FACTS:Respondents Florita A. Masing, former Principal of the Davao City Integrated Special School, and JocelynA. Tayactac, an office clerk in the same school, were administratively charged before the Office of theOmbudsman for allegedly collecting unauthorized fees, failing to remit authorized fees, and to accountfor public funds.Respondents filed a motion to dismiss on the ground that the Ombudsman has no jurisdiction overthem. Respondents alleged that the DECS has jurisdiction over them which shall exercise the samethrough a committee to be constituted under Section 9 of Republic Act (R.A.) No. 4670, otherwise known as the The Magna Carta for Public School Teachers. The motion was denied. Ombudsman rendered a joint decision finding respondents Masing andTayactac guilty. Masing was dismissed from service while Tayactac was suspended for 6 months.On appeal, CA reversed.Meanwhile, Masing faced yet another administrative case before the Ombudsman for charges of oppression, serious misconduct, discourtesy in the conduct of official duties, and physical or mentalincapacity or disability due to immoral or vicious habits.Ombudsman found Masing guilty as charged and ordered her suspension for six (6) months without pay.On appeal, CA also reversed.Ombudsman, which was not impleaded as respondent in the cases, filed an Omnibus Motion toIntervene and for Reconsideration. CA denied the on the grounds that (1) intervention is not properbecause it is sought by the quasi-judicial body whose judgment is on appeal, and (2) intervention, even if permissible, is belated under Section 2, Rule 19 of the Rules of Court.Hence, appeal before SC. The 2 cases were consolidated. ISSUE: 1. WON Ombudsman may intervene and seek reconsideration? 2. WON Ombudsman may directly discipline public school teachers and employees?
HELD: 1. YES.In Civil Service Commission v. Dacoycoy, we recognized the standing of the Civil Service Commission(CSC) to appeal a decision of the Court of Appeals which reversed its decision finding Dacoycoy guilty.Although the CSC was the quasi-judicial body which rendered the decision appealed to the CA, it became the party aggrieved or adversely affected by its decision which seriously prejudices the civil service system. However, rather than remand the cases at bar to the CA for a ruling on the merits of the Ombudsmans motions for reconsideration, we shall resolve the legal issues involved in the interest of speedy justice. 2. YES. The authority of the Ombudsman to act on complaints filed against public officers and employees is explicit in Article XI, Section 12 of the 1987 Constitution. Article XI, Section 13 of the same Constitution delineates the powers, functions and duties of the Ombudsman. The enumeration of these powers is non-exclusive.
Congress enacted R.A. No. 6770, otherwise known as The Ombudsman Act of 1989, giving the Office such other powers that it may need to efficiently perform the task given by the Constitution. In fine, the manifest intent of the lawmakers was to bestow on the Office of the Ombudsman full administrative disciplinary authority in accord with the constitutional deliberations.
The authority of the Office of the Ombudsman to conduct administrative investigations is beyond cavil. As the principal and primary complaints and action center against erring public officers and employees, it is mandated by no less than Section 13(1), Article XI of the Constitution. In conjunction therewith, Section 19 of R.A. No. 6770 grants to the Ombudsman the authority to act on all administrative complaints.
It is erroneous, therefore, for respondents to contend that R.A. No. 4670 confers an exclusive disciplinary authority on the DECS over public school teachers and prescribes an exclusive procedure in administrative investigations involving them. R.A. No. 4670 was approved on June 18, 1966. On the other hand, the 1987 Constitution was ratified by the people in a plebiscite in 1987 while R.A. No. 6770 was enacted on November 17, 1989. It is basic that the 1987 Constitution should not be restricted in its meaning by a law of earlier enactment. The 1987 Constitution and R.A. No. 6770 were quite explicit in conferring authority on the Ombudsman to act on complaints against all public officials and employees, with the exception of officials who may be removed only by impeachment or over members of Congress and the Judiciary.
16. MACALINTAL VS COMELEC FACTS: Petitioner Macalintal files a petition for certiorari and prohibition, seeking a declaration that certain provisions of R.A. No. 9189 (The Overseas Absentee Voting Act of 2003) are unconstitutional. The Court upholds petitioners right to file the instant petition, stating in essence that the petitioner has seriously and convincingly presented an issue of transcendental significance to the Filipino people, considering that public funds are to be used and appropriated for the implementation of said law. Petitioner raises three principal questions for contention: (1) That Section 5(d) of R.A. No. 9189 allowing the registration of voters who are immigrants or permanent residents in other countries, by their mere act of executing an affidavit expressing their intention to return to the Philippines, violates the residency requirement in Art. V, Sec. 1 of the Constitution; (2) That Section 18.5 of the same law empowering the COMELEC to proclaim the winning candidates for national offices and party list representatives, including the President and the Vice- President, violates the constitutional mandate under Art. VII, Sec. 4 of the Constitution that the winning candidates for President and Vice-President shall be proclaimed as winners only by Congress; and (3) That Section 25 of the same law, allowing Congress (through the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee created in the same section) to exercise the power to review, revise, amend, and approve the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) that the COMELEC shall promulgate, violates the independence of the COMELEC under Art. IX-A, Sec. 1 of the Constitution.
ISSUE: Whether or not Congress may, through the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee created in Section 25 of Rep. Act No. 9189, exercise the power to review, revise, amend, and approve the Implementing Rules and Regulations that the Commission on Elections, promulgate without violating the independence of the COMELEC under Section 1, Article IX-A of the Constitution. HELD: No. By vesting itself with the powers to approve, review, amend and revise the Implementing Rules & Regulations for RA No. 9189, Congress went beyond the scope of its constitutional authority. Congress trampled upon the constitutional mandate of independence of the COMELEC. Under such a situation, the Court is left with no option but to withdraw from its usual silence in declaring a provision of law unconstitutional. CJ punos opinion: I now come to section 17.1 of Rep. Act No. 9189 which provides: Sec. 17. Voting by mail.- 17.1. For the May, 2004 elections, the Commission shall authorize voting by mail in not more than three (3) countries, subject to the approval of the Congressional Oversight Committee. Voting by mail may be allowed in countries that satisfy the following conditions: (d) Where the mailing system is fairly well-developed and secure to prevent occasion of fraud; (e) Where there exists a technically established identification system that would preclude multiple or proxy voting; and (f) Where the system of reception and custody of mailed ballots in the embassies, consulates and other foreign service establishments concerned are adequate and well-secured. Thereafter, voting by mail in any country shall be allowed only upon review and approval of the Joint Oversight Committee. (emphases supplied) From the law itself, it is clear that Congress has already set the necessary standards to guide the COMELEC in identifying the countries where voting by mail may be allowed, viz: (1) the countries must have a mailing system which is fairly developed and secure to prevent occasion of fraud; (2) there exists a technically established identification that would preclude multiple or proxy voting; and (3) where the system of reception and custody of mailed ballots in the embassies, consulates and other foreign service establishments concerned are adequate and well-secured. Since the legislative standards have been defined, all that remains is their enforcement. Our Constitution has specifically given the COMELEC the power to enforce and administer all laws and regulations relative to the conduct of an election. The power is exclusive and it ought to be self-evident that it cannot be subject to review and revision or veto by Congress in the exercise of its oversight power. Again, the reason for the exclusivity is to insulate COMELEC from the virus of partisan politics. In the exercise of this exclusive power, the Commission must be accorded considerable latitude. Unless the means and methods adopted by COMELEC are clearly illegal or constitute grave abuse of discretion, they should not be interfered with.[238] Thus: There are no ready-made formulas for solving public problems. Time and experience are necessary to evolve patterns that will serve the ends of good government. In the matter of the administration of the laws relative to the conduct of elections, as well as in the appointment of election inspectors, we must not by any excessive zeal take away from the Commission on Elections the initiative which by constitutional and legal mandates properly belongs to it. Due regard to the independent character of the Commission, as ordained in the Constitution, requires that the power of this court to review the acts of that body should, as a general proposition, be used sparingly, but firmly in appropriate cases. We are not satisfied that the present suit is one of such cases. 17. COMPANIA GENERAL DE TABACOS DE FILIPINAS VS BOARD OF PUBLIC UTILITY COMMISSIONERS FACTS; COMPANIA GENERAL DE TABACOS DEFILIPINAS is a foreign corporation organized under the laws of Spain and engaged in business in the Philippine Islands as a common carrier of passengers and merchandise by water: On June 7, 1915, the Board of Public Utility Commissioners issued and caused to be served an order to show cause why they should not be required to present detailed annual reports respecting its finances and operations respecting the vessels owned and operated by it, in the form and containing the matters indicated by the model attached to the petition. They are ordered to present annually on or before March first of each year detailed report of finances and operations of such vessels as are operated by it as a common carrier within the Philippine Islands, in the form and containing the matters indicated in the model of annual report which accompanied the order to show cause herein. COMPANIA GENERAL DE TABACOS DEFILIPINAS denied the authority of the board to require the report asked for on the ground that the provision of Act No.2307 relied on by said board as authority for such requirement was, if construed as conferring such power, invalid as constituting an unlawful attempt on the part of the Legislature to delegate legislative power to the board. It is cumbersome and unnecessarily prolix and that the preparation of the same would entail an immense amount of clerical work ISSUE: w/n it is constitutional to require the petitioner to pass a detailed report to the Board of Public Utility Commissioners of the Philippine Islands. Whether the power to require the detailed report is strictly legislative, or administrative, or merely relates to the execution of the law. HELD: The section of Act No. 2307 under which the Board of Public Utility Commissioners relies for its authority, so far as pertinent to the case at hand, reads as follows: Sec. 16. The Board shall have power, after hearing, upon notice, by order in writing, to require every public utility as herein defined: (e) To furnish annually a detailed report of finances and operations, in such form and containing such matters as the Board may from time to time by order prescribe. The statute which authorizes a Board of Public Utility Commissioners to require detailed reports from public utilities, leaving the nature of the report, the contents thereof, the general lines which it shall follow, the principle upon which it shall proceed, indeed, all other matters whatsoever, to the exclusive discretion of the board, is not expressing its own will or the will of the State with respect to the public utilities to which it refers. Such a provision does not declare, or set out, or indicate what information the State requires, what is valuable to it, what it needs in order to impose correct and just taxation, supervision or control, or the facts which the State must have in order to deal justly and equitably with such public utilities and to require them to deal justly and equitably with the State. The Legislature seems simply to have authorized the Board of Public Utility Commissioners to require what information the board wants. It would seem that the Legislature, by the provision in question, delegated to the Board of Public Utility Commissioners all of its powers over a given subject-matter in a manner almost absolute, and without laying down a rule or even making a suggestion by which that power is to be directed, guided or applied. The true distinction is between the delegation of power to make the law, which necessarily involves a discretion as to what shall be, and conferring authority or discretion as to its execution, to be exercised under and in pursuance of the law. The first cannot be done; to the latter no valid objection can be made. The Supreme Court held that there was no delegation of legislative power, it said: The Congress may not delegate its purely legislative powers to a commission, but, having laid down the general rules of action under which a commission shall proceed, it may require of that commission the application of such rules to particular situations and the investigation of facts, with a view to making orders in a particular matter within the rules laid down by the Congress. In section 20 (of the Commerce Act), Congress has authorized the commission to require annual reports. The act itself prescribes in detail what those reports shall contain. In other words, Congress has laid down general rules for the guidance of the Commission, leaving to it merely the carrying out of details in the exercise of the power so conferred. This, we think, is not a delegation of legislative authority. In the case at bar the provision complained of does not law "down the general rules of action under which the commission shall proceed." nor does it itself prescribe in detail what those reports shall contain. Practically everything is left to the judgment and discretion of the Board of Public Utility Commissioners, which is unrestrained as to when it shall act, why it shall act, how it shall act, to what extent it shall act, or what it shall act upon.The Legislature, by the provision in question, has abdicated its powers and functions in favor of the Board of Public Utility Commissioners with respect to the matters therein referred to, and that such Act is in violation of the Act of Congress of July 1, 1902. The Legislature, by the provision referred to, has not asked for the information which the State wants but has authorized and board to obtain the nformation which the board wants.