only cases that are presented to it by the parties litigant, the function of the Court
of Industrial Relations, as will appear from perusal of its organic law, is more active,
affirmative and dynamic. It not only exercises judicial or quasi-judicial functions in
the determination of disputes between employers and employees but its functions
in the determination of disputes between employers and employees but its
functions are far more comprehensive and expensive. It has jurisdiction over the
entire Philippines, to consider, investigate, decide, and settle any question, matter
controversy or dispute arising between, and/or affecting employers and employees
or laborers, and regulate the relations between them, subject to, and in accordance
with, the provisions of Commonwealth Act No. 103 (section 1). It shall take
cognizance or purposes of prevention, arbitration, decision and settlement, of any
industrial or agricultural dispute causing or likely to cause a strike or lockout, arising
from differences as regards wages, shares or compensation, hours of labor or
conditions of tenancy or employment, between landlords and tenants or farm-
laborers, provided that the number of employees, laborers or tenants of farm-
laborers involved exceeds thirty, and such industrial or agricultural dispute is
submitted to the Court by the Secretary of Labor or by any or both of the parties to
the controversy and certified by the Secretary of labor as existing and proper to be
by the Secretary of Labor as existing and proper to be dealth with by the Court for
the sake of public interest. (Section 4, ibid.) It shall, before hearing the dispute and
in the course of such hearing, endeavor to reconcile the parties and induce them to
settle the dispute by amicable agreement. (Paragraph 2, section 4, ibid.) When
directed by the President of the Philippines, it shall investigate and study all
industries established in a designated locality, with a view to determinating the
necessity and fairness of fixing and adopting for such industry or locality a minimum
wage or share of laborers or tenants, or a maximum "canon" or rental to be paid by
the "inquilinos" or tenants or less to landowners. (Section 5, ibid.) In fine, it may
appeal to voluntary arbitration in the settlement of industrial disputes; may employ
mediation or conciliation for that purpose, or recur to the more effective system of
official investigation and compulsory arbitration in order to determine specific
controversies between labor and capital industry and in agriculture. There is in
reality here a mingling of executive and judicial functions, which is a departure from
the rigid doctrine of the separation of governmental powers.
In the case of Goseco vs. Court of Industrial Relations et al., G.R. No. 46673,
promulgated September 13, 1939, we had occasion to joint out that the Court of
Industrial Relations et al., G. R. No. 46673, promulgated September 13, 1939, we
had occasion to point out that the Court of Industrial Relations is not narrowly
constrained by technical rules of procedure, and the Act requires it to "act according
to justice and equity and substantial merits of the case, without regard to
technicalities or legal forms and shall not be bound by any technicalities or legal
forms and shall not be bound by any technical rules of legal evidence but may
inform its mind in such manner as it may deem just and equitable." (Section 20,
Commonwealth Act No. 103.) It shall not be restricted to the specific relief claimed
or demands made by the parties to the industrial or agricultural dispute, but may
include in the award, order or decision any matter or determination which may be
deemed necessary or expedient for the purpose of settling the dispute or of
preventing further industrial or agricultural disputes. (section 13, ibid.) And in the
light of this legislative policy, appeals to this Court have been especially regulated
by the rules recently promulgated by the rules recently promulgated by this Court
to carry into the effect the avowed legislative purpose. The fact, however, that the
Court of Industrial Relations may be said to be free from the rigidity of certain
procedural requirements does not mean that it can, in justifiable cases before it,
entirely ignore or disregard the fundamental and essential requirements of due
process in trials and investigations of an administrative character. There are
primary rights which must be respected even in proceedings of this character:
(1) The first of these rights is the right to a hearing, which includes the right
of the party interested or affected to present his own case and submit
evidence in support thereof. In the language of Chief Hughes, in Morgan v.
U.S., 304 U.S. 1, 58 S. Ct. 773, 999, 82 Law. ed. 1129, "the liberty and
property of the citizen shall be protected by the rudimentary requirements of
fair play.
(2) Not only must the party be given an opportunity to present his case and
to adduce evidence tending to establish the rights which he asserts but the
tribunal must consider the evidence presented. (Chief Justice Hughes in
Morgan v. U.S. 298 U.S. 468, 56 S. Ct. 906, 80 law. ed. 1288.) In the language
of this court in Edwards vs. McCoy, 22 Phil., 598, "the right to adduce
evidence, without the corresponding duty on the part of the board to consider
it, is vain. Such right is conspicuously futile if the person or persons to whom
the evidence is presented can thrust it aside without notice or consideration."
(3) "While the duty to deliberate does not impose the obligation to decide
right, it does imply a necessity which cannot be disregarded, namely, that of
having something to support it is a nullity, a place when directly attached."
(Edwards vs. McCoy, supra.) This principle emanates from the more
fundamental is contrary to the vesting of unlimited power anywhere. Law is
both a grant and a limitation upon power.
(4) Not only must there be some evidence to support a finding or conclusion
(City of Manila vs. Agustin, G.R. No. 45844, promulgated November 29, 1937,
XXXVI O. G. 1335), but the evidence must be "substantial." (Washington,
Virginia and Maryland Coach Co. v. national labor Relations Board, 301 U.S.
142, 147, 57 S. Ct. 648, 650, 81 Law. ed. 965.) It means such relevant
evidence as a reasonable mind accept as adequate to support a conclusion."
(Appalachian Electric Power v. National Labor Relations Board, 4 Cir., 93 F. 2d
985, 989; National Labor Relations Board v. Thompson Products, 6 Cir., 97 F.
2d 13, 15; Ballston-Stillwater Knitting Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 2
Cir., 98 F. 2d 758, 760.) . . . The statute provides that "the rules of evidence
prevailing in courts of law and equity shall not be controlling.' The obvious
purpose of this and similar provisions is to free administrative boards from
the compulsion of technical rules so that the mere admission of matter which
would be deemed incompetent inn judicial proceedings would not invalidate
the administrative order. (Interstate Commerce Commission v. Baird, 194
U.S. 25, 44, 24 S. Ct. 563, 568, 48 Law. ed. 860; Interstate Commerce
Commission v. Louisville and Nashville R. Co., 227 U.S. 88, 93 33 S. Ct. 185,
187, 57 Law. ed. 431; United States v. Abilene and Southern Ry. Co. S. Ct.
220, 225, 74 Law. ed. 624.) But this assurance of a desirable flexibility in
administrative procedure does not go far as to justify orders without a basis
in evidence having rational probative force. Mere uncorroborated hearsay or
rumor does not constitute substantial evidence. (Consolidated Edison Co. v.
National Labor Relations Board, 59 S. Ct. 206, 83 Law. ed. No. 4, Adv. Op., p.
131.)"
(5) The decision must be rendered on the evidence presented at the hearing,
or at least contained in the record and disclosed to the parties affected.
(Interstate Commence Commission vs. L. & N. R. Co., 227 U.S. 88, 33 S. Ct.
185, 57 Law. ed. 431.) Only by confining the administrative tribunal to the
evidence disclosed to the parties, can the latter be protected in their right to
know and meet the case against them. It should not, however, detract from
their duty actively to see that the law is enforced, and for that purpose, to
use the authorized legal methods of securing evidence and informing itself of
facts material and relevant to the controversy. Boards of inquiry may be
appointed for the purpose of investigating and determining the facts in any
given case, but their report and decision are only advisory. (Section 9,
Commonwealth Act No. 103.) The Court of Industrial Relations may refer any
industrial or agricultural dispute or any matter under its consideration or
advisement to a local board of inquiry, a provincial fiscal. a justice of the
peace or any public official in any part of the Philippines for investigation,
report and recommendation, and may delegate to such board or public
official such powers and functions as the said Court of Industrial Relations
may deem necessary, but such delegation shall not affect the exercise of the
Court itself of any of its powers. (Section 10, ibid.)
(6) The Court of Industrial Relations or any of its judges, therefore, must act
on its or his own independent consideration of the law and facts of the
controversy, and not simply accept the views of a subordinate in arriving at a
decision. It may be that the volume of work is such that it is literally Relations
personally to decide all controversies coming before them. In the United
States the difficulty is solved with the enactment of statutory authority
authorizing examiners or other subordinates to render final decision, with the
right to appeal to board or commission, but in our case there is no such
statutory authority.
(7) The Court of Industrial Relations should, in all controversial questions,

render its decision in such a manner that the parties to the proceeding can
know the various issues involved, and the reasons for the decision rendered.
The performance of this duty is inseparable from the authority conferred
upon it.
In the right of the foregoing fundamental principles, it is sufficient to observe here

that, except as to the alleged agreement between the Ang Tibay and the National
Worker's Brotherhood (appendix A), the record is barren and does not satisfy the
thirst for a factual basis upon which to predicate, in a national way, a conclusion of
law.
This result, however, does not now preclude the concession of a new trial prayed for
the by respondent National Labor Union, Inc., it is alleged that "the supposed lack of
material claimed by Toribio Teodoro was but a scheme adopted to systematically
discharged all the members of the National Labor Union Inc., from work" and this
avernment is desired to be proved by the petitioner with the "records of the Bureau
of Customs and the Books of Accounts of native dealers in leather"; that "the
National Workers Brotherhood Union of Ang Tibay is a company or employer union
dominated by Toribio Teodoro, the existence and functions of which are illegal."
Petitioner further alleges under oath that the exhibits attached to the petition to
prove his substantial avernments" are so inaccessible to the respondents that even
within the exercise of due diligence they could not be expected to have obtained
them and offered as evidence in the Court of Industrial Relations", and that the
documents attached to the petition "are of such far reaching importance and effect
that their admission would necessarily mean the modification and reversal of the
judgment rendered herein." We have considered the reply of Ang Tibay and its
arguments against the petition. By and large, after considerable discussions, we
have come to the conclusion that the interest of justice would be better served if
the movant is given opportunity to present at the hearing the documents referred
to in his motion and such other evidence as may be relevant to the main issue
involved. The legislation which created the Court of Industrial Relations and under
which it acts is new. The failure to grasp the fundamental issue involved is not
entirely attributable to the parties adversely affected by the result. Accordingly, the
motion for a new trial should be and the same is hereby granted, and the entire
record of this case shall be remanded to the Court of Industrial Relations, with
instruction that it reopen the case, receive all such evidence as may be relevant
and otherwise proceed in accordance with the requirements set forth hereinabove.
So ordered.
Avanceña, C. J., Villa-Real, Imperial, Diaz, Concepcion and Moran, JJ., concur.
G.R. No. L-29064 April 29, 1971
AIR MANILA, INC., petitioner,

vs.
HON. MARCELO S. BALATBAT, DIRECTOR NILO DE GUIA, DR. GREGORIO Y.
ZARA, and COL. JUAN B. GUEVARRA as members of the CIVIL AERONAUTICS
BOARD and PHILIPPINE AIR LINES, INC., respondents.
Bautista Angelo, Antonio, Lopez and Associates and Santos, Buted and Associates
for petitioner.
Crispin D. Baizas and Cenon Cervantes, Jr. for respondent Philippine Air Lines, Inc.
Office of the Solicitor General Antonio P. Barredo and Solicitor Bernardo P. Pardo for
respondent Civil Aeronautics Board.
REYES, J.B.L., J.:
This is a petition for certiorari filed by Air Manila, Inc., to determine the validity of
Resolution No. 139 (68) of the Civil Aeronautics Board in CAB Case No. 1414,
allegedly issued without or in excess of jurisdiction.
There is no dispute as to the facts of this case.
On 1 April 1968, the Philippine Air Lines, hereafter referred to as PAL, petitioned the
Civil Aeronautics Board, referred to hereafter as the Board, for approval of a
proposed schedule introducing seven nights - F515/516, F555/556, F561/562,
F531/532, F591/338, F527/528, and F211/212 - and the adjustment of the flight
schedule that may thus be affected (CAB Case No. 1414). On 15 April 1968, action
on the petition was deferred for further study.
On 22 April 1968, the Board passed Resolution No. 109 (68), referring PAL's petition
to a hearing examiner for economic justification. Accordingly, the designated
hearing officer set the initial hearing thereof for 30 April 1968.
On 29 April 1968, PAL moved for reconsideration of Resolution No. 109 (68). By
resolution of 6 May 1968, the Board deferred action on this later motion, until PAL
shall have resumed its DC-3 services in certain airports named therein.
On 9 May 1968, PAL filed another motion, this time for reconsideration of the Board
resolution of 6 May 1968, on the ground that the new flights which it was proposing
to operate in Case No. EP-1414 will be serviced by jet-prop or pure jet equipment
only, thus, the order for resumption of DC-3 services in said resolution was improper
and should be deleted. In its Resolution No. 131 (68) of 20 May 1968, the Board
deferred action on this motion for reconsideration.
It appears, however, that on 15 May 1968, PAL filed an Urgent Petition for approval
of a consolidated schedule of jet and jet prop flights, with an interim DC-3 schedule
to different secondary and feeder points (DTS-35). On 28 May 1968, the Board
issued its Resolution No. 139 (68), approving DTS-35 for a period of 30 days,
effective 1 June 1968, subject to the conditions that (a) the flight between Manila
and San Fernando, La Union, F210/211 of the same timetable, be operated daily
instead of twice a week as proposed and (b) that all schedules under DTS-35, for
which no previous approval has been granted by the Board, are to be referred to a
hearing examiner for reception of evidence on its economic justification. After the
examiner's report, several of the proposed flights were approved for 30 days from
31 July 1968.
On 31 May 1968, Air Manila, Inc., filed the instant petition claiming that the
respondent Board acted without or in excess of jurisdiction and/or with abuse of
discretion in issuing its Resolution No. 139 (68). It is petitioner's allegation that the
proposed new schedule, involving an increase of frequencies, would not only
saturate the routes served also by petitioner, but would also affect its schedule; that
the Board's approval of said Domestic Traffic Schedule without receiving the
evidence of the parties constituted a deprivation of petitioner's right to be heard;
and that such authorization to PAL to operate the proposed schedule without
economic justification amounted to a capricious and whimsical exercise by the
Board of its power amounting to lack of jurisdiction.
There is no merit to the contention of petitioner. It has been correctly said that
administrative proceedings are not exempt from the operation of certain basic and
fundamental procedural principles, such as the due process requirements in
investigations and trials.1 And this administrative due process is recognized to
include (a) the right to notice, be it actual or constructive, of the institution of the
proceedings that may affect a person's legal rights; (b) reasonable opportunity to
appear and defend his rights, introduce witnesses and relevant evidence in his
favor, (c) a tribunal so constituted as to give him reasonable assurance of honesty
and impartiality, and one of competent Jurisdiction; and (4) a finding or decision by
that tribunal supported by substantial evidence presented at the hearing, or at least
contained in the records or disclosed to the parties affected. 2
In the present case, it can not truthfully be said that the provisional approval by the
Board of PAL's proposed DTS-35 violates the requisites of administrative due
process. Admittedly, after PAL's proposal to introduce new Mercury night flights (in
CAB Case No. EP-1414) had been referred to a hearing examiner for economic
justification, PAL submitted a so-called consolidated schedule of flights, DTS-35, that
included the same Mercury night flights involved in Case EP-1414, and this was
allowed by Board Resolution No. 139 (68). According to respondents, however, the
Board's action was impelled by the circumstance that at the time, the
authorizations of certain flight schedules previously allowed but were incorporated
in DTS-35 were about to expire; thus, the consolidated schedule had to be approved
temporarily if the operations of the flights referred to were not to be suspended. In
short, the temporary y permit was issued to prevent the stoppage or cessation of
services in the affected areas. This point petitioner has failed to refute.
Neither can the provisional authorization of DTS-35 be said to have done away with
the requisite hearing and investigation of the new flight schedules and,
consequently, to have deprived the petitioner of its right to be heard. Note that in
allowing the operation or effectivity of PAL's consolidated flight schedule, it was
precisely prescribed that "all schedules under the DTS-35 for which no previous
approval has been granted by the Board, are hereby referred to a hearing examiner
for reception of evidence on its economic justification." 3 It has not been denied that
such hearings were actually conducted by the hearing examiner and a report on the
result thereof was submitted to the Board. And the Board, considering the report of
the hearing examiner, passed Resolution No. 190 (68) 4 approving, for a period of 30
days starting 31 July 1968, only three or four frequencies of the seven proposed
new flights (F338, F591, F531/532, F555/556, F527/528, F561/562, and F515/516).
There is no proof, not even allegation, that in all those bearings petitioner was not
notified or given opportunity to adduce evidence in support of its opposition.
It may be true that the temporary approval of DTS-35 resulted in the immediate
operation of the opposed flights before the existence of economic justification
therefor has been finally determined. But this fact alone would not work against the
validity of the provisional authorization thus issued. For, under the law, the Civil
Aeronautics Board is not only empowered to grant certificates of public convenience
and necessity; it can also issue, deny, revise, alter, modify, cancel, suspend or
revoke, in whole or in part, any temporary operating permit, upon petition or
complaint of another or even at its own initiative. 5 The exercise of the power, of
course, is supposed to be conditioned upon the paramount consideration of public
convenience and necessity, and nothing has been presented in this case to prove
that the disputed action by the Board has been prompted by a cause other than the
good of the service.
It may be also pointed out that the new schedule objected to by petitioner will affect
its services in six routes in the following manner:
(a) Route — MANILA-MACTAN-MANILA

F515/516 — Seven (7) additional flights a week
and vice-versa; schedule is timed just ahead of Air
Manila's schedule.
(b) Route — MANILA-DAVAO-MANILA

and vice-versa; schedule is timed just ahead of Air
Manilas
schedule.
(c) Route — MANILA-BACOLOD-MANILA

and vice-versa; timed just ahead of Air Manila's
schedule.
(d) Route — MACTAN-TACLOBAN-MACTAN

and vice-versa.
(e) Route — TACLOBAN-MACTAN-TACLOBAN

F391/392 — Flight schedule revised as to make it
just ahead of Air Manila's schedule.
(f) Route — MACTAN-DAVAO-MACTAN

F579/580 — PAL's old schedule revised to adverse-
ly affect Air Manila's schedule in this route.
Respondents disclosed, however, and this has not been denied by petitioner, that
the schedule of flights provisionally approved in Resolution No. 139(68) was
subsequently readjusted by the Board in order to conform with its established policy
on separation time between flights.6 While the aforementioned readjustment of the
schedule was secured by the Filipinas Orient Airways and, therefore, may not
particularly improve petitioner's situation, the resolution indicated that relief can
still be obtained from the Board, thus precluding resort at once to the relief afforded
by a certiorari proceeding in this
Tribunal.7 Likewise, the records show that by Resolution No. 190 (68) in the same
Case No. EP-1414, the Board allowed only three or four frequencies of the proposed
seven new flights, such authorization terminating after 30 days from 31 July 1968.
It is evident from the foregoing facts that not only has the resolution subject of the
present petition been modified, but its effectivity had been fixed up to 30
September 1968. There being no proof that the situation existing when Resolution
No. 139 (68) was issued still persists, the issue herein presented apparently has
become moot and academic.
FOR THE FOREGOING CONSIDERATIONS, the petition in this case is hereby

dismissed, with costs against the petitioner.
Concepcion, C.J., Dizon, Makalintal, Zaldivar, Castro, Fernando, Teehankee, Barredo,

Villamor and
Makasiar, JJ., concur.

G.R. No. L-68288 July 11, 1986
DIOSDADO GUZMAN, ULYSSES URBIZTONDO, and ARIEL

RAMACULA, petitioners,
vs.
NATIONAL UNIVERSITY and DOMINGO L. JHOCSON in his capacity as
President of National University, respondents.
Efren H. Mercado and Haydee Yorac for petitioners.
Samson S. Alcantara for respondents.
NARVASA, J.:
Petitioners Diosdado Guzman, Ulysses Urbiztondo and Ariel Ramacula, students of

respondent National University, have come to this Court to seek relief from what
they describe as their school's "continued and persistent refusal to allow them to
enrol." In their petition "for extraordinary legal and equitable remedies with prayer
for preliminary mandatory injunction" dated August 7, 1984, they allege:
1) that respondent University's avowed reason for its refusal to re-

enroll them in their respective courses is "the latter's participation in
peaceful mass actions within the premises of the University.
2) that this "attitude of the (University) is simply a continuation of its

cavalier if not hostile attitude to the student's exercise of their basic
constitutional and human rights already recorded in Rockie C. San Juan
vs. National University, S.C. G.R. No. 65443 (1983) and its utter
contempt for the principle of due process of law to the prejudice of
petitioners;" and
3) that "in effect petitioners are subjected to the extreme penalty of

expulsion without cause or if there be any, without being informed of
such cause and without being afforded the opportunity to defend
themselves. Berina v. Philippine Maritime Institute (117 SCRA 581
[1983]).
In the comment filed on September 24, 1986 for respondent University and its
President pursuant to this Court's requirement therefor 1 , respondents make the
claim:
1) that "petitioners' failure to enroll for the first semester of the school year 1984-
1985 is due to their own fault and not because of their allegedexercise of their
constitutional and human rights;"
2) that petitioner Urbiztondo, sought to re-enroll only on July 5, 1986 "when the
enrollment period was already closed;"
3) that as regards petitioner Guzman, his "academic showing" was "poor", "due to
his activities in leading boycotts of classes"; that when his father was notified of this
development sometime in August, 1982, the latter had demanded that his son
"reform or else we will recall him to the province"; that Guzman was one of the
petitioners in G.R. No. 65443 entitled "Rockie San Juan, et al. vs. National
University, et al.," at the hearing of which on November 23, 1983 this Court had
admonished "the students involved (to) take advantage and make the most of the
opportunity given to them to study;" that Guzman "however continued to lead or
actively participate in activities within the university premises, conducted without
prior permit from school authorities, that disturbed or disrupted classes therein;"
that moreover, Guzman "is facing criminal charges for malicious mischief before the
Metropolitan Trial Court of Manila (Crim. Case No. 066446) in connection with the
destruction of properties of respondent University on September 12, 1983 ", and "is
also one of the defendants in Civil Case No. 8320483 of the Regional Trial Court of
Manila entitled 'National University, Inc. vs. Rockie San Juan et al.' for damages
arising from destruction of university properties
4) that as regards petitioner Ramacula, like Guzman "he continued to lead or

actively participate, contrary to the spirit of the Resolution dated November 23,
1983 of this ... Court (in G.R. No. 65443 in which he was also one of the petitioners)
and to university rules and regulations, within university premises but without
permit from university officials in activities that disturbed or disrupted classes;" and
5) that petitioners have "failures in their records, (and) are not of good scholastic
standing. "
Respondents close their comment with the following assertions, to wit:
1) By their actuations, petitioners must be deemed to have forfeited their privilege,

if any, to seek enrollment in respondent university. The rights of respondent
university, as an institution of higher learning, must also be respected. It is also
beyond comprehension why petitioners, who continually despise and villify
respondent university and its officials and faculty members, should persist in
seeking enrollment in an institution that they hate.
2) Under the circumstances, and without regard to legal technicalities, it is not to

the best interest of all concerned that petitioners be allowed to enroll in respondent
university.
3) In any event, petitioners' enrollment being on the semestral basis, respondents

cannot be compelled to enroll them after the end of the semester.
On October 2, 1984 this Court issued a resolution reading as follows:
... Acting on the Comment submitted by respondent, the Court

Resolved to NOTE the same and to require a REPLY to such Comment.
The Court further Resolved to ISSUE a MANDATORY INJUNCTION,
enjoining respondent to allow the enrolment of petitioners for the
coming semester without prejudice to any disciplinary proceeding to
which any or all of them may be subjected with their right to lawful
defense recognized and respected. As regards petitioner Diosdado
Guzman, even if it be a fact that there is a pending criminal charge
against him for malicious mischief, the Court nonetheless is of the
opinion that, as above-noted, without prejudice to the continuation of
any disciplinary proceeding against him, that he be allowed to resume
his studies in the meanwhile. As shown in Annex 2 of the petition itself,
Mr. Juan P. Guzman, father of said petitioner, is extending full
cooperation with petitioners to assure that whatever protest or
grievance petitioner Guzman may have would be ventilated in a lawful
and peaceful manner.
Petitioners' REPLY inter alia—
1) denied that Urbiztondo attempted to enroll only on July 5, 1984 (when enrollment
was already closed), it being alleged that "while he did try to enroll that day, he also
attempted to do so several times before that date, all to no avail, because
respondents ... persistently refused to allow him to do so" respondents' ostensible
reason being that Urbiztondo (had) participated in mass actions ... within the school
premises," although there were no existing disciplinary charge against petitioner
Urbiztondo" at the time;
2) asserted that "neither the text nor the context of the resolution 2 justifies the
conclusion that "petitioners' right to exercise their constitutional freedoms" had
thereby been restricted or limited; and
3) alleged that "the holding of activities (mass action) in the school premises
without the permission of the school ... can be explained by the fact that the
respondents persistently refused to issue such permit repeatedly sought by the
students. "
On November 23, 1984, this Court promulgated another resolution, this time
reading as follows:
... The Court, after considering the pleadings filed and deliberating on
the issues raised in the petition for extraordinary legal and equitable
remedies with prayer for preliminary mandatory injunction as well as
the respondents' comment on the petition and the reply of counsel for
petitioners to the respondents' comment, Resolved to (a) give DUE
COURSE to the petition; (b) consider the respondents' comment as
ANSWER to the petition; and (c) require the parties to file their
respective MEMORANDA within twenty (20) days from notice. ... .
Immediately apparent from a reading of respondents' comment and memorandum

is the fact that they had never conducted proceedings of any sort to determine
whether or not petitioners-students had indeed led or participated "in activities
within the university premises, conducted without prior permit from school
authorities, that disturbed or disrupted classes therein" 3 or perpetrated acts of
"vandalism, coercion and intimidation, slander, noise barrage and other acts
showing disdain for and defiance of University authority." 4 Parenthetically, the
pendency of a civil case for damages and a criminal case for malicious mischief
against petitioner Guzman, cannot, without more, furnish sufficient warrant for his
expulsion or debarment from re-enrollment. Also apparent is the omission of
respondents to cite this Court to any duly published rule of theirs by which students
may be expelled or refused re-enrollment for poor scholastic standing.
Under the Education Act of 1982, 5 the petitioners, as students, have the right
among others "to freely choose their field of study subject to existing curricula and
to continue their course therein up to graduation, except in case of academic
deficiency, or violation of disciplinary regulations." 6 Petitioners were being denied
this right, or being disciplined, without due process, in violation of the admonition in
the Manual of Regulations for Private Schools 7 that "(n)o penalty shall be imposed
upon any student except for cause as defined in ... (the) Manual and/or in the school
rules and regulations as duly promulgated and only after due investigation shall
have been conducted." 8 This Court is therefore constrained, as in Berina v.
Philippine Maritime Institute, 9 to declare illegal this act of respondents of imposing
sanctions on students without due investigation.
Educational institutions of course have the power to "adopt and enforce such rules
as may be deemed expedient for ... (its) government, ... (this being)" incident to the
very object of incorporation, and indispensable to the successful management of
the college." 10 The rules may include those governing student discipline. Indeed,
the maintenance of "good school discipline" is a duty specifically enjoined on "every
private school" by the Manual of Regulations for Private Schools; 11 and in this
connection, the Manual further provides that-
... The school rules governing discipline and the corresponding

sanctions therefor must be clearly specified and defined in writing and
made known to the students and/or their parents or guardians. Schools
shall have the authority and prerogative to promulgate such rules and
regulations as they may deem necessary from time to time effective as
of the date of their promulgation unless otherwise specified. 12
But, to repeat, the imposition of disciplinary sanctions requires observance of

procedural due process. And it bears stressing that due process in disciplinary cases
involving students does not entail proceedings and hearings similar to those
prescribed for actions and proceedings in courts of justice. The proceedings in
student discipline cases may be summary; and cross-examination is not, 'contrary
to petitioners' view, an essential part thereof. There are withal minimum standards
which must be met to satisfy the demands of procedural due process; and these
are, that (1) the students must be informed in writing of the nature and cause of
any accusation against them; (2) they shag have the right to answer the charges
against them, with the assistance of counsel, if desired; (3) they shall be informed
of the evidence against them; (4) they shall have the right to adduce evidence in
their own behalf; and (5) the evidence must be duly considered by the investigating
committee or official designated by the school authorities to hear and decide the
case.
WHEREFORE, the petition is granted and the respondents are directed to allow the
petitioners to re-enroll or otherwise continue with their respective courses, without
prejudice to any disciplinary proceedings to which any or all of them may be
subjected in accordance with the standards herein set forth.
SO ORDERED.
Teehankee, CJ., Abad Santos, Feria, Yap, Fernan, Melencio-Herrera, Alampay,

Gutierrez, Jr., Cruz and Paras, JJ., concur.
G.R. No. L-63915 April 24, 1985
LORENZO M. TAÑADA, ABRAHAM F. SARMIENTO, and MOVEMENT OF

ATTORNEYS FOR BROTHERHOOD, INTEGRITY AND NATIONALISM, INC.
[MABINI], petitioners,
vs.
HON. JUAN C. TUVERA, in his capacity as Executive Assistant to the
President, HON. JOAQUIN VENUS, in his capacity as Deputy Executive
Assistant to the President , MELQUIADES P. DE LA CRUZ, in his capacity as
Director, Malacañang Records Office, and FLORENDO S. PABLO, in his
capacity as Director, Bureau of Printing, respondents.
ESCOLIN, J.:
Invoking the people's right to be informed on matters of public concern, a right

recognized in Section 6, Article IV of the 1973 Philippine Constitution, 1 as well as
the principle that laws to be valid and enforceable must be published in the Official
Gazette or otherwise effectively promulgated, petitioners seek a writ of mandamus
to compel respondent public officials to publish, and/or cause the publication in the
Official Gazette of various presidential decrees, letters of instructions, general
orders, proclamations, executive orders, letter of implementation and
administrative orders.
Specifically, the publication of the following presidential issuances is sought:
a] Presidential Decrees Nos. 12, 22, 37, 38, 59, 64, 103, 171, 179, 184,
197, 200, 234, 265, 286, 298, 303, 312, 324, 325, 326, 337, 355, 358,
359, 360, 361, 368, 404, 406, 415, 427, 429, 445, 447, 473, 486, 491,
503, 504, 521, 528, 551, 566, 573, 574, 594, 599, 644, 658, 661, 718,
731, 733, 793, 800, 802, 835, 836, 923, 935, 961, 1017-1030, 1050,
1060-1061, 1085, 1143, 1165, 1166, 1242, 1246, 1250, 1278, 1279,
1300, 1644, 1772, 1808, 1810, 1813-1817, 1819-1826, 1829-1840,
1842-1847.
b] Letter of Instructions Nos.: 10, 39, 49, 72, 107, 108, 116, 130, 136,
141, 150, 153, 155, 161, 173, 180, 187, 188, 192, 193, 199, 202, 204,
205, 209, 211-213, 215-224, 226-228, 231-239, 241-245, 248, 251,
253-261, 263-269, 271-273, 275-283, 285-289, 291, 293, 297-299,
301-303, 309, 312-315, 325, 327, 343, 346, 349, 357, 358, 362, 367,
370, 382, 385, 386, 396-397, 405, 438-440, 444- 445, 473, 486, 488,
498, 501, 399, 527, 561, 576, 587, 594, 599, 600, 602, 609, 610, 611,
612, 615, 641, 642, 665, 702, 712-713, 726, 837-839, 878-879, 881,
882, 939-940, 964,997,1149-1178,1180-1278.
c] General Orders Nos.: 14, 52, 58, 59, 60, 62, 63, 64 & 65.
d] Proclamation Nos.: 1126, 1144, 1147, 1151, 1196, 1270, 1281,

1319-1526, 1529, 1532, 1535, 1538, 1540-1547, 1550-1558, 1561-
1588, 1590-1595, 1594-1600, 1606-1609, 1612-1628, 1630-1649,
1694-1695, 1697-1701, 1705-1723, 1731-1734, 1737-1742, 1744,
1746-1751, 1752, 1754, 1762, 1764-1787, 1789-1795, 1797, 1800,
1802-1804, 1806-1807, 1812-1814, 1816, 1825-1826, 1829, 1831-
1832, 1835-1836, 1839-1840, 1843-1844, 1846-1847, 1849, 1853-
1858, 1860, 1866, 1868, 1870, 1876-1889, 1892, 1900, 1918, 1923,
1933, 1952, 1963, 1965-1966, 1968-1984, 1986-2028, 2030-2044,
2046-2145, 2147-2161, 2163-2244.
e] Executive Orders Nos.: 411, 413, 414, 427, 429-454, 457- 471, 474-
492, 494-507, 509-510, 522, 524-528, 531-532, 536, 538, 543-544,
549, 551-553, 560, 563, 567-568, 570, 574, 593, 594, 598-604, 609,
611- 647, 649-677, 679-703, 705-707, 712-786, 788-852, 854-857.
f] Letters of Implementation Nos.: 7, 8, 9, 10, 11-22, 25-27, 39, 50, 51,

59, 76, 80-81, 92, 94, 95, 107, 120, 122, 123.
g] Administrative Orders Nos.: 347, 348, 352-354, 360- 378, 380-433,

436-439.
The respondents, through the Solicitor General, would have this case dismissed
outright on the ground that petitioners have no legal personality or standing to
bring the instant petition. The view is submitted that in the absence of any showing
that petitioners are personally and directly affected or prejudiced by the alleged
non-publication of the presidential issuances in question 2 said petitioners are
without the requisite legal personality to institute this mandamus proceeding, they
are not being "aggrieved parties" within the meaning of Section 3, Rule 65 of the
Rules of Court, which we quote:
SEC. 3. Petition for Mandamus.—When any tribunal, corporation, board

or person unlawfully neglects the performance of an act which the law
specifically enjoins as a duty resulting from an office, trust, or station,
or unlawfully excludes another from the use a rd enjoyment of a right
or office to which such other is entitled, and there is no other plain,
speedy and adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law, the person
aggrieved thereby may file a verified petition in the proper court
alleging the facts with certainty and praying that judgment be
rendered commanding the defendant, immediately or at some other
specified time, to do the act required to be done to Protect the rights
of the petitioner, and to pay the damages sustained by the petitioner
by reason of the wrongful acts of the defendant.
Upon the other hand, petitioners maintain that since the subject of the petition
concerns a public right and its object is to compel the performance of a public duty,
they need not show any specific interest for their petition to be given due course.
The issue posed is not one of first impression. As early as the 1910 case of Severino
vs. Governor General, 3 this Court held that while the general rule is that "a writ of
mandamus would be granted to a private individual only in those cases where he
has some private or particular interest to be subserved, or some particular right to
be protected, independent of that which he holds with the public at large," and "it is
for the public officers exclusively to apply for the writ when public rights are to be
subserved [Mithchell vs. Boardmen, 79 M.e., 469]," nevertheless, "when the
question is one of public right and the object of the mandamus is to procure the
enforcement of a public duty, the people are regarded as the real party in interest
and the relator at whose instigation the proceedings are instituted need not show
that he has any legal or special interest in the result, it being sufficient to show that
he is a citizen and as such interested in the execution of the laws [High,
Extraordinary Legal Remedies, 3rd ed., sec. 431].
Thus, in said case, this Court recognized the relator Lope Severino, a private
individual, as a proper party to the mandamus proceedings brought to compel the
Governor General to call a special election for the position of municipal president in
the town of Silay, Negros Occidental. Speaking for this Court, Mr. Justice Grant T.
Trent said:
We are therefore of the opinion that the weight of authority supports

the proposition that the relator is a proper party to proceedings of this
character when a public right is sought to be enforced. If the general
rule in America were otherwise, we think that it would not be
applicable to the case at bar for the reason 'that it is always dangerous
to apply a general rule to a particular case without keeping in mind the
reason for the rule, because, if under the particular circumstances the
reason for the rule does not exist, the rule itself is not applicable and
reliance upon the rule may well lead to error'
No reason exists in the case at bar for applying the general rule
insisted upon by counsel for the respondent. The circumstances which
surround this case are different from those in the United States,
inasmuch as if the relator is not a proper party to these proceedings no
other person could be, as we have seen that it is not the duty of the
law officer of the Government to appear and represent the people in
cases of this character.
The reasons given by the Court in recognizing a private citizen's legal personality in
the aforementioned case apply squarely to the present petition. Clearly, the right
sought to be enforced by petitioners herein is a public right recognized by no less
than the fundamental law of the land. If petitioners were not allowed to institute this
proceeding, it would indeed be difficult to conceive of any other person to initiate
the same, considering that the Solicitor General, the government officer generally
empowered to represent the people, has entered his appearance for respondents in
this case.
Respondents further contend that publication in the Official Gazette is not a sine
qua non requirement for the effectivity of laws where the laws themselves provide
for their own effectivity dates. It is thus submitted that since the presidential
issuances in question contain special provisions as to the date they are to take
effect, publication in the Official Gazette is not indispensable for their effectivity.
The point stressed is anchored on Article 2 of the Civil Code:
Art. 2. Laws shall take effect after fifteen days following the completion
of their publication in the Official Gazette, unless it is otherwise
provided, ...
The interpretation given by respondent is in accord with this Court's construction of

said article. In a long line of decisions, 4 this Court has ruled that publication in the
Official Gazette is necessary in those cases where the legislation itself does not
provide for its effectivity date-for then the date of publication is material for
determining its date of effectivity, which is the fifteenth day following its
publication-but not when the law itself provides for the date when it goes into
effect.
Respondents' argument, however, is logically correct only insofar as it equates the

effectivity of laws with the fact of publication. Considered in the light of other
statutes applicable to the issue at hand, the conclusion is easily reached that said
Article 2 does not preclude the requirement of publication in the Official Gazette,
even if the law itself provides for the date of its effectivity. Thus, Section 1 of
Commonwealth Act 638 provides as follows:
Section 1. There shall be published in the Official Gazette [1] all

important legisiative acts and resolutions of a public nature of the,
Congress of the Philippines; [2] all executive and administrative orders
and proclamations, except such as have no general applicability; [3]
decisions or abstracts of decisions of the Supreme Court and the Court
of Appeals as may be deemed by said courts of sufficient importance
to be so published; [4] such documents or classes of documents as
may be required so to be published by law; and [5] such documents or
classes of documents as the President of the Philippines shall
determine from time to time to have general applicability and legal
effect, or which he may authorize so to be published. ...
The clear object of the above-quoted provision is to give the general public
adequate notice of the various laws which are to regulate their actions and conduct
as citizens. Without such notice and publication, there would be no basis for the
application of the maxim "ignorantia legis non excusat." It would be the height of
injustice to punish or otherwise burden a citizen for the transgression of a law of
which he had no notice whatsoever, not even a constructive one.
Perhaps at no time since the establishment of the Philippine Republic has the
publication of laws taken so vital significance that at this time when the people
have bestowed upon the President a power heretofore enjoyed solely by the
legislature. While the people are kept abreast by the mass media of the debates
and deliberations in the Batasan Pambansa—and for the diligent ones, ready access
to the legislative records—no such publicity accompanies the law-making process of
the President. Thus, without publication, the people have no means of knowing what
presidential decrees have actually been promulgated, much less a definite way of
informing themselves of the specific contents and texts of such decrees. As the
Supreme Court of Spain ruled: "Bajo la denominacion generica de leyes, se
comprenden tambien los reglamentos, Reales decretos, Instrucciones, Circulares y
Reales ordines dictadas de conformidad con las mismas por el Gobierno en uso de
su potestad.5
The very first clause of Section I of Commonwealth Act 638 reads: "There shall be
published in the Official Gazette ... ." The word "shall" used therein imposes upon
respondent officials an imperative duty. That duty must be enforced if the
Constitutional right of the people to be informed on matters of public concern is to
be given substance and reality. The law itself makes a list of what should be
published in the Official Gazette. Such listing, to our mind, leaves respondents with
no discretion whatsoever as to what must be included or excluded from such
publication.
The publication of all presidential issuances "of a public nature" or "of general
applicability" is mandated by law. Obviously, presidential decrees that provide for
fines, forfeitures or penalties for their violation or otherwise impose a burden or. the
people, such as tax and revenue measures, fall within this category. Other
presidential issuances which apply only to particular persons or class of persons
such as administrative and executive orders need not be published on the
assumption that they have been circularized to all concerned. 6
It is needless to add that the publication of presidential issuances "of a public

nature" or "of general applicability" is a requirement of due process. It is a rule of
law that before a person may be bound by law, he must first be officially and
specifically informed of its contents. As Justice Claudio Teehankee said in Peralta
vs. COMELEC 7:
In a time of proliferating decrees, orders and letters of instructions

which all form part of the law of the land, the requirement of due
process and the Rule of Law demand that the Official Gazette as the
official government repository promulgate and publish the texts of all
such decrees, orders and instructions so that the people may know
where to obtain their official and specific contents.
The Court therefore declares that presidential issuances of general application,

which have not been published, shall have no force and effect. Some members of
the Court, quite apprehensive about the possible unsettling effect this decision
might have on acts done in reliance of the validity of those presidential decrees
which were published only during the pendency of this petition, have put the
question as to whether the Court's declaration of invalidity apply to P.D.s which had
been enforced or implemented prior to their publication. The answer is all too
familiar. In similar situations in the past this Court had taken the pragmatic and
realistic course set forth in Chicot County Drainage District vs. Baxter Bank 8 to wit:
The courts below have proceeded on the theory that the Act of
Congress, having been found to be unconstitutional, was not a law;
that it was inoperative, conferring no rights and imposing no duties,
and hence affording no basis for the challenged decree. Norton v.
Shelby County, 118 U.S. 425, 442; Chicago, 1. & L. Ry. Co. v. Hackett,
228 U.S. 559, 566. It is quite clear, however, that such broad
statements as to the effect of a determination of unconstitutionality
must be taken with qualifications. The actual existence of a statute,
prior to such a determination, is an operative fact and may have
consequences which cannot justly be ignored. The past cannot always
be erased by a new judicial declaration. The effect of the subsequent
ruling as to invalidity may have to be considered in various aspects-
with respect to particular conduct, private and official. Questions of
rights claimed to have become vested, of status, of prior
determinations deemed to have finality and acted upon accordingly, of
public policy in the light of the nature both of the statute and of its
previous application, demand examination. These questions are among
the most difficult of those which have engaged the attention of courts,
state and federal and it is manifest from numerous decisions that an
all-inclusive statement of a principle of absolute retroactive invalidity
cannot be justified.
Consistently with the above principle, this Court in Rutter vs. Esteban 9 sustained
the right of a party under the Moratorium Law, albeit said right had accrued in his
favor before said law was declared unconstitutional by this Court.
Similarly, the implementation/enforcement of presidential decrees prior to their

publication in the Official Gazette is "an operative fact which may have
consequences which cannot be justly ignored. The past cannot always be erased by
a new judicial declaration ... that an all-inclusive statement of a principle of absolute
retroactive invalidity cannot be justified."
From the report submitted to the Court by the Clerk of Court, it appears that of the
presidential decrees sought by petitioners to be published in the Official Gazette,
only Presidential Decrees Nos. 1019 to 1030, inclusive, 1278, and 1937 to 1939,
inclusive, have not been so published. 10 Neither the subject matters nor the texts of
these PDs can be ascertained since no copies thereof are available. But whatever
their subject matter may be, it is undisputed that none of these unpublished PDs
has ever been implemented or enforced by the government. In Pesigan vs.
Angeles, 11 the Court, through Justice Ramon Aquino, ruled that "publication is
necessary to apprise the public of the contents of [penal] regulations and make the
said penalties binding on the persons affected thereby. " The cogency of this
holding is apparently recognized by respondent officials considering the
manifestation in their comment that "the government, as a matter of policy, refrains
from prosecuting violations of criminal laws until the same shall have been
published in the Official Gazette or in some other publication, even though some
criminal laws provide that they shall take effect immediately.
WHEREFORE, the Court hereby orders respondents to publish in the Official Gazette
all unpublished presidential issuances which are of general application, and unless
so published, they shall have no binding force and effect.
SO ORDERED.
Relova, J., concurs.
Aquino, J., took no part.
Concepcion, Jr., J., is on leave.
Separate Opinions
FERNANDO, C.J., concurring (with qualification):
There is on the whole acceptance on my part of the views expressed in the ably
written opinion of Justice Escolin. I am unable, however, to concur insofar as it
would unqualifiedly impose the requirement of publication in the Official Gazette for
unpublished "presidential issuances" to have binding force and effect.
I shall explain why.

1. It is of course true that without the requisite publication, a due process question
would arise if made to apply adversely to a party who is not even aware of the
existence of any legislative or executive act having the force and effect of law. My
point is that such publication required need not be confined to the Official Gazette.
From the pragmatic standpoint, there is an advantage to be gained. It conduces to
certainty. That is too be admitted. It does not follow, however, that failure to do so
would in all cases and under all circumstances result in a statute, presidential
decree or any other executive act of the same category being bereft of any binding
force and effect. To so hold would, for me, raise a constitutional question. Such a
pronouncement would lend itself to the interpretation that such a legislative or
presidential act is bereft of the attribute of effectivity unless published in the Official
Gazette. There is no such requirement in the Constitution as Justice Plana so aptly
pointed out. It is true that what is decided now applies only to past "presidential
issuances". Nonetheless, this clarification is, to my mind, needed to avoid any
possible misconception as to what is required for any statute or presidential act to
be impressed with binding force or effectivity.
2. It is quite understandable then why I concur in the separate opinion of Justice

Plana. Its first paragraph sets forth what to me is the constitutional doctrine
applicable to this case. Thus: "The Philippine Constitution does not require the
publication of laws as a prerequisite for their effectivity, unlike some Constitutions
elsewhere. It may be said though that the guarantee of due process requires notice
of laws to affected Parties before they can be bound thereby; but such notice is not
necessarily by publication in the Official Gazette. The due process clause is not that
precise. 1 I am likewise in agreement with its closing paragraph: "In fine, I concur in
the majority decision to the extent that it requires notice before laws become
effective, for no person should be bound by a law without notice. This is elementary
fairness. However, I beg to disagree insofar as it holds that such notice shall be by
publication in the Official Gazette. 2
3. It suffices, as was stated by Judge Learned Hand, that law as the command of the
government "must be ascertainable in some form if it is to be enforced at all. 3 It
would indeed be to reduce it to the level of mere futility, as pointed out by Justice
Cardozo, "if it is unknown and unknowable. 4 Publication, to repeat, is thus essential.
What I am not prepared to subscribe to is the doctrine that it must be in the Official
Gazette. To be sure once published therein there is the ascertainable mode of
determining the exact date of its effectivity. Still for me that does not dispose of the
question of what is the jural effect of past presidential decrees or executive acts not
so published. For prior thereto, it could be that parties aware of their existence
could have conducted themselves in accordance with their provisions. If no legal
consequences could attach due to lack of publication in the Official Gazette, then
serious problems could arise. Previous transactions based on such "Presidential
Issuances" could be open to question. Matters deemed settled could still be inquired
into. I am not prepared to hold that such an effect is contemplated by our decision.
Where such presidential decree or executive act is made the basis of a criminal
prosecution, then, of course, its ex post facto character becomes evident. 5 In civil
cases though, retroactivity as such is not conclusive on the due process aspect.
There must still be a showing of arbitrariness. Moreover, where the challenged
presidential decree or executive act was issued under the police power, the non-
impairment clause of the Constitution may not always be successfully invoked.
There must still be that process of balancing to determine whether or not it could in
such a case be tainted by infirmity. 6 In traditional terminology, there could arise
then a question of unconstitutional application. That is as far as it goes.
4. Let me make therefore that my qualified concurrence goes no further than to

affirm that publication is essential to the effectivity of a legislative or executive act
of a general application. I am not in agreement with the view that such publication
must be in the Official Gazette. The Civil Code itself in its Article 2 expressly
recognizes that the rule as to laws taking effect after fifteen days following the
completion of their publication in the Official Gazette is subject to this exception,
"unless it is otherwise provided." Moreover, the Civil Code is itself only a legislative
enactment, Republic Act No. 386. It does not and cannot have the juridical force of
a constitutional command. A later legislative or executive act which has the force
and effect of law can legally provide for a different rule.
5. Nor can I agree with the rather sweeping conclusion in the opinion of Justice
Escolin that presidential decrees and executive acts not thus previously published in
the Official Gazette would be devoid of any legal character. That would be, in my
opinion, to go too far. It may be fraught, as earlier noted, with undesirable
consequences. I find myself therefore unable to yield assent to such a
pronouncement.
I am authorized to state that Justices Makasiar, Abad Santos, Cuevas, and Alampay
concur in this separate opinion.
Makasiar, Abad Santos, Cuevas and Alampay, JJ., concur.
TEEHANKEE, J., concurring:
I concur with the main opinion of Mr. Justice Escolin and the concurring opinion of
Mme. Justice Herrera. The Rule of Law connotes a body of norms and laws published
and ascertainable and of equal application to all similarly circumstances and not
subject to arbitrary change but only under certain set procedures. The Court has
consistently stressed that "it is an elementary rule of fair play and justice that a
reasonable opportunity to be informed must be afforded to the people who are
commanded to obey before they can be punished for its violation, 1 citing the settled
principle based on due process enunciated in earlier cases that "before the public is
bound by its contents, especially its penal provisions, a law, regulation or circular
must first be published and the people officially and specially informed of said
contents and its penalties.
Without official publication in the Official Gazette as required by Article 2 of the Civil
Code and the Revised Administrative Code, there would be no basis nor justification
for the corollary rule of Article 3 of the Civil Code (based on constructive notice that
the provisions of the law are ascertainable from the public and official repository
where they are duly published) that "Ignorance of the law excuses no one from
compliance therewith.
Respondents' contention based on a misreading of Article 2 of the Civil Code that
"only laws which are silent as to their effectivity [date] need be published in the
Official Gazette for their effectivity" is manifestly untenable. The plain text and
meaning of the Civil Code is that "laws shall take effect after fifteen days following
the completion of their publication in the Official Gazette, unless it is otherwise
provided, " i.e. a different effectivity date is provided by the law itself. This proviso
perforce refers to a law that has been duly published pursuant to the basic
constitutional requirements of due process. The best example of this is the Civil
Code itself: the same Article 2 provides otherwise that it "shall take effect [only] one
year [not 15 days] after such publication. 2 To sustain respondents' misreading that
"most laws or decrees specify the date of their effectivity and for this reason,
publication in the Official Gazette is not necessary for their effectivity 3 would be to
nullify and render nugatory the Civil Code's indispensable and essential requirement
of prior publication in the Official Gazette by the simple expedient of providing for
immediate effectivity or an earlier effectivity date in the law itself before the
completion of 15 days following its publication which is the period generally fixed by
the Civil Code for its proper dissemination.
MELENCIO-HERRERA, J., concurring:
I agree. There cannot be any question but that even if a decree provides for a date
of effectivity, it has to be published. What I would like to state in connection with
that proposition is that when a date of effectivity is mentioned in the decree but the
decree becomes effective only fifteen (15) days after its publication in the Official
Gazette, it will not mean that the decree can have retroactive effect to the date of
effectivity mentioned in the decree itself. There should be no retroactivity if the
retroactivity will run counter to constitutional rights or shall destroy vested rights.
PLANA, J., concurring (with qualification):
The Philippine Constitution does not require the publication of laws as a prerequisite
for their effectivity, unlike some Constitutions elsewhere. * It may be said though
that the guarantee of due process requires notice of laws to affected parties before
they can be bound thereby; but such notice is not necessarily by publication in the
Official Gazette. The due process clause is not that precise. Neither is the
publication of laws in the Official Gazette required by any statute as a prerequisite
for their effectivity, if said laws already provide for their effectivity date.
Article 2 of the Civil Code provides that "laws shall take effect after fifteen days
following the completion of their publication in the Official Gazette, unless it is
otherwise provided " Two things may be said of this provision: Firstly, it obviously
does not apply to a law with a built-in provision as to when it will take effect.
Secondly, it clearly recognizes that each law may provide not only a different period
for reckoning its effectivity date but also a different mode of notice. Thus, a law may
prescribe that it shall be published elsewhere than in the Official Gazette.
Commonwealth Act No. 638, in my opinion, does not support the proposition
that for their effectivity, laws must be published in the Official Gazette. The said law
is simply "An Act to Provide for the Uniform Publication and Distribution of the
Official Gazette." Conformably therewith, it authorizes the publication of the Official
Gazette, determines its frequency, provides for its sale and distribution, and defines
the authority of the Director of Printing in relation thereto. It also enumerates what
shall be published in the Official Gazette, among them, "important legislative acts
and resolutions of a public nature of the Congress of the Philippines" and "all
executive and administrative orders and proclamations, except such as have no
general applicability." It is noteworthy that not all legislative acts are required to be
published in the Official Gazette but only "important" ones "of a public nature."
Moreover, the said law does not provide that publication in the Official Gazette is
essential for the effectivity of laws. This is as it should be, for all statutes are equal
and stand on the same footing. A law, especially an earlier one of general
application such as Commonwealth Act No. 638, cannot nullify or restrict the
operation of a subsequent statute that has a provision of its own as to when and
how it will take effect. Only a higher law, which is the Constitution, can assume that
role.
In fine, I concur in the majority decision to the extent that it requires notice before
laws become effective, for no person should be bound by a law without notice. This
is elementary fairness. However, I beg to disagree insofar as it holds that such
notice shall be by publication in the Official Gazette.
Cuevas and Alampay, JJ., concur.
GUTIERREZ, Jr., J., concurring:
I concur insofar as publication is necessary but reserve my vote as to the necessity

of such publication being in the Official Gazette.
DE LA FUENTE, J., concurring:
I concur insofar as the opinion declares the unpublished decrees and issuances of a
public nature or general applicability ineffective, until due publication thereof.
Separate Opinions
FERNANDO, C.J., concurring (with qualification):
There is on the whole acceptance on my part of the views expressed in the ably
written opinion of Justice Escolin. I am unable, however, to concur insofar as it
would unqualifiedly impose the requirement of publication in the Official Gazette for
unpublished "presidential issuances" to have binding force and effect.
I shall explain why.
1. It is of course true that without the requisite publication, a due process question
would arise if made to apply adversely to a party who is not even aware of the
existence of any legislative or executive act having the force and effect of law. My
point is that such publication required need not be confined to the Official Gazette.
From the pragmatic standpoint, there is an advantage to be gained. It conduces to
certainty. That is too be admitted. It does not follow, however, that failure to do so
would in all cases and under all circumstances result in a statute, presidential
decree or any other executive act of the same category being bereft of any binding
force and effect. To so hold would, for me, raise a constitutional question. Such a
pronouncement would lend itself to the interpretation that such a legislative or
presidential act is bereft of the attribute of effectivity unless published in the Official
Gazette. There is no such requirement in the Constitution as Justice Plana so aptly
pointed out. It is true that what is decided now applies only to past "presidential
issuances". Nonetheless, this clarification is, to my mind, needed to avoid any
possible misconception as to what is required for any statute or presidential act to
be impressed with binding force or effectivity.
2. It is quite understandable then why I concur in the separate opinion of Justice

Plana. Its first paragraph sets forth what to me is the constitutional doctrine
applicable to this case. Thus: "The Philippine Constitution does not require the
publication of laws as a prerequisite for their effectivity, unlike some Constitutions
elsewhere. It may be said though that the guarantee of due process requires notice
of laws to affected Parties before they can be bound thereby; but such notice is not
necessarily by publication in the Official Gazette. The due process clause is not that
precise. 1 I am likewise in agreement with its closing paragraph: "In fine, I concur in
the majority decision to the extent that it requires notice before laws become
effective, for no person should be bound by a law without notice. This is elementary
fairness. However, I beg to disagree insofar as it holds that such notice shall be by
publication in the Official Gazette. 2
3. It suffices, as was stated by Judge Learned Hand, that law as the command of the
government "must be ascertainable in some form if it is to be enforced at all. 3 It
would indeed be to reduce it to the level of mere futility, as pointed out by Justice
Cardozo, "if it is unknown and unknowable. 4 Publication, to repeat, is thus essential.
What I am not prepared to subscribe to is the doctrine that it must be in the Official
Gazette. To be sure once published therein there is the ascertainable mode of
determining the exact date of its effectivity. Still for me that does not dispose of the
question of what is the jural effect of past presidential decrees or executive acts not
so published. For prior thereto, it could be that parties aware of their existence
could have conducted themselves in accordance with their provisions. If no legal
consequences could attach due to lack of publication in the Official Gazette, then
serious problems could arise. Previous transactions based on such "Presidential
Issuances" could be open to question. Matters deemed settled could still be inquired
into. I am not prepared to hold that such an effect is contemplated by our decision.
Where such presidential decree or executive act is made the basis of a criminal
prosecution, then, of course, its ex post facto character becomes evident. 5 In civil
cases though, retroactivity as such is not conclusive on the due process aspect.
There must still be a showing of arbitrariness. Moreover, where the challenged
presidential decree or executive act was issued under the police power, the non-
impairment clause of the Constitution may not always be successfully invoked.
There must still be that process of balancing to determine whether or not it could in
such a case be tainted by infirmity. 6 In traditional terminology, there could arise
then a question of unconstitutional application. That is as far as it goes.
4. Let me make therefore that my qualified concurrence goes no further than to

affirm that publication is essential to the effectivity of a legislative or executive act
of a general application. I am not in agreement with the view that such publication
must be in the Official Gazette. The Civil Code itself in its Article 2 expressly
recognizes that the rule as to laws taking effect after fifteen days following the
completion of their publication in the Official Gazette is subject to this exception,
"unless it is otherwise provided." Moreover, the Civil Code is itself only a legislative
enactment, Republic Act No. 386. It does not and cannot have the juridical force of
a constitutional command. A later legislative or executive act which has the force
and effect of law can legally provide for a different rule.
5. Nor can I agree with the rather sweeping conclusion in the opinion of Justice
Escolin that presidential decrees and executive acts not thus previously published in
the Official Gazette would be devoid of any legal character. That would be, in my
opinion, to go too far. It may be fraught, as earlier noted, with undesirable
consequences. I find myself therefore unable to yield assent to such a
pronouncement.
I am authorized to state that Justices Makasiar, Abad Santos, Cuevas, and Alampay
concur in this separate opinion.
Makasiar, Abad Santos, Cuevas and Alampay, JJ., concur.
TEEHANKEE, J., concurring:
I concur with the main opinion of Mr. Justice Escolin and the concurring opinion of
Mme. Justice Herrera. The Rule of Law connotes a body of norms and laws published
and ascertainable and of equal application to all similarly circumstances and not
subject to arbitrary change but only under certain set procedures. The Court has
consistently stressed that "it is an elementary rule of fair play and justice that a
reasonable opportunity to be informed must be afforded to the people who are
commanded to obey before they can be punished for its violation, 1 citing the settled
principle based on due process enunciated in earlier cases that "before the public is
bound by its contents, especially its penal provisions, a law, regulation or circular
must first be published and the people officially and specially informed of said
contents and its penalties.
Without official publication in the Official Gazette as required by Article 2 of the Civil
Code and the Revised Administrative Code, there would be no basis nor justification
for the corollary rule of Article 3 of the Civil Code (based on constructive notice that
the provisions of the law are ascertainable from the public and official repository
where they are duly published) that "Ignorance of the law excuses no one from
compliance therewith.
Respondents' contention based on a misreading of Article 2 of the Civil Code that

"only laws which are silent as to their effectivity [date] need be published in the
Official Gazette for their effectivity" is manifestly untenable. The plain text and
meaning of the Civil Code is that "laws shall take effect after fifteen days following
the completion of their publication in the Official Gazette, unless it is otherwise
provided, " i.e. a different effectivity date is provided by the law itself. This proviso
perforce refers to a law that has been duly published pursuant to the basic
constitutional requirements of due process. The best example of this is the Civil
Code itself: the same Article 2 provides otherwise that it "shall take effect [only] one
year [not 15 days] after such publication. 2 To sustain respondents' misreading that
"most laws or decrees specify the date of their effectivity and for this reason,
publication in the Official Gazette is not necessary for their effectivity 3 would be to
nullify and render nugatory the Civil Code's indispensable and essential requirement
of prior publication in the Official Gazette by the simple expedient of providing for
immediate effectivity or an earlier effectivity date in the law itself before the
completion of 15 days following its publication which is the period generally fixed by
the Civil Code for its proper dissemination.
MELENCIO-HERRERA, J., concurring:
I agree. There cannot be any question but that even if a decree provides for a date
of effectivity, it has to be published. What I would like to state in connection with
that proposition is that when a date of effectivity is mentioned in the decree but the
decree becomes effective only fifteen (15) days after its publication in the Official
Gazette, it will not mean that the decree can have retroactive effect to the date of
effectivity mentioned in the decree itself. There should be no retroactivity if the
retroactivity will run counter to constitutional rights or shall destroy vested rights.
PLANA, J., concurring (with qualification):
The Philippine Constitution does not require the publication of laws as a prerequisite
for their effectivity, unlike some Constitutions elsewhere. * It may be said though
that the guarantee of due process requires notice of laws to affected parties before
they can be bound thereby; but such notice is not necessarily by publication in the
Official Gazette. The due process clause is not that precise. Neither is the
publication of laws in the Official Gazette required by any statute as a prerequisite
for their effectivity, if said laws already provide for their effectivity date.
Article 2 of the Civil Code provides that "laws shall take effect after fifteen days
following the completion of their publication in the Official Gazette, unless it is
otherwise provided " Two things may be said of this provision: Firstly, it obviously
does not apply to a law with a built-in provision as to when it will take effect.
Secondly, it clearly recognizes that each law may provide not only a different period
for reckoning its effectivity date but also a different mode of notice. Thus, a law may
prescribe that it shall be published elsewhere than in the Official Gazette.
Commonwealth Act No. 638, in my opinion, does not support the proposition
that for their effectivity, laws must be published in the Official Gazette. The said law
is simply "An Act to Provide for the Uniform Publication and Distribution of the
Official Gazette." Conformably therewith, it authorizes the publication of the Official
Gazette, determines its frequency, provides for its sale and distribution, and defines
the authority of the Director of Printing in relation thereto. It also enumerates what
shall be published in the Official Gazette, among them, "important legislative acts
and resolutions of a public nature of the Congress of the Philippines" and "all
executive and administrative orders and proclamations, except such as have no
general applicability." It is noteworthy that not all legislative acts are required to be
published in the Official Gazette but only "important" ones "of a public nature."
Moreover, the said law does not provide that publication in the Official Gazette is
essential for the effectivity of laws. This is as it should be, for all statutes are equal
and stand on the same footing. A law, especially an earlier one of general
application such as Commonwealth Act No. 638, cannot nullify or restrict the
operation of a subsequent statute that has a provision of its own as to when and
how it will take effect. Only a higher law, which is the Constitution, can assume that
role.
In fine, I concur in the majority decision to the extent that it requires notice before
laws become effective, for no person should be bound by a law without notice. This
is elementary fairness. However, I beg to disagree insofar as it holds that such
notice shall be by publication in the Official Gazette.
Cuevas and Alampay, JJ., concur.
GUTIERREZ, Jr., J., concurring:
I concur insofar as publication is necessary but reserve my vote as to the necessity

of such publication being in the Official Gazette.
DE LA FUENTE, J., concurring:
I concur insofar as the opinion declares the unpublished decrees and issuances of a
public nature or general applicability ineffective, until due publication thereof.
Footnotes
1 Section 6. The right of the people to information on matters of public

concern shag be recognized, access to official records, and to
documents and papers pertaining to official acts, transactions, or
decisions, shag be afforded the citizens subject to such limitation as
may be provided by law.
G.R. No. L-5060 January 26, 1910
THE UNITED STATES, plaintiff-appellee,

vs.
LUIS TORIBIO, defendant-appellant.
Rodriguez & Del Rosario, for appellant.

Attorney-General Villamor, for appellee.
CARSON, J.:
The evidence of record fully sustains the findings of the trial court that the appellant
slaughtered or caused to be slaughtered for human consumption, the carabao
described in the information, without a permit from the municipal treasure of the
municipality wherein it was slaughtered, in violation of the provisions of sections 30
and 33 of Act No. 1147, an Act regulating the registration, branding, and slaughter
of large cattle.
It appears that in the town of Carmen, in the Province of Bohol, wherein the animal
was slaughtered there is no municipal slaughterhouse, and counsel for appellant
contends that under such circumstances the provisions of Act No. 1147 do not
prohibit nor penalize the slaughter of large cattle without a permit of the municipal
treasure. Sections 30, 31, 32, and 33 of the Act are as follows:
SEC. 30. No large cattle shall be slaughtered or killed for food at the
municipal slaughterhouse except upon permit secured from the municipal
treasure. Before issuing the permit for the slaughter of large cattle for human
consumption, the municipal treasurer shall require for branded cattle the
production of the original certificate of ownership and certificates of transfer
showing title in the person applying for the permit, and for unbranded cattle
such evidence as may satisfy said treasurer as to the ownership of the
animals for which permit to slaughter has been requested.
SEC. 31. No permit to slaughter has been carabaos shall be granted by the
municipal treasurer unless such animals are unfit for agricultural work or for
draft purposes, and in no event shall a permit be given to slaughter for food
any animal of any kind which is not fit for human consumption.
SEC. 32. The municipal treasurer shall keep a record of all permits for
slaughter issued by him, and such record shall show the name and residence
of the owner, and the class, sex, age, brands, knots of radiated hair
commonly know as remolinos or cowlicks, and other marks of identification of
the animal for the slaughter of which permit is issued and the date on which
such permit is issued. Names of owners shall be alphabetically arranged in
the record, together with date of permit.
A copy of the record of permits granted for slaughter shall be forwarded

monthly to the provincial treasurer, who shall file and properly index the
same under the name of the owner, together with date of permit.
SEC. 33. Any person slaughtering or causing to be slaughtered for human

consumption or killing for food at the municipal slaughterhouse any large
cattle except upon permit duly secured from the municipal treasurer, shall be
punished by a fine of not less than ten nor more than five hundred pesos,
Philippine currency, or by imprisonment for not less than one month nor more
than six months, or by both such fine and imprisonment, in the discretion of
the court.
It is contended that the proper construction of the language of these provisions

limits the prohibition contained in section 30 and the penalty imposed in section 33
to cases (1) of slaughter of large cattle for human consumption in a municipal
slaughter without a permit duly secured from the municipal treasurer, and (2) cases
of killing of large cattle for food in a municipal slaughterhouse without a permit duly
secured from the municipal treasurer; and it is urged that the municipality of
Carmen not being provided with a municipal slaughterhouse, neither the prohibition
nor the penalty is applicable to cases of slaughter of large cattle without a permit in
that municipality.
We are of opinion, however, that the prohibition contained in section 30 refers (1) to
the slaughter of large cattle for human consumption, anywhere, without a permit
duly secured from the municipal treasurer, and (2) expressly and specifically to the
killing for food of large cattle at a municipal slaughterhouse without such permit;
and that the penalty provided in section 33 applies generally to the slaughter of
large cattle for human consumption, anywhere, without a permit duly secured from
the municipal treasurer, and specifically to the killing for food of large cattle at a
municipal slaughterhouse without such permit.
It may be admitted at once, that the pertinent language of those sections taken by
itself and examined apart from the context fairly admits of two constructions: one
whereby the phrase "at the municipal slaughterhouse" may be taken as limiting and
restricting both the word "slaughtered" and the words "killed for food" in section 30,
and the words "slaughtering or causing to be slaughtered for human consumption"
and the words "killing for food" in section 33; and the other whereby the phrase "at
the municipal slaughterhouse" may be taken as limiting and restricting merely the
words "killed for food" and "killing for food" as used in those sections. But upon a
reading of the whole Act, and keeping in mind the manifest and expressed purpose
and object of its enactment, it is very clear that the latter construction is that which
should be adopted.
The Act primarily seeks to protect the "large cattle" of the Philippine Islands against
theft and to make easy the recovery and return of such cattle to their proper
owners when lost, strayed, or stolen. To this end it provides an elaborate and
compulsory system for the separate branding and registry of ownership of all such
cattle throughout the Islands, whereby owners are enabled readily and easily to
establish their title; it prohibits and invalidates all transfers of large cattle
unaccompanied by certificates of transfer issued by the proper officer in the
municipality where the contract of sale is made; and it provides also for the
disposition of thieves or persons unlawfully in possession, so as to protect the rights
of the true owners. All this, manifestly, in order to make it difficult for any one but
the rightful owner of such cattle to retain them in his possession or to dispose of
them to others. But the usefulness of this elaborate and compulsory system of
identification, resting as it does on the official registry of the brands and marks on
each separate animal throughout the Islands, would be largely impaired, if not
totally destroyed, if such animals were requiring proof of ownership and the
production of certificates of registry by the person slaughtering or causing them to
be slaughtered, and this especially if the animals were slaughtered privately or in a
clandestine manner outside of a municipal slaughterhouse. Hence, as it would
appear, sections 30 and 33 prohibit and penalize the slaughter for human
consumption or killing for food at a municipal slaughterhouse of such animals
without a permit issued by the municipal treasurer, and section 32 provides for the
keeping of detailed records of all such permits in the office of the municipal and also
of the provincial treasurer.
If, however, the construction be placed on these sections which is contended for by
the appellant, it will readily be seen that all these carefully worked out provisions
for the registry and record of the brands and marks of identification of all large
cattle in the Islands would prove in large part abortion, since thieves and persons
unlawfully in possession of such cattle, and naturally would, evade the provisions of
the law by slaughtering them outside of municipal slaughterhouses, and thus enjoy
the fruits of their wrongdoing without exposing themselves to the danger of
detection incident to the bringing of the animals to the public slaughterhouse,
where the brands and other identification marks might be scrutinized and proof of
ownership required.
Where the language of a statute is fairly susceptible of two or more constructions,

that construction should be adopted which will most tend to give effect to the
manifest intent of the lawmaker and promote the object for which the statute was
enacted, and a construction should be rejected which would tend to render abortive
other provisions of the statute and to defeat the object which the legislator sought
to attain by its enactment. We are of opinion, therefore, that sections 30 and 33 of
the Act prohibit and penalize the slaughtering or causing to be slaughtered for
human consumption of large cattle at any place without the permit provided for in
section 30.
It is not essential that an explanation be found for the express prohibition in these
sections of the "killing for food at a municipal slaughterhouse" of such animals,
despite the fact that this prohibition is clearly included in the general prohibition of
the slaughter of such animals for human consumption anywhere; but it is not
improbable that the requirement for the issue of a permit in such cases was
expressly and specifically mentioned out of superabundance of precaution, and to
avoid all possibility of misunderstanding in the event that some of the municipalities
should be disposed to modify or vary the general provisions of the law by the
passage of local ordinances or regulations for the control of municipal
slaughterhouse.
Similar reasoning applied to the specific provisions of section 31 of the Act leads to
the same conclusion. One of the secondary purposes of the law, as set out in that
section, is to prevent the slaughter for food of carabaos fit for agricultural and draft
purposes, and of all animals unfit for human consumption. A construction which
would limit the prohibitions and penalties prescribed in the statute to the killing of
such animals in municipal slaughterhouses, leaving unprohibited and unpenalized
their slaughter outside of such establishments, so manifestly tends to defeat the
purpose and object of the legislator, that unless imperatively demanded by the
language of the statute it should be rejected; and, as we have already indicated, the
language of the statute is clearly susceptible of the construction which we have
placed upon it, which tends to make effective the provisions of this as well as all the
other sections of the Act.
It appears that the defendant did in fact apply for a permit to slaughter his carabao,
and that it was denied him on the ground that the animal was not unfit "for
agricultural work or for draft purposes." Counsel for appellant contends that the
statute, in so far as it undertakes to penalize the slaughter of carabaos for human
consumption as food, without first obtaining a permit which can not be procured in
the event that the animal is not unfit "for agricultural work or draft purposes," is
unconstitutional and in violation of the terms of section 5 of the Philippine Bill (Act
of Congress, July 1, 1902), which provides that "no law shall be enacted which shall
deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law."
It is not quite clear from the argument of counsel whether his contention is that this
provision of the statute constitutes a taking of property for public use in the
exercise of the right of eminent domain without providing for the compensation of
the owners, or that it is an undue and unauthorized exercise of the police power of
the State. But whatever may be the basis of his contention, we are of opinion,
appropriating, with necessary modifications understood, the language of that great
jurist, Chief Justice Shaw (in the case of Com. vs. Tewksbury, 11 Met., 55, where the
question involved was the constitutionality of a statute prohibiting and penalizing
the taking or carrying away by any person, including the owner, of any stones,
gravel, or sand, from any of the beaches in the town of Chesea,) that the law in
question "is not a taking of the property for public use, within the meaning of the
constitution, but is a just and legitimate exercise of the power of the legislature to
regulate and restrain such particular use of the property as would be inconsistent
with or injurious to the rights of the public. All property is acquired and held under
the tacit condition that it shall not be so used as to injure the equal rights of others
or greatly impair the public rights and interest of the community."
It may be conceded that the benificial use and exclusive enjoyment of the property
of all carabao owners in these Islands is to a greater or less degree interfered with
by the provisions of the statute; and that, without inquiring what quantum of
interest thus passes from the owners of such cattle, it is an interest the deprivation
of which detracts from their right and authority, and in some degree interferes with
their exclusive possession and control of their property, so that if the regulations in
question were enacted for purely private purpose, the statute, in so far as these
regulations are concerned, would be a violation of the provisions of the Philippine
Bill relied on be appellant; but we are satisfied that it is not such a taking, such an
interference with the right and title of the owners, as is involved in the exercise by
the State of the right of eminent domain, so as to entitle these owners to
compensation, and that it is no more than "a just restrain of an injurious private use
of the property, which the legislature had authority to impose."
In the case of Com. vs. Alger (7 Cush., 53, 84), wherein the doctrine laid down in
Com. vs. Tewksbury (supra) was reviewed and affirmed, the same eminent jurist
who wrote the former opinion, in distinguishing the exercise of the right of eminent
domain from the exercise of the sovereign police powers of the State, said:
We think it is settled principle, growing out of the nature of well-ordered civil

society, that every holder of property, however absolute and unqualified may
be his title, holds it under the implied liability that his use of it may be so
regulated that is shall not be injurious to the equal enjoyment of others
having an equal right to the enjoyment of their property, nor injurious to the
rights of the community. . . . Rights of property, like all other social and
conventional rights, are subject to such reasonable limitations in their
enjoyment as shall prevent them from being injurious, and to such
reasonable restrain and regulations establish by law, as the legislature, under
the governing and controlling power vested in them by the constitution, may
think necessary and expedient.
This is very different from the right of eminent domain, the right of a
government to take and appropriate private property to public use, whenever
the public exigency requires it; which can be done only on condition of
providing a reasonable compensation therefor. The power we allude to is
rather the police power, the power vested in the legislature by the
constitution, to make, ordain, and establish all manner of wholesome and
reasonable laws, statutes, and ordinances, either with penalties or without,
not repugnant to the constitution, as they shall judge to be for the good and
welfare of the commonwealth, and of the subjects of the same.
It is much easier to perceive and realize the existence and sources of this
power than to mark its boundaries or prescribe limits to its exercise.
Applying these principles, we are opinion that the restrain placed by the law on the
slaughter for human consumption of carabaos fit for agricultural work and draft
purpose is not an appropriation of property interests to a "public use," and is not,
therefore, within the principle of the exercise by the State of the right of eminent
domain. It is fact a mere restriction or limitation upon a private use, which the
legislature deemed to be determental to the public welfare. And we think that an
examination of the general provisions of the statute in relation to the public interest
which it seeks to safeguard and the public necessities for which it provides, leaves
no room for doubt that the limitations and restraints imposed upon the exercise of
rights of ownership by the particular provisions of the statute under consideration
were imposed not for private purposes but, strictly, in the promotion of the "general
welfare" and "the public interest" in the exercise of the sovereign police power
which every State possesses for the general public welfare and which "reaches to
every species of property within the commonwealth."
For several years prior to the enactment of the statute a virulent contagious or
infectious disease had threatened the total extinction of carabaos in these Islands,
in many sections sweeping away seventy, eighty, and in some cases as much as
ninety and even one hundred per cent of these animals. Agriculture being the
principal occupation of the people, and the carabao being the work animal almost
exclusively in use in the fields as well as for draft purposes, the ravages of the
disease with which they were infected struck an almost vital blow at the material
welfare of the country. large areas of productive land lay waste for years, and the
production of rice, the staple food of the inhabitants of the Islands, fell off to such
an extent that the impoverished people were compelled to spend many millions of
pesos in its importation, notwithstanding the fact that with sufficient work animals
to cultivate the fields the arable rice lands of the country could easily be made to
produce a supply more that sufficient for its own needs. The drain upon the
resources of the Islands was such that famine soon began to make itself felt, hope
sank in the breast of the people, and in many provinces the energies of the
breadwinners seemed to be paralyzed by the apparently hopeless struggle for
existence with which they were confronted.
To meet these conditions, large sums of money were expended by the Government
in relieving the immediate needs of the starving people, three millions of dollars
were voted by the Congress of the United States as a relief or famine fund, public
works were undertaken to furnish employment in the provinces where the need was
most pressing, and every effort made to alleviate the suffering incident to the
widespread failure of the crops throughout the Islands, due in large measure to the
lack of animals fit for agricultural work and draft purposes.
Such measures, however, could only temporarily relieve the situation, because in an
agricultural community material progress and permanent prosperity could hardly be
hoped for in the absence of the work animals upon which such a community must
necessarily rely for the cultivation of the fields and the transportation of the
products of the fields to market. Accordingly efforts were made by the Government
to increase the supply of these animals by importation, but, as appears from the
official reports on this subject, hope for the future depended largely on the
conservation of those animals which had been spared from the ravages of the
diseased, and their redistribution throughout the Islands where the need for them
was greatest.
At large expense, the services of experts were employed, with a view to the
discovery and applications of preventive and curative remedies, and it is hoped that
these measures have proved in some degree successful in protecting the present
inadequate supply of large cattle, and that the gradual increase and redistribution
of these animals throughout the Archipelago, in response to the operation of the
laws of supply and demand, will ultimately results in practically relieving those
sections which suffered most by the loss of their work animals.
As was to be expected under such conditions, the price of carabaos rapidly increase
from the three to five fold or more, and it may fairly be presumed that even if the
conservative measures now adopted prove entirely successful, the scant supply will
keep the price of these animals at a high figure until the natural increase shall have
more nearly equalized the supply to the demand.
Coincident with and probably intimately connected with this sudden rise in the price
of cattle, the crime of cattle stealing became extremely prevalent throughout the
Islands, necessitating the enactment of a special law penalizing with the severest
penalties the theft of carabaos and other personal property by roving bands; and it
must be assumed from the legislative authority found that the general welfare of
the Islands necessitated the enactment of special and somewhat burdensome
provisions for the branding and registration of large cattle, and supervision and
restriction of their slaughter for food. It will hardly be questioned that the provisions
of the statute touching the branding and registration of such cattle, and prohibiting
and penalizing the slaughter of diseased cattle for food were enacted in the due and
proper exercise of the police power of the State; and we are of opinion that, under
all the circumstances, the provision of the statute prohibiting and penalizing the
slaughter for human consumption of carabaos fit for work were in like manner
enacted in the due and proper exercise of that power, justified by the exigent
necessities of existing conditions, and the right of the State to protect itself against
the overwhelming disaster incident to the further reduction of the supply of animals
fit for agricultural work or draft purposes.
It is, we think, a fact of common knowledge in these Islands, and disclosed by the
official reports and records of the administrative and legislative departments of the
Government, that not merely the material welfare and future prosperity of this
agricultural community were threatened by the ravages of the disease which swept
away the work animals during the years prior to the enactment of the law under
consideration, but that the very life and existence of the inhabitants of these Islands
as a civilized people would be more or less imperiled by the continued destruction
of large cattle by disease or otherwise. Confronted by such conditions, there can be
no doubt of the right of the Legislature to adopt reasonable measures for the
preservation of work animals, even to the extent of prohibiting and penalizing what
would, under ordinary conditions, be a perfectly legitimate and proper exercise of
rights of ownership and control of the private property of the citizen. The police
power rests upon necessity and the right of self-protection and if ever the invasion
of private property by police regulation can be justified, we think that the
reasonable restriction placed upon the use of carabaos by the provision of the law
under discussion must be held to be authorized as a reasonable and proper exercise
of that power.
As stated by Mr. Justice Brown in his opinion in the case of Lawton vs. Steele (152
U.S., 133, 136):
The extent and limits of what is known as the police power have been a
fruitful subject of discussion in the appellate courts of nearly every State in
the Union. It is universally conceded to include everything essential to the
public safely, health, and morals, and to justify the destruction or abatement,
by summary proceedings, of whatever may be regarded as a public nuisance.
Under this power it has been held that the State may order the destruction of
a house falling to decay or otherwise endangering the lives of passers-by; the
demolition of such as are in the path of a conflagration; the slaughter of
diseased cattle; the destruction of decayed or unwholesome food; the
prohibition of wooden buildings in cities; the regulation of railways and other
means of public conveyance, and of interments in burial grounds; the
restriction of objectionable trades to certain localities; the compulsary
vaccination of children; the confinement of the insane or those afficted with
contagious deceases; the restraint of vagrants, beggars, and habitual
drunkards; the suppression of obscene publications and houses of ill fame;
and the prohibition of gambling houses and places where intoxicating liquors
are sold. Beyond this, however, the State may interfere wherever the public
interests demand it, and in this particular a large discretion is necessarily
vested in the legislature to determine, not only what the interests of the
public require, but what measures are necessary for the protection of such
interests. (Barbier vs. Connolly, 113 U. S., 27; Kidd vs. Pearson, 128 U. S., 1.)
To justify the State in thus interposing its authority in behalf of the public, it
must appear, first, that the interests of the public generally, as distinguished
from those of a particular class, require such interference; and, second, that
the means are reasonably necessary for the accomplishment of the purpose,
and not unduly oppressive upon individuals. The legislature may not, under
the guise of protecting the public interests, arbitrarily interfere with private
business, or impose unusual and unnecessary restrictions upon lawful
occupations. In other words, its determination as to what is a proper exercise
of its police powers is not final or conclusive, but is subject to the supervision
of the court.
From what has been said, we think it is clear that the enactment of the provisions of
the statute under consideration was required by "the interests of the public
generally, as distinguished from those of a particular class;" and that the prohibition
of the slaughter of carabaos for human consumption, so long as these animals are
fit for agricultural work or draft purposes was a "reasonably necessary" limitation on
private ownership, to protect the community from the loss of the services of such
animals by their slaughter by improvident owners, tempted either by greed of
momentary gain, or by a desire to enjoy the luxury of animal food, even when by so
doing the productive power of the community may be measurably and dangerously
affected.
Chief Justice Redfield, in Thorpe vs. Rutland & Burlington R. R. Co. (27 Vt., 140), said
(p. 149) that by this "general police power of the State, persons and property are
subjected to all kinds of restraints and burdens, in order to secure the general
comfort, health, and prosperity of the State; of the perfect right in the legislature to
do which no question ever was, or, upon acknowledge and general principles, ever
can be made, so far as natural persons are concerned."
And Cooley in his "Constitutional Limitations" (6th ed., p. 738) says:
It would be quite impossible to enumerate all the instances in which the

police power is or may be exercised, because the various cases in which the
exercise by one individual of his rights may conflict with a similar exercise by
others, or may be detrimental to the public order or safety, are infinite in
number and in variety. And there are other cases where it becomes
necessary for the public authorities to interfere with the control by individuals
of their property, and even to destroy it, where the owners themselves have
fully observed all their duties to their fellows and to the State, but where,
nevertheless, some controlling public necessity demands the interference or
destruction. A strong instance of this description is where it becomes
necessary to take, use, or destroy the private property of individuals to
prevent the spreading of a fire, the ravages of a pestilence, the advance of a
hostile army, or any other great public calamity. Here the individual is in no
degree in fault, but his interest must yield to that "necessity" which "knows
no law." The establishment of limits within the denser portions of cities and
villages within which buildings constructed of inflammable materials shall not
be erected or repaired may also, in some cases, be equivalent to a
destruction of private property; but regulations for this purpose have been
sustained notwithstanding this result. Wharf lines may also be established for
the general good, even though they prevent the owners of water-fronts from
building out on soil which constitutes private property. And, whenever the
legislature deem it necessary to the protection of a harbor to forbid the
removal of stones, gravel, or sand from the beach, they may establish
regulations to that effect under penalties, and make them applicable to the
owners of the soil equally with other persons. Such regulations are only "a
just restraint of an injurious use of property, which the legislature have
authority" to impose.
So a particular use of property may sometimes be forbidden, where, by a

change of circumstances, and without the fault of the power, that which was
once lawful, proper, and unobjectionable has now become a public nuisance,
endangering the public health or the public safety. Milldams are sometimes
destroyed upon this grounds; and churchyards which prove, in the advance of
urban population, to be detrimental to the public health, or in danger of
becoming so, are liable to be closed against further use for cemetery
purposes.
These citations from some of the highest judicial and text-book authorities in the
United States clearly indicate the wide scope and extent which has there been
given to the doctrine us in our opinion that the provision of the statute in question
being a proper exercise of that power is not in violation of the terms of section 5 of
the Philippine Bill, which provide that "no law shall be enacted which shall deprive
any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law," a provision which
itself is adopted from the Constitution of the United States, and is found in
substance in the constitution of most if not all of the States of the Union.
The judgment of conviction and the sentence imposed by the trial court should be
affirmed with the costs of this instance against the appellant. So ordered.
Arellano, C.J., Torres, Johnson, Moreland and Elliott, JJ., concur.

G.R. No. 74457 March 20, 1987
RESTITUTO YNOT, petitioner,
vs.
INTERMEDIATE APPELLATE COURT, THE STATION COMMANDER,
INTEGRATED NATIONAL POLICE, BAROTAC NUEVO, ILOILO and THE
REGIONAL DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY, REGION IV, ILOILO
CITY, respondents.
Ramon A. Gonzales for petitioner.
CRUZ, J.:
The essence of due process is distilled in the immortal cry of Themistocles to

Alcibiades "Strike — but hear me first!" It is this cry that the petitioner in effect
repeats here as he challenges the constitutionality of Executive Order No. 626-A.
The said executive order reads in full as follows:
WHEREAS, the President has given orders prohibiting the

interprovincial movement of carabaos and the slaughtering of
carabaos not complying with the requirements of Executive Order No.
626 particularly with respect to age;
WHEREAS, it has been observed that despite such orders the violators
still manage to circumvent the prohibition against inter-provincial
movement of carabaos by transporting carabeef instead; and
WHEREAS, in order to achieve the purposes and objectives of

Executive Order No. 626 and the prohibition against interprovincial
movement of carabaos, it is necessary to strengthen the said
Executive Order and provide for the disposition of the carabaos and
carabeef subject of the violation;
NOW, THEREFORE, I, FERDINAND E. MARCOS, President of the

Philippines, by virtue of the powers vested in me by the Constitution,
do hereby promulgate the following:
SECTION 1. Executive Order No. 626 is hereby amended such that

henceforth, no carabao regardless of age, sex, physical condition or
purpose and no carabeef shall be transported from one province to
another. The carabao or carabeef transported in violation of this
Executive Order as amended shall be subject to confiscation and
forfeiture by the government, to be distributed to charitable
institutions and other similar institutions as the Chairman of the
National Meat Inspection Commission may ay see fit, in the case of
carabeef, and to deserving farmers through dispersal as the Director of
Animal Industry may see fit, in the case of carabaos.
SECTION 2. This Executive Order shall take effect immediately.
Done in the City of Manila, this 25th day of October, in the year of Our
Lord, nineteen hundred and eighty.
(SGD.) FERDINAND
E. MARCOS
President
Republic of the
Philippines
The petitioner had transported six carabaos in a pump boat from Masbate to Iloilo
on January 13, 1984, when they were confiscated by the police station commander
of Barotac Nuevo, Iloilo, for violation of the above measure. 1 The petitioner sued
for recovery, and the Regional Trial Court of Iloilo City issued a writ of replevin upon
his filing of a supersedeas bond of P12,000.00. After considering the merits of the
case, the court sustained the confiscation of the carabaos and, since they could no
longer be produced, ordered the confiscation of the bond. The court also declined to
rule on the constitutionality of the executive order, as raise by the petitioner, for
lack of authority and also for its presumed validity. 2
The petitioner appealed the decision to the Intermediate Appellate Court,* 3 which

upheld the trial court, ** and he has now come before us in this petition for review
on certiorari.
The thrust of his petition is that the executive order is unconstitutional insofar as it
authorizes outright confiscation of the carabao or carabeef being transported across
provincial boundaries. His claim is that the penalty is invalid because it is imposed
without according the owner a right to be heard before a competent and impartial
court as guaranteed by due process. He complains that the measure should not
have been presumed, and so sustained, as constitutional. There is also a challenge
to the improper exercise of the legislative power by the former President under
Amendment No. 6 of the 1973 Constitution. 4
While also involving the same executive order, the case of Pesigan v. Angeles 5 is
not applicable here. The question raised there was the necessity of the previous
publication of the measure in the Official Gazette before it could be considered
enforceable. We imposed the requirement then on the basis of due process of law.
In doing so, however, this Court did not, as contended by the Solicitor General,
impliedly affirm the constitutionality of Executive Order No. 626-A. That is an
entirely different matter.
This Court has declared that while lower courts should observe a becoming modesty
in examining constitutional questions, they are nonetheless not prevented from
resolving the same whenever warranted, subject only to review by the highest
tribunal. 6 We have jurisdiction under the Constitution to "review, revise, reverse,
modify or affirm on appeal or certiorari, as the law or rules of court may provide,"
final judgments and orders of lower courts in, among others, all cases involving the
constitutionality of certain measures. 7 This simply means that the resolution of
such cases may be made in the first instance by these lower courts.
And while it is true that laws are presumed to be constitutional, that presumption is
not by any means conclusive and in fact may be rebutted. Indeed, if there be a
clear showing of their invalidity, and of the need to declare them so, then "will be
the time to make the hammer fall, and heavily," 8 to recall Justice Laurel's trenchant
warning. Stated otherwise, courts should not follow the path of least resistance by
simply presuming the constitutionality of a law when it is questioned. On the
contrary, they should probe the issue more deeply, to relieve the abscess,
paraphrasing another distinguished jurist, 9 and so heal the wound or excise the
affliction.
Judicial power authorizes this; and when the exercise is demanded, there should be
no shirking of the task for fear of retaliation, or loss of favor, or popular censure, or
any other similar inhibition unworthy of the bench, especially this Court.
The challenged measure is denominated an executive order but it is really

presidential decree, promulgating a new rule instead of merely implementing an
existing law. It was issued by President Marcos not for the purpose of taking care
that the laws were faithfully executed but in the exercise of his legislative authority
under Amendment No. 6. It was provided thereunder that whenever in his judgment
there existed a grave emergency or a threat or imminence thereof or whenever the
legislature failed or was unable to act adequately on any matter that in his
judgment required immediate action, he could, in order to meet the exigency, issue
decrees, orders or letters of instruction that were to have the force and effect of
law. As there is no showing of any exigency to justify the exercise of that
extraordinary power then, the petitioner has reason, indeed, to question the validity
of the executive order. Nevertheless, since the determination of the grounds was
supposed to have been made by the President "in his judgment, " a phrase that will
lead to protracted discussion not really necessary at this time, we reserve resolution
of this matter until a more appropriate occasion. For the nonce, we confine
ourselves to the more fundamental question of due process.
It is part of the art of constitution-making that the provisions of the charter be cast
in precise and unmistakable language to avoid controversies that might arise on
their correct interpretation. That is the Ideal. In the case of the due process clause,
however, this rule was deliberately not followed and the wording was purposely
kept ambiguous. In fact, a proposal to delineate it more clearly was submitted in the
Constitutional Convention of 1934, but it was rejected by Delegate Jose P. Laurel,
Chairman of the Committee on the Bill of Rights, who forcefully argued against it.
He was sustained by the body. 10
The due process clause was kept intentionally vague so it would remain also
conveniently resilient. This was felt necessary because due process is not, like some
provisions of the fundamental law, an "iron rule" laying down an implacable and
immutable command for all seasons and all persons. Flexibility must be the best
virtue of the guaranty. The very elasticity of the due process clause was meant to
make it adapt easily to every situation, enlarging or constricting its protection as
the changing times and circumstances may require.
Aware of this, the courts have also hesitated to adopt their own specific description
of due process lest they confine themselves in a legal straitjacket that will deprive
them of the elbow room they may need to vary the meaning of the clause whenever
indicated. Instead, they have preferred to leave the import of the protection open-
ended, as it were, to be "gradually ascertained by the process of inclusion and
exclusion in the course of the decision of cases as they arise." 11 Thus, Justice Felix
Frankfurter of the U.S. Supreme Court, for example, would go no farther than to
define due process — and in so doing sums it all up — as nothing more and nothing
less than "the embodiment of the sporting Idea of fair play." 12
When the barons of England extracted from their sovereign liege the reluctant
promise that that Crown would thenceforth not proceed against the life liberty or
property of any of its subjects except by the lawful judgment of his peers or the law
of the land, they thereby won for themselves and their progeny that splendid
guaranty of fairness that is now the hallmark of the free society. The solemn vow
that King John made at Runnymede in 1215 has since then resounded through the
ages, as a ringing reminder to all rulers, benevolent or base, that every person,
when confronted by the stern visage of the law, is entitled to have his say in a fair
and open hearing of his cause.
The closed mind has no place in the open society. It is part of the sporting Idea of
fair play to hear "the other side" before an opinion is formed or a decision is made
by those who sit in judgment. Obviously, one side is only one-half of the question;
the other half must also be considered if an impartial verdict is to be reached based
on an informed appreciation of the issues in contention. It is indispensable that the
two sides complement each other, as unto the bow the arrow, in leading to the
correct ruling after examination of the problem not from one or the other
perspective only but in its totality. A judgment based on less that this full appraisal,
on the pretext that a hearing is unnecessary or useless, is tainted with the vice of
bias or intolerance or ignorance, or worst of all, in repressive regimes, the insolence
of power.
The minimum requirements of due process are notice and hearing 13 which,

generally speaking, may not be dispensed with because they are intended as a
safeguard against official arbitrariness. It is a gratifying commentary on our judicial
system that the jurisprudence of this country is rich with applications of this
guaranty as proof of our fealty to the rule of law and the ancient rudiments of fair
play. We have consistently declared that every person, faced by the awesome
power of the State, is entitled to "the law of the land," which Daniel Webster
described almost two hundred years ago in the famous Dartmouth College
Case, 14 as "the law which hears before it condemns, which proceeds upon inquiry
and renders judgment only after trial." It has to be so if the rights of every person
are to be secured beyond the reach of officials who, out of mistaken zeal or plain
arrogance, would degrade the due process clause into a worn and empty
catchword.
This is not to say that notice and hearing are imperative in every case for, to be
sure, there are a number of admitted exceptions. The conclusive presumption, for
example, bars the admission of contrary evidence as long as such presumption is
based on human experience or there is a rational connection between the fact
proved and the fact ultimately presumed therefrom. 15 There are instances when
the need for expeditions action will justify omission of these requisites, as in the
summary abatement of a nuisance per se, like a mad dog on the loose, which may
be killed on sight because of the immediate danger it poses to the safety and lives
of the people. Pornographic materials, contaminated meat and narcotic drugs are
inherently pernicious and may be summarily destroyed. The passport of a person
sought for a criminal offense may be cancelled without hearing, to compel his
return to the country he has fled. 16 Filthy restaurants may be summarily
padlocked in the interest of the public health and bawdy houses to protect the
public morals. 17 In such instances, previous judicial hearing may be omitted
without violation of due process in view of the nature of the property involved or the
urgency of the need to protect the general welfare from a clear and present danger.
The protection of the general welfare is the particular function of the police power
which both restraints and is restrained by due process. The police power is simply
defined as the power inherent in the State to regulate liberty and property for the
promotion of the general welfare. 18 By reason of its function, it extends to all the
great public needs and is described as the most pervasive, the least limitable and
the most demanding of the three inherent powers of the State, far outpacing
taxation and eminent domain. The individual, as a member of society, is hemmed in
by the police power, which affects him even before he is born and follows him still
after he is dead — from the womb to beyond the tomb — in practically everything
he does or owns. Its reach is virtually limitless. It is a ubiquitous and often
unwelcome intrusion. Even so, as long as the activity or the property has some
relevance to the public welfare, its regulation under the police power is not only
proper but necessary. And the justification is found in the venerable Latin
maxims, Salus populi est suprema lex and Sic utere tuo ut alienum non
laedas, which call for the subordination of individual interests to the benefit of the
greater number.
It is this power that is now invoked by the government to justify Executive Order No.
626-A, amending the basic rule in Executive Order No. 626, prohibiting the
slaughter of carabaos except under certain conditions. The original measure was
issued for the reason, as expressed in one of its Whereases, that "present
conditions demand that the carabaos and the buffaloes be conserved for the benefit
of the small farmers who rely on them for energy needs." We affirm at the outset
the need for such a measure. In the face of the worsening energy crisis and the
increased dependence of our farms on these traditional beasts of burden, the
government would have been remiss, indeed, if it had not taken steps to protect
and preserve them.
A similar prohibition was challenged in United States v. Toribio, 19 where a law

regulating the registration, branding and slaughter of large cattle was claimed to be
a deprivation of property without due process of law. The defendant had been
convicted thereunder for having slaughtered his own carabao without the required
permit, and he appealed to the Supreme Court. The conviction was affirmed. The
law was sustained as a valid police measure to prevent the indiscriminate killing of
carabaos, which were then badly needed by farmers. An epidemic had stricken
many of these animals and the reduction of their number had resulted in an acute
decline in agricultural output, which in turn had caused an incipient famine.
Furthermore, because of the scarcity of the animals and the consequent increase in
their price, cattle-rustling had spread alarmingly, necessitating more effective
measures for the registration and branding of these animals. The Court held that
the questioned statute was a valid exercise of the police power and declared in part
as follows:
To justify the State in thus interposing its authority in behalf of the

public, it must appear, first, that the interests of the public generally,
as distinguished from those of a particular class, require such
interference; and second, that the means are reasonably necessary for
the accomplishment of the purpose, and not unduly oppressive upon
individuals. ...
From what has been said, we think it is clear that the enactment of the
provisions of the statute under consideration was required by "the
interests of the public generally, as distinguished from those of a
particular class" and that the prohibition of the slaughter of carabaos
for human consumption, so long as these animals are fit for
agricultural work or draft purposes was a "reasonably necessary"
limitation on private ownership, to protect the community from the loss
of the services of such animals by their slaughter by improvident
owners, tempted either by greed of momentary gain, or by a desire to
enjoy the luxury of animal food, even when by so doing the productive
power of the community may be measurably and dangerously
affected.
In the light of the tests mentioned above, we hold with the Toribio Case that the
carabao, as the poor man's tractor, so to speak, has a direct relevance to the public
welfare and so is a lawful subject of Executive Order No. 626. The method chosen in
the basic measure is also reasonably necessary for the purpose sought to be
achieved and not unduly oppressive upon individuals, again following the above-
cited doctrine. There is no doubt that by banning the slaughter of these animals
except where they are at least seven years old if male and eleven years old if
female upon issuance of the necessary permit, the executive order will be
conserving those still fit for farm work or breeding and preventing their improvident
depletion.
But while conceding that the amendatory measure has the same lawful subject as
the original executive order, we cannot say with equal certainty that it complies
with the second requirement, viz., that there be a lawful method. We note that to
strengthen the original measure, Executive Order No. 626-A imposes an absolute
ban not on the slaughter of the carabaos but on their movement, providing that "no
carabao regardless of age, sex, physical condition or purpose (sic) and no carabeef
shall be transported from one province to another." The object of the prohibition
escapes us. The reasonable connection between the means employed and the
purpose sought to be achieved by the questioned measure is missing
We do not see how the prohibition of the inter-provincial transport of carabaos can
prevent their indiscriminate slaughter, considering that they can be killed
anywhere, with no less difficulty in one province than in another. Obviously,
retaining the carabaos in one province will not prevent their slaughter there, any
more than moving them to another province will make it easier to kill them there.
As for the carabeef, the prohibition is made to apply to it as otherwise, so says
executive order, it could be easily circumvented by simply killing the animal.
Perhaps so. However, if the movement of the live animals for the purpose of
preventing their slaughter cannot be prohibited, it should follow that there is no
reason either to prohibit their transfer as, not to be flippant dead meat.
Even if a reasonable relation between the means and the end were to be assumed,
we would still have to reckon with the sanction that the measure applies for
violation of the prohibition. The penalty is outright confiscation of the carabao or
carabeef being transported, to be meted out by the executive authorities, usually
the police only. In the Toribio Case, the statute was sustained because the penalty
prescribed was fine and imprisonment, to be imposed by the court after trial and
conviction of the accused. Under the challenged measure, significantly, no such trial
is prescribed, and the property being transported is immediately impounded by the
police and declared, by the measure itself, as forfeited to the government.
In the instant case, the carabaos were arbitrarily confiscated by the police station
commander, were returned to the petitioner only after he had filed a complaint for
recovery and given a supersedeas bond of P12,000.00, which was ordered
confiscated upon his failure to produce the carabaos when ordered by the trial
court. The executive order defined the prohibition, convicted the petitioner and
immediately imposed punishment, which was carried out forthright. The measure
struck at once and pounced upon the petitioner without giving him a chance to be
heard, thus denying him the centuries-old guaranty of elementary fair play.
It has already been remarked that there are occasions when notice and hearing
may be validly dispensed with notwithstanding the usual requirement for these
minimum guarantees of due process. It is also conceded that summary action may
be validly taken in administrative proceedings as procedural due process is not
necessarily judicial only. 20 In the exceptional cases accepted, however. there is a
justification for the omission of the right to a previous hearing, to wit,
the immediacy of the problem sought to be corrected and the urgency of the need
to correct it.
In the case before us, there was no such pressure of time or action calling for the
petitioner's peremptory treatment. The properties involved were not even
inimical per se as to require their instant destruction. There certainly was no reason
why the offense prohibited by the executive order should not have been proved first
in a court of justice, with the accused being accorded all the rights safeguarded to
him under the Constitution. Considering that, as we held in Pesigan v.
Angeles, 21 Executive Order No. 626-A is penal in nature, the violation thereof
should have been pronounced not by the police only but by a court of justice, which
alone would have had the authority to impose the prescribed penalty, and only after
trial and conviction of the accused.
We also mark, on top of all this, the questionable manner of the disposition of the
confiscated property as prescribed in the questioned executive order. It is there
authorized that the seized property shall "be distributed to charitable institutions
and other similar institutions as the Chairman of the National Meat Inspection
Commission may see fit, in the case of carabeef, and to deserving farmers through
dispersal as the Director of Animal Industry may see fit, in the case of carabaos."
(Emphasis supplied.) The phrase "may see fit" is an extremely generous and
dangerous condition, if condition it is. It is laden with perilous opportunities for
partiality and abuse, and even corruption. One searches in vain for the usual
standard and the reasonable guidelines, or better still, the limitations that the said
officers must observe when they make their distribution. There is none. Their
options are apparently boundless. Who shall be the fortunate beneficiaries of their
generosity and by what criteria shall they be chosen? Only the officers named can
supply the answer, they and they alone may choose the grantee as they see fit, and
in their own exclusive discretion. Definitely, there is here a "roving commission," a
wide and sweeping authority that is not "canalized within banks that keep it from
overflowing," in short, a clearly profligate and therefore invalid delegation of
legislative powers.
To sum up then, we find that the challenged measure is an invalid exercise of the
police power because the method employed to conserve the carabaos is not
reasonably necessary to the purpose of the law and, worse, is unduly oppressive.
Due process is violated because the owner of the property confiscated is denied the
right to be heard in his defense and is immediately condemned and punished. The
conferment on the administrative authorities of the power to adjudge the guilt of
the supposed offender is a clear encroachment on judicial functions and militates
against the doctrine of separation of powers. There is, finally, also an invalid
delegation of legislative powers to the officers mentioned therein who are granted
unlimited discretion in the distribution of the properties arbitrarily taken. For these
reasons, we hereby declare Executive Order No. 626-A unconstitutional.
We agree with the respondent court, however, that the police station commander
who confiscated the petitioner's carabaos is not liable in damages for enforcing the
executive order in accordance with its mandate. The law was at that time
presumptively valid, and it was his obligation, as a member of the police, to enforce
it. It would have been impertinent of him, being a mere subordinate of the
President, to declare the executive order unconstitutional and, on his own
responsibility alone, refuse to execute it. Even the trial court, in fact, and the Court
of Appeals itself did not feel they had the competence, for all their superior
authority, to question the order we now annul.
The Court notes that if the petitioner had not seen fit to assert and protect his rights
as he saw them, this case would never have reached us and the taking of his
property under the challenged measure would have become a fait accompli despite
its invalidity. We commend him for his spirit. Without the present challenge, the
matter would have ended in that pump boat in Masbate and another violation of the
Constitution, for all its obviousness, would have been perpetrated, allowed without
protest, and soon forgotten in the limbo of relinquished rights.
The strength of democracy lies not in the rights it guarantees but in the courage of
the people to invoke them whenever they are ignored or violated. Rights are but
weapons on the wall if, like expensive tapestry, all they do is embellish and impress.
Rights, as weapons, must be a promise of protection. They become truly
meaningful, and fulfill the role assigned to them in the free society, if they are kept
bright and sharp with use by those who are not afraid to assert them.
WHEREFORE, Executive Order No. 626-A is hereby declared unconstitutional. Except

as affirmed above, the decision of the Court of Appeals is reversed.
The supersedeas bond is cancelled and the amount thereof is ordered restored to
the petitioner. No costs.
SO ORDERED.
Teehankee, C.J., Yap, Fernan, Narvasa, Gutierrez, Jr., Paras, Gancayco, Padilla Bidin
Sarmiento and Cortes, JJ., concur.
Melencio-Herrera and Feliciano, JJ., are on leave.

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G.R. No.

106498 June 28, 1993

Francisco P. Duran for petitioner.

There is nothing in the records to show that the Senior Manager,

Although Dadubo made alterations on the dates in the Ledger Card

xxx xxx xxx

This act of admission needs no further elaboration to prove that

Further, it should be noted that the report was made only on

The opinion of an acting Internal Audit Officer, whose report was

The essence of due process is distilled in the immortal cry of Themistocles to

Appreciation of the evidence submitted by the parties was, to repeat, the

We find no justification to nullify or modify the questioned resolution. It would

Padilla, J., is on leave.

Petitioner Clarita J. Carbonel was an employee of the Bureau of Jail Management

In the course of the investigation, petitioner voluntarily made a statement 5 before

Hence, the formal charge against petitioner.

Hence, the instant petition based on the following grounds:

SERIOUS ERROR OF FACT AND LAW AMOUNTING TO GRAVE ABUSE OF DISCRETION

THE CONCLUSION AND FINDING OF THE COURT OF APPEALS IN ITS ASSAILED

The petition is without merit.

To accentuate the abject poverty of petitioner’s arguments, we discuss hereunder

While investigations conducted by an administrative body may at times be akin to a

Now, on petitioner’s liability and penalty.

It must be stressed that dishonesty is a serious offense, which reflects on the

In Civil Service Commission v. Dasco, 26 Bartolata v. Julaton,27 and Civil Service

We find no reason to deviate from these previous rulings.

ANTONIO EDUARDO B. NACHURA

ANTONIO T. CARPIO CONCHITA CARPIO MORALES

(on official leave)

LUCAS P. BERSAMIN ROBERTO A. ABAD

MARIANO C. DEL CASTILLO MARTIN S. VILLARAMA, JR.

JOSE PORTUGAL PEREZ JOSE CATRAL MENDOZA

MARIA LOURDES P. A. SERENO

ANG TIBAY, represented by TORIBIO TEODORO, manager and propietor,

The Solicitor-General in behalf of the respondent Court of Industrial Relations in the

3. Que un patrono o sociedad que ha celebrado un contrato colectivo de

2. That the supposed lack of leather materials claimed by Toribio Teodoro

4. That the National Worker's Brotherhood of ANG TIBAY is a company or

5. That in the exercise by the laborers of their rights to collective bargaining,

8. That the exhibits hereto attached are so inaccessible to the respondents

9. That the attached documents and exhibits are of such far-reaching

(7) The Court of Industrial Relations should, in all controversial questions,

In the right of the foregoing fundamental principles, it is sufficient to observe here

AIR MANILA, INC., petitioner,

There is no dispute as to the facts of this case.

(a) Route — MANILA-MACTAN-MANILA

(b) Route — MANILA-DAVAO-MANILA

(c) Route — MANILA-BACOLOD-MANILA

(d) Route — MACTAN-TACLOBAN-MACTAN

(e) Route — TACLOBAN-MACTAN-TACLOBAN

(f) Route — MACTAN-DAVAO-MACTAN

FOR THE FOREGOING CONSIDERATIONS, the petition in this case is hereby

Concepcion, C.J., Dizon, Makalintal, Zaldivar, Castro, Fernando, Teehankee, Barredo,

Makasiar, JJ., concur.

DIOSDADO GUZMAN, ULYSSES URBIZTONDO, and ARIEL

Efren H. Mercado and Haydee Yorac for petitioners.

Samson S. Alcantara for respondents.

Petitioners Diosdado Guzman, Ulysses Urbiztondo and Ariel Ramacula, students of

1) that respondent University's avowed reason for its refusal to re-

2) that this "attitude of the (University) is simply a continuation of its

3) that "in effect petitioners are subjected to the extreme penalty of

4) that as regards petitioner Ramacula, like Guzman "he continued to lead or