513. Garcia vs.

Board of Investments (BOI)

191 SCRA 288
November 1990
Justiciable Controversy

FACTS:

Former Bataan Petrochemical Corporation (BPC), now Luzon Petrochemical Corporation, formed by a group of
Taiwanese investors, was granted by the BOI its have its plant site for the products “naphta cracker” and
“naphta” to based in Bataan. In February 1989, one year after the BPC began its production in Bataan, the
corporation applied to the BOI to have its plant site transferred from Bataan to Batangas. Despite vigorous
opposition from petitioner Cong. Enrique Garcia and others, the BOI granted private respondent BPC’s
application, stating that the investors have the final choice as to where to have their plant site because they
are the ones who risk capital for the project.

ISSUE:

Whether or not the BOI committed a grave abuse of discretion in yielding to the application of the investors
without considering the national interest

COURT RULING:

The Supreme Court found the BOI to have committed grave abuse of discretion in this case, and ordered the
original application of the BPC to have its plant site in Bataan and the product naphta as feedstock
maintained.

The ponente, Justice Gutierrez, Jr., first stated the Court’s judicial power to settle actual controversies as
provided for by Section 1 of Article VIII in our 1987 Constitution before he wrote the reasons as to how the
Court arrived to its conclusion. He mentioned that nothing is shown to justify the BOI’s action in letting the
investors decide on an issue which, if handled by our own government, could have been very beneficial to the
State, as he remembered the word of a great Filipino leader, to wit: “.. he would not mind having a
government run like hell by Filipinos than one subservient to foreign dictation”.